Latest / Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines / EP 5: Why You Joke About Your Pain (And Why It’s Keeping You Stuck)

Transcript

EP 5: Why You Joke About Your Pain (And Why It’s Keeping You Stuck) · Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Learn the hard Way. My name is Kiri Gaines.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: We talk about purpose, we talk about pressure, we talk
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: about what it actually tastes. Become a full comprehensive man.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Why did I say? That?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Was so much aggression? Let me but let me tell out.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode to Learn the Hard Way.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I am Kre Gaines. I am your host. I'm a husband,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I'm a father, I am a DC resident, I'm a homeowner,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I am a man, I'm a black man. I am
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: a licensed therapist. And I am your very very very
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: gracious host. Thank you for being here. I just want
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: to take a second list. Back in my grandma church,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: back in the day, they used to do housekeeping real
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: quick with this old lady would get up and she
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: would just talk for way too long, way too slowly,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and just tell you what's going on with the church.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: So let's do a little housekeeping real quick. I want
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: to acknowledge something. If you're here, you may not be
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: black and you may not be a man, and that's okay.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: This space is about black men's experiences, specifically less specifically,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: it's about men's experiences having honest conversations that it's really
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. But anyway, man,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: if you don't look like me and you won't identify
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: with my story, you have a completely different upbringing, a
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: completely different experience, a different philosophy, a different world you
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: than I have. You are welcome to this space. We
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: welcome you. I can't give you no invitation to the cookout,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: and that's crazy, but I can give you an invitation
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: to learn the hard way. So welcome to the pod.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Make sure you rate us, make sure you drop a comment,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: make sure you do all of the things to let
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: us know that this was meaningful to you, because that
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: let us know that this is meaningful to you, because
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: that is meaningful to us. Ha. Words, words are killing
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: me today. But what's not killing me today is the
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: topic that we're talking about. Because humor is something that
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: we kind of we live for. If you ask somebody
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: who their favorite comedian is, they'll be able to tell you.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: If you ask somebody who their funniest friend is, they'll
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: be able to tell you. Humor and laughter is medicine
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: until it's not. And oftentimes as black men. Oftentimes it's men.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Oftentimes it's humans roaming around on this blue plant. They're
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out what's what. If we use humor
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: twofold one, we use it as a means of communication.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: It helps you get the truth across a lot easily,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: a lot more easily. Humor allows you to fit in
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: the situations where you may not normally. But humor can
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: also be a tool that doesn't help us. You feel me.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Humor can be a way of us lifting the heaviness
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: off of something. Yeah, for sure, one hundred percent all that.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: But humor can also be this brilliant avoidance tool. It
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: could be this tool that we use for our own
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: safety and our own coping, and we don't always know
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: that we're doing it. We don't know when we're using
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: humor in a way that's not helping us anymore. So
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: today I want to talk about that because being a
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: man is heavy. The world may try to gaslight you
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: and make you believe that being a man is easy.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: As someone who treats been in therapy, as a person
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: who's been in a man's body and in a man's
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: experience for forty years, it is not. It's heavy and
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: sometimes humor alleviates that heaviness, but when it doesn't, it
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: ain't working for us. And don't want to dive into that.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: So let's go in real quick. Vulnerable moment, guys. This
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: is a vulnerable moment. You need you, guys to come in.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I'm about to say something that it's not easy for
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: me to say. It's sensitive, it's personal. I don't like
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: talking about it. But if I can't openly and honestly
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: tell the truth to myself in front of people, I
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: have no business telling you to do the same. So
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: come on, man, I got to listen up. I got
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: a story to tell. Chick it out. You know. When
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I was in my twenties, man, good times, good times.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I was the healthiest I was ever I've ever been.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I could eat what I want, I sleep all day,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: and I had a head full of rich, luscious, curly hair.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: And when I shaved it all off because I used
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: to have corn, rolls went down my back. When I
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: finally shaved it off, I had these waves. Man, My
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: waves was on swim. It was crazy. I had this
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: ex girlfriend. She used to call them corvatas, said that
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: boy had them corviadas. I had, Man, the waves just
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: looked like I look like I was born with a
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: do rag on. It looked like I did nothing but
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: brush my hair all day. Just it was a good time, man.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: And then time went on and I met this young
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: lady and we decided to have kids. I decided to
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: have a professional career, and life started accumulating, and I
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: got older, and that ocean turned into a pond. You
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. The waves started to flatten, and
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the hair started to thin a little bit at first,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: and then more and more. And what they don't tell you,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: what people won't tell you so well, when your hair
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: is thinning, it can become an obsession. You be in
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the mirror looking like this, trying to hit the angle,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: trying to make sure you ain't tripping, like is is
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: just a shadow on my Is this a ball spot?
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: And your questioning something that is because you don't want
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: to accept what it is. And yeah, it was a
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: ball spot. And my hair has been progressively thinning for
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: the last fifteen years. Now I get treating, I go
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: to the dermatologists and all that, but let's not get
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: it twisted. I am losing this battle and eventually my
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: hair will be gone, and I'm in my bag about it.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I can only talk about it right now because I
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: spent the last maybe two or three years coping with
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: it and accepting the fact that something is happening to
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: me that one I have no control over, and two
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: I don't want this to happen to me. And look,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: you go out society, and a lot of men will
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: be like, man, you know, the nonsalant bros will be like, man, hey,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: just shave it off. Man, there's nothing to worry about, it,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: says you. I'm too vain for that. I'm too vain
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: for that. I really enjoy the way that I look in.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: One of my biggest fears is looking in the mirror
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: and seeing something that I'm dissatisfied with. And a lot
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: of dudes got the perfect jug shaped head for a baldy.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I do not. My head has shaped like a thumb.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: My head has shaped like a butter knife handle. You
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: see how I'm kind of using humor right now to
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: kind of cold this thing up, to kind of get
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: ready to tell an uncomfortable truth. That's the uncomfortable truth
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: of it all. And the way I introduced it wasn't
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: by just you know, I see the ball spot in
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: my damn head. I'm pretty sure other people see it
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: more than I do. But when I was introducing it
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: out into the world, like I was accepting it for myself.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: When I was out talking to people, it was like jokes.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, man a, you know, I might
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: just go crazy and shave it all off one day,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of looking at seeing what people's reactions
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: are going to be like, and my chap man, like,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: where am I with this? Because it only lives in
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: my head. I haven't haven't tested it out in the world.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Or I say something like, hey, bro, if I go
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: to Turkey and come back with my waves back on swim,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: don't ask no questions mine. You've been this big dog,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: you know, just kind of seeing putting feelers out there.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Using that humor is a cushion between the thing that
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I'm willing to accept in a moment and the reality
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: of what's happening. A metaphor that I like to use
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: that brings this home is an airplane. Sometimes, if an
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: airplane is landing and the wheels don't come out, the
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: landing gig gets stuck. They'll take the runway and they'll
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: code it with a phone. And what the phone does
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: is it allows the plane to fall because they don't
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: have any wheels. It's falling on the body. When the
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: airplane falls, it falls on that phone that they put
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: on the runway, and it kind of lubricates. No pause,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: bro we grown man, let's be a dose here. It
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: lubricates the runway and allows a plane to safely hit
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: the ground, safely land without exploding into a fireball and
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: killing everybody inside. And to me, that's parallel to how
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: humor is used. I use the joke to coat the runway,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: to soften the fall, to make sure that this little
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: tender spart in my heart, this little this thing that
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I'm struggling with, doesn't explode and make me feel worse
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: than I already do. And then I started to think, damn,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: if I'm using humor to cope with losing my hair,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I wonder how I'm also using humor to cope with
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: other uncomfortable parts of my life. Ain't that sound it
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: just let's let's get a reflective moment and real quick,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: I want you to just take a moment. Let me
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: jump in out therapist bad for a second. Please, I
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: want you to take a moment, and I want you
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: to think about a time or the last time rather
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: you use humor as a way to cope with something difficult.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Whether or not it made you feel better, it doesn't matter.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I don't need you to judge it. I don't need
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: you to evaluate it. I just want you to think
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: about it in a second. How did you use humor
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: to cope with something? We do it more often than not, man,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: So today I really want to highlight the ways that
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: it works for us, but more importantly, the ways that
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: it doesn't, and more importantly, more importantly, what to do
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: when we realize it isn't working for us, Because there's
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: no point of pointing out a problem. You don't give
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: people solutions, all right, So we established the intention of
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: the joke is to shell out reality slowly, just enough
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: for you to accept it, and you can kind of
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: like dip your toe in the ice bath. You know, everybody,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: don't just jump in the ice bath. You got to
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: inch by inch that joint till you get comfortable with
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: the climate of the pool. And that's kind of like
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: how your reality is when you're using humor. When I
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: use humor, I can say it out loud, and I
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: can monitor how people react. I can evaluate it. I
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: can see what's going on. So the first thing I
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: think about, what I'm thinking about what to do about it,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: is what would this thing sound like without humor? If
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: I just said the thing without trying to use humor
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: as a cushion or a buffer, what would it sound like?
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: And I ain't gonna hold you. I don't love the
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: way it sounds, but this is what it sounds like.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: It'll be like, you know, man, I'm really self conscious
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: about losing my hair. I'm really self cald. I'm having
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: a self conscious moment about that dog, or it would
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: look like I'm sad about losing my hair. You flat
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: out just say that to a group of your friends,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: and the results may vary. You may get a dog.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: You know, I understand. I sympathize with that. You know
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: that has to be tough for you. You might get that.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: You might also get you know, it's gonna be all right.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Keep your head up, man, even if it ain't got
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: no hair on it. You know the slide joke that
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: made me, You're gonna attend the spot like em They
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: ain't ready to accept that it wasn't ready for that
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: rib shot. It might be one of those, or you
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: could get a toughen up ubi right, ball ninja, ball ninja,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: ball ninja, ball ninja. Why ain't out no hair? Ball ninja?
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: We had ball ninja. They could just completely go in
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and you can either laugh that off while it hurts,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: or you could just be in your bag and secretly
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: hold resentment against them people. Either way, you don't know
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: what you're going to get back when you tell the
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: truth that way. But there is something about delivering truth,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: the power and power the truth, singing the thing, even
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: if you can't say it to people, saying it out loud,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: to yourself, giving yourself permission to understand the emotional reality
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: of what's happening. Because the joke doesn't speak to the reality.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: It talks around it, It kind of touches on it
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: a little bit, but it doesn't speak to the reality
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: of what's happening. And sometimes you have to admit to
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: yourself out loud that you were sad. You have to
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: admit to yourself out loud that you feel powerless. You
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: have to admit to yourself out loud that you feel
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: like things are completely out of your hands and you
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: don't like it, and you don't know what to do
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: about it. You feel lost and confused. You see, I'm
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: using all this emotional language. It's different when you think
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: it versus when you say it. When you're thinking, it
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: just lives in your skull, it's abstract, it's not even
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: a thing. But when you say it out loud, it
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: goes from your brain to your mouth, then back to
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: your ears, and when your ears can hear your mouth
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: say something, your brain processes it a completely different way.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: You know, men don't always respond with vulnerability and underhanded
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: support to hold you up that time. And as much
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: as we would love that to be the reality, it's not.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: You don't live in the world you wish was there.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: You live in the world that actually is. So if
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: you delivering this to the homies or you're saying this
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: out loud, I want you to practice my saying it
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: to yourself first, because when you can accept your reality,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: it feels a lot different when it comes back at
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: you in a way that doesn't feel good from the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: outside world. It's like, you know, that don't feel good
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: to hear, But that's not something I'm hiring from myself anymore.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: You feel me like I. I can hold that reality.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: I can accept it even if I don't like it,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: because I've been practicing. I've been practicing taking that in.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I've been practicing sitting with that, just me, by myself,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: my own words, my own thoughts. Get that practice in, man,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: You know, it's not always just about losing hair. Sometimes
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: about things we're deeply self conscious about. Sometimes it's about
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: we wish we were more articulate. We wish we were
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: able to get our words off a certain way, or
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: it could be other parts of our physical appearance. I
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: wish I was taller, you know, man, I wish I
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: could hoop, which sounds crazy, but men bond over basketball
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: all the time, and when you can't hoop, you get exposed.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: There are things that are even more internal, you know.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I wish that I got more attention from women. I
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: wish that I was able to make more money. I
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: wish I felt comfortable and confident inviting people over my
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: house because it looked the way that I wanted to look.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Some things you can change, some things you cannot. But
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: even still, the exercise I talked about, when you say
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: these things to yourself out loud, is good practice. Man,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: good practice just allowing you to sit with it. You
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: hold it in your hands, and you allow it to
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: be the truth of your situation without making yourself feel bad,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: without making yourself feel dirty, without making yourself feel guilty
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: about it. And that's an important component of growth. That's
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: how you grow, not just by saying I want to
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: be the thing, but by practice being the thing. Practice
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: putting it on, put on the shirt, put it on
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: the past of that reality. See how it feels, if
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: it's uncomfortable, sitting it for a little bit. I don't
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: know if y'all wear Jordan's Man Jordan fourds are the
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: least comfortable shoes of all time. But when them things
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: finally get used to your foot, man, they look good,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: don't they look sweet and outfit? Don't they set that
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: sweatsuit off right? Pikito may still hurt a little bit
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: of them joints after three hours, but the fact of
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: the matter is they form to your foot after a while.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: So that discomfort that you feel is temporary, but only
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: if you sit through it for long enough to get
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: used to the pain and to be able to process
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: it a different way. And if you can't get used
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: to the pain, do not torture yourself. Let me put
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: that disclaimer up there. If you're trying to do this
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: thing and you still can't accept it, I think that
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: is a really good indicator to go and see some
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: professional help. And kid, why am I going to see
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: some professional help if I'm losing my head? If I
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: feel self conscious about it? My answer to that is,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: why wouldn't you If you could process that thing in
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: a way that was healthy and hopeful, you would have
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: done it already. It's not that you can't because you're
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: not capable. It's you can't because it's just outside of
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: your bandwidth right now. And that's okay, that's okay. But
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: allowing that to be the reality and not getting helpful it,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: that's not okay. Bro, that's not all right. So yeah,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: that may be your sign to go and see somebody
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: about something. Laughter it goes another way too. Humor isn't
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: just self deprecating. Sometimes we laugh at things that distract
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: us from the truth, especially especially black men. It's you
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: see a harsh reality and you make a joke or
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: a meme about it because you know it feels Laughing
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: feels better than crying. But again, that's an avoidance tool.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we laugh at harmful, dangerous, and untrue stereotypes about
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: black men. We do it all the time. Think about
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: how black men are portrayed in popular culture and the media.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Just the tropes of stereotypes. The hyper sexualized man or
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: the hyper sexual man, or the athlete, or the clown,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: or the abandoner or the abuser. It's these labels that
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: are put on men a lot of times that man,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: when they don't reflect our experiences, we just laugh it
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: off instead of like courageously looking at that shit in
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: question and challenging it and examining the truth underneath. You know,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: they say it's some truth to every stereotype, and I
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: don't know if I believe that or not. The fact
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: of the matter is why you're laughing. You know, you're
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: laughing so hard and your eyes are so close you
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: don't see what's in front of you. Now, while we're
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: shifting the conversation to images of black men, I can't
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: help but to think about how I see my self
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: portraying to me, how I see my self portraying movies.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Can't tell you how many movies I saw where if
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: it's a dark skinned man in a lead role, You
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: better believe he's abusing this woman. You better believe he
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: is the antagonist. I don't know how many times my
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: man Clifton powered and played a role and I'd be like, okay,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: okay Clifton and I see the brom like damn got
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: us again and shout out to him. He's an actor.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: He's playing the roles that are given to him. But
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: who's giving him these roles? Who's always writing black men?
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: And in this way? And when you think about our
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: inspiration for a lot of life, even the way people
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: think heaven looks, Oh, Heaven's a place with clouds and
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: angels and harps, where would you get that from movies? TV? Media?
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Think about love and data? Expectations? Where do you think
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: we get that from movies? Media? TV? When we go
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: a place you go to Paris, France. I don't know
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: if you ever been to Paris, but when you get there,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: you're gonna hold up, this ain't what to This ain't
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: what I thought it would be. Well, where's your expectations
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: come from? My boy? Movies? TV? Media? These three things
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: drive the way we see life a lot more than
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: we give them credit for. So how does that work
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: when the stereotypes of men, most specifically, the stereotypes of
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: black men are painted in a certain way. And what
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: happens when you see examples out in the real world
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: that reinforce them those biases and you believe it to
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: be true, even when it may not be true for everybody.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: And what happens when those biases get reaffirmed, but you're
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the one that's absorbing them, you as a man, you
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: begin to believe those things. Do you remember when they
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: used to talk about how terrible black men were as fathers,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: and then that research came out and lo and behold,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: we find out that black men are quite active in
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: their children's lives. I'll even go to dating in love.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: When the stereotype was all black men don't marry black women.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: And while there is a lot of variance in that data,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: fact of the matter is black men vast majority marry
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: black women. That was not a true stereotype. Those are
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: just two things that we got research for. I wonder
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: how many other things we believe about ourselves because we
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: don't have the meta analysis, we ain't got the data,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: and we don't got the marginal propensity in all the
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: research words to verify these truths, so we just sit
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: and belie leaf of something that may not be out
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: live reality. What does that do to a man when
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: there's a script written for his reality that he did
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: not write, he did not cast himself in, but he's
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: the main actor for What does that do to his
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: sense of personal self esteem? What does that do to
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: his whimsy, his ability to look at himself as a
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: whole human and not just some overutilized machine of protection
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: and provision. Because that ain't living. I asked myself these questions.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: So let's break this stuff down real quick. My biggest
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: question is for you being on screen, the image of you,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: your phenotypes, your facial architecture, your race, your color, everything.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Who benefits from from you looking like a plumb fool?
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Who benefits from that? Who's participating in that? Because people
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: don't do it. Ain't no money in something. I'm telling you,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: people don't do it for very long. But this has
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: been a constant, rear current thing for a while. Who's
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: funding this, who's green light in this? I would love
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: to give you an oversimplified answer, but we don't do oversimplify.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Let's add some context and nuance, and let's put some
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: texture in this joint real quick. Have you ever been
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: to the State Fair? I take my kids every year,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: and there's always a funhouse. And in the funhouse it
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: has a whole bunch of mirrors everywhere, and it's hard
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: to figure out where you are in that joint because
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: you just see yourself a billion times. It's like a maize.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: But sometimes in the funhouse mirror, they'll have these specific
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: mirrors that change the way you look. And we say
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: that there are a lot of mirrors in society that
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: reflect back at us what we are true as facts.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: But there are also mirrors in society that reflect back
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: to us a very distorted, a very warp, and a
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: very inaccurate depiction of how we appear. And I see
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that in the media with men, most specifically black men,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: all the time. My question is always, do we know
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: how to reject those ideas, how to see that and
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: discard the part of it that's unhelpful, in order to
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: not have it chip away at our own self image.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Because if you see something for long enough, and if
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: people say it enough and enough people believe it, it
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: can become some people's truth. And the hardest thing in
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the world is to be the only one in the
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: room who has a truth that nobody else agrees with,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: because they'll convince you that you're crazy. You say, no,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: don't that don't feel like my experience as a black man.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: That doesn't feel like it's capturing or depicting me. And
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: people like, well, look at all these other examples, like yeah, no, no,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I know, but that's that doesn't feel true for me,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: and I need to see me out in the world,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, no, this is you, this very dangerous,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: very corrosive, very growth prohibitive version of a human.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: That's you.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: That's who you are, and it can make you feel
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: like you're not in your right mind when you're trying
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: to stand up for yourself, because that's supposed to be
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: a mirror, but that mirror is a funhouse mirror. So
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: you look a lot taller and skinnier than you actually are,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: or you look a lot shorter and wider than you
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: actually are. You get what I'm saying. When these opinions
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: of you are all over the place and they don't
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: feel like you, they're not how you see yourself. They're
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: not how you show up in the world. It's the
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: same as that distorted image that you see at the
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: county fair and what you do when you man, this
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: is real shit. Man, I'm just keeping a buck with y'all.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: What you do when you are surrounded by funhouse mirrors
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: is you have to one recognize that as a funhouse mirror.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: And that's not denying the truth to some of the stereotypes.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Because as black men, you always got to hold two
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: troops at once. That's just what we gotta do's this
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: is the baggage we gotta carry it. Dog. I hate it,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: but it is what it is. It is what it is,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: and the two truths you gotta hold at once is
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: on one hand, yeah, there are representatives of my group
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: that don't do the right thing.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: They not doing right by their families, by themselves, by
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: their communities. One it happens, Yeah it does. I don't
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: make excuses for it. I'm just pointing it out that
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: it happens. And on the other side, that is not everyone,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: and that is not me, And I don't always have
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: to speak for them every time I'm speaking for myself.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: You gotta hold those two truths at once, so that
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: fund house mirror image may exist for some people, but
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: for you, you gotta look at them like that, Ain't
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: that ain't me? That's short? Why version that? Ain't that
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: ain't how I look. That ain't what I see every
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: day when I look at the mirror in the bathroom.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: So I am going to go and purposely seek mirrors
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: that accurately reflect how I show up in the world.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: They're not lying to me, they not hyping me up.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: They're not trying to make me believe some shit that
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: ain't true. But they are giving back to me what
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I give out, and that reinform. This is in my
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: mind that I am who I say I am. I
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: am who I say I am, I do what I
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: say I'm doing. I'm not what you say I am.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: You don't get to define me. I define me. I
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: define my values, my sense of morality, and my principles
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I do. So you got to go and find the mirrors,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: whether it's community, not just other men. Sometimes man not
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: just other men. You need diverse community also women that
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: pour into you. Go. You got to diversify your friend groups,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: friend groups that speak to who you've always been, your
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: day ones, your saying boxes. Gotta be around them people.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: You gotta be intentional about making time for those people.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: What about your friends who reflect where you are now?
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Those might be your coworkers, your people who you've worked
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: with for a long time who see you on an
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: everyday basis. They get these tidbits, these touch points. They
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: know what's up with you, They know who you are.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: And then the third friend group was the people who
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: can speak to who you were becoming. These are your
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: new friends, folks you got common interest with, com in hobbies.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Y'all go out and chill. There may be people you
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: met in the last three years. You have to get
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: those reflections back at you to affirm the idea that
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: you are who you think you are. If the mirror
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: is not accurate, my question to you is, what the
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: fuck are you looking at? Some to think about? Just know, bruh.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Every time you laugh at a characterure, every time you
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: buy into it, every time you perpetuate the narrative on
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: your timeline and social circles in the group chat, you're
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: perpetuating it.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: You're keeping it going. You're fanning the flames. You're keeping
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: that fire burning. And this ain't to blame you. I'm
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: not blaming you because I laugh at plenty of shit.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't laugh at So I'm in there with you, dog.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: But at some point, cycles don't stop unless they are
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: violently interrupted. Violence doesn't mean hurting anybody. It just means swift, abrupt, fast,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: and hard unless they are interrupted. And at some point
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: you have to put your foot down and interrupt the circle.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Interrupt that sitele whether you know it or not, whether
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: you acknowledge it or not. And if you always here,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: you know I always say, your feelings don't need your
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: permission to exist. Your feelings don't care if you ignore them.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: They don't give a damn. They're still there. They're just
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: gonna come out in different ways that you cannot see
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and you cannot control. Don't underestimate that, in my way,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: don't underestimate that you are not exempt from being human.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: It can and will happen to you. So I guess
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: I say all of that to say, there is a
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: cognitive or a mental like the way your brain thinks,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: and emotional feelings the way you perceive. I don't know
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: another word for emotions, so that you're gonna say emotions again,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: there's a cognitive and emotional tax that you pay. Yeah,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I'd be looking at
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: the federal and state withholding. I used to it on
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: my paycheck and get sad. And if you think they
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: ain't a federal on state withholding on your emotional or
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: mental bandwidth, I beg to differ. So just just watch
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: how much of your mental and emotional budget it's getting
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: chipped out here seeing versions of yourself in the world
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: that don't feel like you, but people say they are
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: you moving along. I want to run a short clip
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: real quick of Dave Chappelle when he did something that
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: at the time, I think all of us were talking
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: about this. I ain't even gonna just play the clip.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: This one sketch we did that it was about the
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: this pixie that would appear whenever racist things happened. The
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: pixie was in black face because this was going to
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: be the visual personification of the end work. Somebody else
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: said there was why laughed in such a way. I
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: know the difference of people laughing with me and people
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: laughing at And it was the first time I'd ever
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: gotten a laugh that I was uncomfortable with.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: This man talked about a moment where I mean he
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: was at this of this season in his career, Chappelle's
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: show in two thousand and three and four is all
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: anybody talked about every day. It was revolutionary. Every sketch
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: before memes were popular. It's like every sketch was the
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: funniest meme you've ever seen in your life. The Rick James,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: the Prince Joint, the the oh Man. It's just so
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: much amazing comedy. That Wayne Brady, he was just doing
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: it and then he walked away from it. And at
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: that time, how much money was I making at that time?
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Damn?
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: What was the minimum wage in DC? I think I
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: was working at CBS making about nine dollars an hour.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: And this man walked away from fifty million, and we
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: could not understand why everybody called him crazy. Dave Man,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: he went crazy. He offered him fifty million. He went
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: to Africa. And this is a good example of what
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: happens when we use humor and we make jokes, but
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: we don't understand the context. We don't have the whole story.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: We just got what we see. Because when he came
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: back and he explained that after a while, it felt
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: like they weren't laughing with me. No folks was laughing
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: at me, and that did not feel emotional word that
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: did not feel good. So I decided I wash my
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: hands with it. And then once he gave the context
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: and he had the feelings conversation with us, not saying
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: he owed it to us at all, but we was like, oh,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: I would have did the same thing. Well, I don't
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: know about that part of me, but I understand. I
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: think Dave is a bigger man. And then look at
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: his career. Now, look at his career. Now, if you're
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: an audio you can't see, but I'm doing the shrug.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: My man. He been taking every decade they've taken off
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: a different way. He's submitting himself a legendary status because
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: he knew what was true for him. He followed his instinct.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: He did the brave thing in a hard moment. But
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: we laughed because we didn't know what was up. So,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: you know, just just keep that in mind when we're
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: using humor to laugh at a half story that we
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: feel like as whole. Let's just pause, even when you're
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: dealing with yourself and you're talking to yourself, just pause
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: and wait for more context to come through. My reoccurring mantras,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: I need to hear more of the story before I
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: make a decision. Glad he did what he did. I
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: want to move the conversation to burying. How we bury things,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: you know, like a dog buries toys or you know,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: squirrel barriers nuts. We be buried things underneath and sometimes
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: what we bury underneath our emotions, especially the ones that
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: as men, they tell us we can't feel, like sadness
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: or fear. O man, we bury them joints so quick
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: we don't even know it. We professional brave diggers with
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: them joints, so as it resisters on your brain the
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: signal I'm scared, don't bury it. I'm a burier underneath
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: a facade of apathy or a facade of man a,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: I'm scared, but I'm about to get this money. See,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: I'm about to get this money. Might to get paid,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: or we bury it underneath sex another episode. We could
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: talk about that at length. But we bury it underneath
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: these things that distract us from the pain that we
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: actually feel, because either we're not ready to deal with
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: it in a moment, or we don't think we'll ever
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: be ready to deal with it. And as long as
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: I distract myself, I don't have to face what's going
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: on with me and if that's hitting really hard for you,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: I don't want you to judge yourself or blame yourself.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Just identify that you feel the feeling and your feelings.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: That's all spoop. Just identify. Yeah, I see you right there, bro,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: I know that's fear right there. Just put your finger
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: on it, put your foot on the dollar. You ain't
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: gotta pick it up right now. But acknowledge that the
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: feeling is there. That Stid's how you grow. That's growth
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: right there. The fact of the matter is humor is camouflage.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: It hides a lot. Humor is an amazing coping mechanism.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: It's helped black people get very far in life, very
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: very far, help to overcome a lot of crazy shit.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: But it also covers up a truth that you probably
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: need to walk through in order to get to where
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: you need to go. That reminds me of a book
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: I read by Dee Watkins. It's called Black Boy Smile,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: and he says something. It's a really good book. He
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: says something in the book. He's from Baltimore. He said
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: something in the book. Man, I never knew I felt
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: until he said that joint. He said, when you're a
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: black boy, there's safety and invisibility. I was like, oh,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: say more, highly recommend that book to read. And what
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: he was talking about is sometimes the most safe thing
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: for a black man to do is not be seen.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: If I dug low enough, if I'm low key enough,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: nobody sees me as a threat. Nobody gonna try to
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: hurt me, nobody gonna try to take anything away from me.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: That's a reality for a lot of us. I still
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: I still feel like that now. Sometimes I'm like, hey,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: I'm just keep quiet and what we be saying it
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: was good. Bro was up home with what you on. Man,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: I'm staying out the way. How many tells you to
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: heard the dude tell you I'm staying out the way?
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Oh man, I'm just keeping it low. Their safety and
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: invisibility with black men, but it only helps you until
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: it doesn't, and when it doesn't, it really starts to
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: harm you. So let's talk about why that is. It
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: is one thing for other people not to see you,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: but it's another thing. You find safety in not seeing yourself,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: because when you don't see yourself, you don't really have
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: to deal with yourself. Jay Z had this quote one
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: time he was talking about dudes from his neighborhood and
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: how they get super aggressive and he's like, yeah, bro,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: what you looking at? What you over here looking at?
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: And jay Z was like, Oh, you're afraid that I
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: see you. I know what this is. You're scared that
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: I see you. And when he said I was like, Oh,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: that's smart, because that brother probably can't see himself. He
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: sees what he wants to be, he sees what he
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: should be, but he can't see what he actually is
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: because he can't accept that right now. The safety and invisibility,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: and that safety comes from the fact that the world
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: doesn't always welcome this version of you. I'm a I
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: always say I'm a BBM man. I'm a big black man.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: I'm a tall, dark skinned black man who walks into
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of wellness spaces and I don't I rarely
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: feel accepted. I don't feel accepted in a wellness spaces.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: I'd be having a sip for good Lord, I said
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: for our forty five minute seminar of how men are
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: just the worst thing to ever happen to wellness, And
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I try to accept what was being said, but you know,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: afterwards they try to shake my hand and exceptionalize me,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: like you know, Oh no, no, you're not one of
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: the bad ones. You're one of the good ones. And
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: while I have to accept that as their reality, do
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: you know what that feels like. It feels like when
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: you're in a room full of white people and you
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: say a for syllable word and they're like, oh, you're
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: so smart here, why wouldn't I be smart? And they're like, no, no,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: you're one of the good ones. It's the same feeling.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: You just replace race with gender and it's the same
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: exact thing. And that sometimes makes me feel safe and
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: invisibilities like hey, if I just stay low, I don't
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: have to be subject to that. I understand you are
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: allowed to have your reality, but it's punching me in
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: a face in a moment where I need to be
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: built up. I'm not asking you to be my mommy,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: but I just I need to be built up right now,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: not necessarily broken down, you know what I'm saying. So
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: I think my experience in the wellness space being a
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: BBM Big Black Man has really taught me a lot
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: about how the world may not be welcoming of whatever
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: version of you exists, but how to move around that
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: is still accepted in yourself still, find a way to
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: make yourself feel welcome or not hyper emphasize the people
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: who ain't rocking with you, find the people who are.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: You know, if you go through your comments and you
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: scrolling and you only answering the negative comments, you're doing
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: a disservice to everybody leaving you a positive one. So
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: I try to find those spaces and those creases that
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: do feel good and just lean into them, give them
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: my time and my wareness and my love. I'm not
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: rejecting the people who don't have great things to say
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: about it. That's okay. You allowed that, But I'm allowed this.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: I'm allowed to feel safe. I'm allowed to feel welcome
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: and wanted in love and helled. I'm allowed to feel warmth.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: I'm allowed to feel warmth. I can do that. I'm
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: a human. Why not. Just because people have illogical beliefs
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: in what manhood or masculinity is, that doesn't mean that
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: you have to subscribe to them. You don't have to
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: buy into it at all, man, especially if it doesn't
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: feel good to you. So I want to queue up
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: what's called the cool polls. And this is some, this
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: is really dope. It's some really dope research. And so
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: there's some research specifically on black men. It's by Majors
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: and Bilson and it's called a cool pos And basically
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: what it says it is is it's the performance of
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: emotional coolness that we develop as a shield. And the
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: joke is a part of the polls. It says, nothing
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: touches me. I'm unbothered, I'm built different, but something always
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: touches us, something always lands. We just don't have permission
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: to show that. I'm gonna get that little space to breathe. Man,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: because there are a lot of y'all out there who
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: heard that, and that's the first time those feelings have
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: been put in the words for you. And this is research,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: This is legitimate research. So allow me to dig into
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: a little bit more if I will. So the research
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: on the cool pos so it's really cool. It's specifically
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: talking about black men. It's about, like I said, performance
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: and emotional coolness and how we develop that as a shield.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Then the research said, as traditionally men are defined by
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: the ability to be a protector, provider, and breadwinner, which
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: makes all the sense given how history has been and
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: women's access to even opening a bank. Men kind of
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: just had to be that men had the power in society.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: We developed those roles, used to feel good, grab your
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: lunch pill, get on top of a skyscraper, rivet that
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: joint in for eight hours, go home, clock out, Fred
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Flintstone type shit. But the world different now like that.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: That's not going to work for us the same way
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: moving forward. So what are we going to do about now?
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: The cool polls it talks about how black men weren't
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: really given the economic means to fulfill those roles. So
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: that was the expectation of black men to be able
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: to protect, provide, and be a bread winner. But you know,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: it's hard to find a job, it's hard to keep
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: a job. It's because of society were talking about. Let's
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: let's take it to the thirties, forties, fifties, it's even
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: the sixties. You know, it's hard to get along. Gonna
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: give you a long black man, so you're gonna buy
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: a house. It's hard to protect your family when there
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: are people in cities and states, and particularly in the
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: rural South, that terrorize black folk. We all know what
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: happened in Oklahoma. That's not a myth. That happened in
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: my in my family's lifetime. You know, these weren't things
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: that happened hundreds of years ago. Your grandmama can tell
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: you that story firsthand, probably, And what happened is men
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: became angry and alienated when we became disconnected from the
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: ability to retain, obtain and maintain that level of economic success.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Well why is that? It's because the thing that they're
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: telling you that your identity hinges on you can't grab
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: it is out of your reach. So where does that
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: leave your identity when you need to have this thing
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: in order to be a man, But you can't get
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: this thing. And it's not because you're not good enough.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: It's not because you're not smart enough. It's not because
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: you're not brave enough. It's because you black What I'm
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: supposed to do with that? I mean, the answer is nothing.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: That's rhetorical. You keep trying and eventually we you know,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: we stand on the shoulders of our forefithers and four mothers,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: man a lot of people for us to even have
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: the right to vote. But I say all of that
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: to say, you can't hold these things in your hand
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: when the entire definition of your reality, your identity, who
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: you are, is supposed to be hinged on it, and
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: it leaves you with a sense of emptiness and the
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: sense of longing that's very hard to fulfill. Now, this
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: research tracks back to all the way back to Africa
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: and back to the Transatlantic slave trade, where black people
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: had to mask their emotions in order to survive. And man,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: I've been in circles with people trying to say, man,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: slavery was a long time ago. Those things don't affect
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: us anymore. Why do you think Black people talk a
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: different way than Americans who aren't black? Why do you
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: think we have a certain dialect? You could it be
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know, access to books and literature for hundreds
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: and hundreds of years. What do you think we're not hustlers?
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Why do you think there is a large portion of
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Black people who live at or below the poverty line.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's because we are inferior? Intelligently? I
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: know there are some popular podcasters that would like to
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: believe that I challenged them to come and debate me
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: on my podcast. Unlet's see how intellectually challenged I am.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: But it's because the access wasn't there. You weren't allowed
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: to read, you weren't allowed to write, you weren't allowed
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: to be educated, you weren't allowed to be a full man.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: And if you think that that doesn't trickle down to
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: where we are today, man, I gotta I got a
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: lot to talk to you about now. While black people,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: we've gone through all of this. And while the cool
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: protects you, bruh, it also distances you from your relationship
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: to your own feelings. And that's true true when you
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: are busy posturing. And don't take posturing personally, I'm not
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: calling you fate, but when you are posturing to present
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: a certain way to either protect yourself, protect your feelings,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: protect your family, protect your money on you know what
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: I'm saying, take your chickens for y'all that don't know
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: that's money. I'm talking money on chickens is money. Shout
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: out to Marshaan Lynch. When you're doing all of that,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: in order to keep that facade up, you have to
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: disconnect from the way that you actually feel. You have
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: to leave your body. And I don't know if y'all
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: watch the NBA, and I don't know if y'all watch
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: the NFL, but Steph Curry Bey in practice, just three
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: points three points three points oops, three points oops. Tom
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Brady used to be in the backfield. Three step hitch throat,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: three step hitch throat, three step hitch throat. I say
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: all of that to say, you become really good at
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: the things that you practice. And if you practice disconnected
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: from your emotions for long enough, when the time comes
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: to reconnect to him, you won't know how to do it.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: You won't know how to do it. How do you
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: find your way back home when you destroy the road map?
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: It's no way. I got this lamp in the back
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: of my office right now. If I were to cut
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: that cord, how am I going to expect that light
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: to still cut on? The connectivity to the power source
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: is gone, and your emotions are your power source. It's gone.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: And then you become a man who has kids and
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: a wife and a community who's responsible for and you
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: know what they're gonna say, that cool shit don't work
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: no more. That was your survival for the longest. It
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: kept you alive. Congratulations, bro, I'm so proud of you
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: for making it this far. However, we need something different
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: from me there, and you're like, all right, well what
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: you need different? I got money I can give you money.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: They're like, yeah, yeah, I we'll take that, but that's
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: not enough. Okay, I could be protective. I got a
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: gun in case somebody break it to the house of
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: three Am. I can go down and I can handle shit.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: And they'd be like, yeah, yeah, that's fine, but we
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: need more. And it's going to be an emotional connectivity thing. Now.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: I do couples counseling, and I can tell you if
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: women have any large complaint about men, it's going to
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: be emotional connectivity. And I'm talking a lot about black men,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: but it ain't just black men. It's all men. It's
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: always if you're watching this and you're from you or
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: any other thing but black, you should be able to
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: relate to this bruh. And it's because there is a
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: very central part of masculinity, of being a man that
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: necessitates you to disconnect from your feelings in order to
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: spy the stars in boyhood. There's plenty of research on it,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: and it's hard to get back there. You spent years.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Probably man Toronto Burke one of my favorite people on Earth,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: and she says something about trauma. It was about sexual trauma,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: but she always says trauma is trauma as trauma as trauma.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite bars from her, and she
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: says somebody asked her about remembering. She says, well, how
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: can I remember when I spent so much time trying
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: to forget Toronto the homie too. We gotta get her
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: on the pod one day. That's trauma, that's trauma, Jents.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: It's fine. If you don't accept it that way, that's cool.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Or if you don't label it that way, that's fine.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: You have the right to do. That does not change
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: the reality. Gotta practice getting in touch with them emotions, man,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: Gotta practice feeling your feels and being around people that
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: allow you to feel your feels because your kids and
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: your wife and everything, they will require you to feel,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: but they will also alienate you for feeling. That's not
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: a comfortable conversation for people to have. But any married
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: man with kids, anybody who's a man and a family
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: will know you will be alienated from your feelings that
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: you are also kind of executed for not demonstrating. It's
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: a double edged sword. So we gotta find a way
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: back to that. Man, gotta find a way back to
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: the feelings. In one of the ways it's dropping the
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: cool factor. So shout out to these folks for this research.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry the cool polls. Hopefully we gotta link on
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: something so y'all can check out the cool polls. But
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: I ain't no more, man, I ain't cool. Some shit
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: hurt my feelings. I'm gonna let you know. We'll have
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: links for you in the show notes so you can
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: research the cool polls on your own, But just no,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Ker Gaines is not cool. I ain't too cool to
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: feel man. My wife is one of my favorite people
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: on earth. She's the best person I've ever met in
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: my life. I've been saying that for the thirteen years
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: that I know her. In the seven years i've been
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: married to her, I might have got them years fucked up.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: Don't blame me, but we known each other for a
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: very long time, and you know, if she hurts my feelings,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: I tell her, and she's very responsible about doing something
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: proactive about it. And that's why I love her so
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: much and I will always take care of her. That
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: is the homie for life. Moving back to humor, one
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: thing that humor does is it closes the door on
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: a reality. You may have real question, Am I good enough?
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Am I attractive enough? Am I capable enough? Am I
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: lovable enough? And my personable enough? All those questions. The
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: humor distracts you from getting to the core of it.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: You just dance around that joint. You Floyd Mayweather, shoulder
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: roll that joint so it never really hits you in
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: a way where you can actuate it, where you can
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: process it fully in the silence of life. And it
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: comes in different examples, and I wrote down a few
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: because I didn't want to lose trap. So they are examples.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: I break them into three categories. First category is what happened,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: so we're talking about the thing that happened to you.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: The second category is the joke, and the joke is
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: kind of how you shoulder roll that joint, make sure
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: it don't hit you on the faces, roll off the shoulder,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: your boxing defense. And then the third part is what's
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: actually underneath, and those are the feelings. Those are the
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: things that we have to acknowledge, especially if you a
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: member of the men don't have emotions. Crowd Scooch and
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: my boy, I got something for you because I disagree
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: with you wholeheartedly. Not only do you have feelings, you
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: are allowed to have feelings, and I hope you find
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: the bravery to express them joints so you can live
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: a full life. Here we go, all right. So here's
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: how it goes. This is going to help you ideal
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: to find when, where, and how you're doing this shit
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: in your own life. I love this part. I can't
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: cuss in my sessions like that. But this ain't therapy.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: So we can get it in therapeutic. But it's not therapy.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: Glad you're here. Here we go, all right. So what happened?
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: What happened is I lost my job. That's the truth
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: of it. I lost my job. The joke is, ah,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: I needed a vacation anyway. So what is actually underneath that?
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: What feelings are we feeling? Feelings of shame, feelings of fear,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: and feelings of what we like to call a provider
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: identity crisis. When you don't have the means to provide,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: your identity of being a provider gets compromised. And if
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: too much of your identity it's hands don't being a provider,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: or you become angry, you become irritable, You can become violent,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: you can become harmful to yourself, LI can happen. There
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: can happen there. Let's move on and see some other
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: things you might identify, you know, raise your hand if
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: you feel like this is you? All right? So another thing?
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: What happened? Category one is what happened is my father
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: wasn't around? Or what's the joke of it? Ad? I
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: turned out all right? Okay, you know, little little little
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: flick of the wrists, little berry saying this evasive move
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: right there. What's actually underneath, Well, there's unprocessed grief. There's abandonment,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: and then there's longing, and it is okay, too long
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: for your father's love. They didn't trust me. I can't
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: feel if I long for the love. I don't think
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: I do. But I'm smart enough to know deep down
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: inside I have to It has to be in there,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: even if I don't feel it. What about what happened?
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: The relationship ended? This whole relationship done? What's the joke?
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Add she couldn't handle a real one for real? She could,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: she couldn't deal with the real one. When a real
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: one holds you down, you're supposed to drown. What's actually underneath, Well,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: there's self doubt, there are wounds of attachment and there
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: is real and actual heartbreak. And if I could pause
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: for a second, if I could pause for a second
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: and just talk about heartbreak. I don't care how much
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: sex you have with how many different people. You can
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: never outclap the pain. You can only distract yourself for
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: long enough to distract yourself for long enough to distract
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: yourself for long enough. That's not how you manage pain.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: You gotta acknowledge that it hurts, even when it feels
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: like it gave that person the upper hand. I know
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: that sucks. I wish I had another way for you.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: But this is the way that works, not the way
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: that feels good. All right, all right, let's move on.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: What happened? What happened is you got passed over at work?
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: What's the joke? A corporate ain't for me anyway. I'm
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: not a nine to five person. I'm a hustle. What's
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: actually underneath well man, racial rage, helplessness, and feelings of
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: being an impostor, which is different than impost syndrome feelings
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: of being in the posta. Maybe maybe I wasn't good enough,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'll kick my coverage. Last one, Let's do one more.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: What happened? What happened is you're struggling mentally, what's the joke?
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: A I've been but I don't break well? What's actually
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: underneath of that feelings of isolation, depression and quiet desperation.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: And the thing about desperation is, man, once you feel that,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter whether the solution is going to hurt
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: you or not, you are you need to feel differently
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: by any means necessary. It's not always the best place
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: to be. So whenever this comes into your universe, man,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: whenever you in a spot and you're trying to figure
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: out how these jokes affect you, right now, just think
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: about this little three part system. What happened, what's the joke,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: and what is actually underneath? It's going to require you
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: to be honest with yourself. So if you got to
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: wrestle with it, tussle with it a little bit, ask
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: a friend, you know, write down in your journal whether
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: you got you you do what you gotta do to
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: be in a place to be honest enough with yourself
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: to get through this, because this is where clarity happens.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: Right here, This is how you get clarity. The joke
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: is funny, but you know it's also a do not
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: enter sign. So now let's talk about solutions, because you
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: can't just do this by yourself. You can get a
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: lot of the work done by yourself, but healing is
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: a communal strategy. Million dollar question. How do I let
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: people in? That's that's a doozy because it depends on
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: who you are and how you've been hurt by letting
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: people in the past. So there's a few strategies that
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: I have for letting people in. Number One, you have
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: to really honor the ways that people have hurt you before,
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: and you got to be honest enough front about no
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: tough guy shit, no I'm too cool, none of that.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: How have you hurt me? Even if the way that
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: they hurt you feel small or feels petty, you've been
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: hurt by it, and you have to acknowledge it. Don't
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: overlook the ways that you've been hurt. Doesn't mean you
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: got to bring it to the front door, doesn't mean
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: that you have to be confrontational confrontative about it. But
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: this is an awareness thing. How have I been hurt
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: or not even how have I been hurt? Realtor I've
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: been hurt? That shit hurt me? If you were in
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: second grade, and the little girl walked up and he
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: was like, oh damn you ugly. And if you still
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: feel this thing from that, it hurt acknowledge it doesn't
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: make you weaker, man, it just makes you human. Another
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: thing that I've learned is it's not just opening up
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: to people, it's opening up to the right people. You
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: have to identify people that feel safe. I love me
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: some chat GPT, but chat GPT teaches me a lot
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: about how to deal with people because you ask you
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: something and it was just start kissing your ass. Oh
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: great idea. That's the best thing I've ever heard in
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: my life. Like, yo, it just you're going to give
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: me the information you don't need to boost me up.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: And there are people in our lives that placate us
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: and tell us what feels good. It's more of a
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: projection because it's about them not feeling bad. They just
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: do it through us. But they tell us what feels good.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: But they don't always. They're not always honest with us.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: And I think the best type of people are people
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: that are mix of both. They can be honest with
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: you in a way that doesn't like it doesn't kill you.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: It may not feel good, but they're not trying to
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: hurt you. And it takes a while to get the
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: discernment to figure out which is which, who these people are,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: where they are, how to operate, how to engage with them.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: But everybody is not worthy of you letting them in.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: And then you know what's the min Angelou quote? I
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: think it's my Angelou when somebody tells you who they are, Lettle, Oh,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: if it's not my Angelou, don't kill me. I don't
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: know who it is. I might have to fix that later.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: But when people show you who they are except that,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: don't try to build them to be something you need
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: them to be, because if they show you that, they're
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: unst If you said, okay, cool, I can still rock
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: with you from a distance, but I know I can't.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: I can't trust you, I can't let you in. I can't.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: I love you, but I can't. I got friends like that.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: I love you, big dog, but never never, never, nothing
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: personal but everything personal. Dog, you can't be that for me.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: It's not that's not the nature of our friendships. It's okay,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: it's okay. It's okay to feel that way about somebody
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: doesn't make you a bad person. That makes you one
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: with discernment. Now on the opposite side of that of
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: letting people in, how do you show that you're letting
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: somebody in. Well, one way that I'm a stereotype man.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: A lot of men are not very good at this.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: A lot of men are not very good at this.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: In my experience, it's allowing people to tell their stories
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: without you interjecting. Just allow Bro to tell the story
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: without you derailing that joint with a related story that
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: spark imagination in your mind. And I know people in
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: society have different ideas of this. Some people say, nah,
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: I'm just adding on to it, and that's fine. But
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: if Bro is sharing something very pertinent, something very important,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: something very top of mind, allow him to get a
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: story out and ask two follow up questions. Damn, when
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: you first realized that, Brouh, Damn, I didn't realize you
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: felt that way. Brouh talked more about it before you
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: be like, yeah, hey man, my cousin did the same thing. Brouh.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you about that. You're detracting from it,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: and that is not signaling that you're letting them in,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: or that's not signaling that this is a safe place
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: for a letter that happen. Rather, it's like, all right, well,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: I guess you're telling your story now, and next thing
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: you know, y'all off talking about basketball. Who who would
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: Larry Bird beat lebron and one on one? It's like, damn,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: we lost the plot that quick, becauz. So when people
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: are telling you something and you want to you want
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: them to feel that whole letter in feeling. Just allow
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: their story to exist without you telling another story. I
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: think that's a good way. And also just offer perspectives
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: to each other. Don't try to fix the situation, but ask, bro,
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: have you ever thought about, Hey, have you ever thought
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: about what happened? If you do this, you change this around.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: Have you ever thought about have you ever thought about?
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: Have you ever given any thought to That's a really
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: good way to challenge thought and perspective. You know, our
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: friendships would come in many different packages. Man, Sometimes you
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: like a coach. Sometimes you're a copilot. Sometimes you're a
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: best friend. Sometimes you're a personal training there when you
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: say man, get up, dog, get up. Sometimes you get
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: that tough love. Sometimes you warm and fatherly. Sometimes you're like, hey, dog,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: I just want you to know. I notice it's tough,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: but I love you, man, I love you, bro. Sometimes
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: you big brother where you mix a personal trainer and
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: father and get up dog and I'm gonna get up
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: with you every single day. Well, now, hold on, don't
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: over commit. That's a lot. That's a lot. Let me
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: dial that down. But I'll be there with you. I'm
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: here with you on right beside you though. I got you.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: I got you, bro. That's how a good equivalent exchange
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: happens in male relationships. And shout out. If you watch
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: Full Metal Alchemists, you know about equivalent exchange. And if
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: you don't know about anime, sorry for your loss. Now,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: I think that we need to talk about creating honest
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: spaces and what that looks like. Sometimes in our group chats,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: we have spaces, but they don't be all the way honest.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: In some of my group chats, man, I gotta group
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: chats with the homies the day once, I gotta go
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: chats with my frat brothers. I gotta group chats with
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: my older frat brothers. My profiles, I got them with
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: my younger friend brothers, my knio's I got. It's a mix.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: I got everybody in there, and sometimes things will happen
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: where somebody will say something and the humor starts rolling
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: in and it takes away from the seriousness, and it's like, nah,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: I'm the one that's gonna put it back. Hey, y'all
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: pause for a second. To anybody here, what cuz just said.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: I think he's struggling. Let's get us some attention. And
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: that's not always an easy position to have, but it's
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: a necessary one. So let's talk about how we create
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: a hold space for each other. Number One, no jokes.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: Everything is not funny. Everything don't need to be funny. Dog,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: it's it's okay to sit in discomfort. You have to
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: practice that to get good at it. No jokes allow
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: that to exist. Just let us let us sit, offer
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: some words of consolation or encouragement. But it's not always
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: a time to keep key, Like, let's let's be serious
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: about some shit sometimes real too. I'll laugh with you
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: and joke with you, but now it's not the time.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: It's okay to be that. Now's not the time, dude,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: So we need that in all of our friend circles.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: Number two, No roastering, and I am I am king roaster.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: I will cut bamas up something crazy that that is
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: what I do. But that's not always necessary. It's not hopeful,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: it doesn't feel supportive, it doesn't feel warm like I know,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: we men and be tough and we're supposed to be
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: able to eat nails and piss excellence every day. But
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: you're human, dog, and these these suicide race is crazy
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: and they're not getting better. The mental health is crazy.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: It's not getting better. The intimate partner violence is fucking crazy,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: and it's not getting better. It's not time to detract
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: from the seriousness with a roast. It's time to lean
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: into it with some real resolve. Man, No roasting, No roasting.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: And I'm not saying all the time, but when shit's serious,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: no roasting. Dog, Lean into it. Lean forward. Number three.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: Don't just talk, don't just talk, be a man of action.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: All this is cool, it's amazing. What we're gonna do.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: What's the plan of action? Even if the plan of
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: action is sitting beside you and saying nothing, But I'm
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: just sharing space with you, Dog. I don't know what
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: to say, but I can be here with you. That
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: means a lot. Even if that dude don't know it
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: in a moment looking back, that's going to mean a
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: lot to him, and finally, just creating a space where
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: you could be really be honest. You could say the
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable thing, away from shame and judgment and you can
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: get some real perspective. You need. You need safety, even
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: to provide a needs provision. Even to provide the needs provision.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: My big cousin called me the other day. It's like, man,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: I love you, dog, You've been working hard. I'm worried
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: about you. You okay, I said, Bro, my mental health
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: never been better. I'm at the top of my game
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: right now. But three months ago I was getting cooked.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: My depression was crazy. He was like, Hey, I'm just
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: gonna call you and check up on you. Make sure
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: your depression don't get crazy again. Thank you, Thank you, dog.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that. That's love. That's a safe space right there.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: You need it, But you also have to create it.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Just know, as a black man,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: you ain't never gonna have shit that you don't build yourself.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: In terms of community. If you don't build it, they
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: won't come and you won't have a place either. So
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: creating a space where you can be real, and if
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: you are a father, you need that if you are
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: a husband, whoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: hoo hoo. Okay, amazing, your partner is acknowledging that everybody
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: has a wife. Some dudes listening to podcasts have a husband,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: and having a husband as a dude, it does not
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: make marriage any easier. But you need a group of
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: other men to talk to where you could be honest
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: and not be judged, not have your feelings capsized and
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: flipped over and pushed to the side, all of those
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: things together, if you can build those earnestly. I think
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: that you wanted some shit. I think you wanted something
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: real talk. So if you're listening to this and something
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: resonated with you some it's your spirit a little bit.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: Something made you feel it made it provoked a thought,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: It kindled a thought inside of you, a feeling inside
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: of you, no matter how small. This is what I
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: want you to do with that. I just want you
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: to sit with it, Let it be, let it breathe,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: let it marinate. I want you to sit with it
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: and give it space to exist. That's how you give
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: shit permission. Give it permission exists. Hey, you're right here, boom.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: I'm just letting it be. Let my mind wrap itself
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: around this thought, this idea. Let my mind play with it.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. You had a slinky ooh.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: Some of y'all gen z boys ain't gonna know what
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: that is. But it is a spring that you hold
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: and it goes in your hand from one side to another.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: It just transfers the weight. It's crazy fun to play
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: with Just allowed play with it. It's clay. Explore it,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: dog man. Men get robbed of a whimsy in their curiosity.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Get curious. Look under that joint. Pretend like you're changing
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: a water pump and a ninety six Chevy and pola.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: I want you to explore that. Take a boat off,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: Look at the boat. What the remains seal looking like? It?
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: Is this shoin weeping do I got some cooling under here.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: Examine it from all angles, allow it to be. That's
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: one of my favor very big homie. Say it tees
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: what it teas and let it be what it is.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: Examine it, let it be, let it breathe, and see
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: what you come up with. I think that's how we
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: combat the images that are made of you that don't
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: make sense in your mind, and society projects and proliferates.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: I think that's how we make sense of the incongruence
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: between how we see ourselves and how the world sees us.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: And I think this is how we truly begin to heal.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: Thank y'all for rocking with me on this episode. Man,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: this is a deep one. If anything I said it
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: resonated with you, anything pops in your head at all.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: I gotta pull up this number because I haven't memorized
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: it yet. But as I always tell you, we build
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: in this community, break by break. Every time I do that,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: feel like I'm doing the person of Tony Baker. We
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: in the community. Shout out to Tony Baker.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: I don't like it takes on future, but that man
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: is a brilliant comic. So hit me with any questions
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: you had. The number here is two four oh two
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: seven three four six two eight Again, any questions, any thoughts,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: any feedback. I appreciate every second of your time, attention
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: and awareness. Make sure you come back next week for
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: another banging episode. And man, we we're gonna do a
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: lot of things, but also poorly, We're gonna get it together.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: We're gonna get you together. We're gonna get together together.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: Ay till next time. Job well done, y'all, be well.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: Learn The Hard Way is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: I'm your host kre Gaines. We're produced by Courtney Deans
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: and Cason Alexander Ashley. J. Hobbs is our senior producer.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Our executive producers A Will Packer, Doctor Joey hard and Bradford,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: Alex Balden and Carla Will Maarris