When I sat down across from Linda Marks, I couldn't help but feel the weight of her story — a tale of a harrowing battle with anorexia during her teenage years, a poignant reminder of the danger of societal pressures and external expectations. Our conversation takes shape around the transformative journey of healing and growth, embracing the cultural traditions and personal rituals that foster our well-being. As Linda opens up about the delicate art of tuning into our own physical and emotional needs, I'm prompted to reflect on my own path and the importance of authenticity in our lives.
Music weaves its way through our discussion, not just as a form of entertainment, but as a catalyst for connection and healing. As she shares the inspiration behind her 14th studio album, "A Recipe for Hope," we celebrate the role of music in bridging divides and fostering a sense of community. Psychotherapy, too, becomes a focal point, illuminating the shared moments of humanity that reveal our true selves. We delve into how authentic interactions and inner work enable us to emerge as beacons of hope, encouraging each of you to find and share your own light.
The final notes of our dialogue bring us to confront head-on the pressing social issues of gun violence and abortion rights, and how music serves as a powerful medium to provoke thought and foster change. We examine how art can open the floor for meaningful discussion and understanding, with an emphasis on compassion and the need for fundamental societal change. From the intimate to the global, our conversation charts a course through the critical conversations of our time, all aimed at inspiring collective improvement and a more harmonious world. Join us for this heart-to-heart, and let's journey through these essential themes together.
When I sat down across from Linda Marks, I couldn't help but feel the weight of her story — a tale of a harrowing battle with anorexia during her teenage years, a poignant reminder of the danger of societal pressures and external expectations. Our conversation takes shape around the transformative journey of healing and growth, embracing the cultural traditions and personal rituals that foster our well-being. As Linda opens up about the delicate art of tuning into our own physical and emotional needs, I'm prompted to reflect on my own path and the importance of authenticity in our lives.
Music weaves its way through our discussion, not just as a form of entertainment, but as a catalyst for connection and healing. As she shares the inspiration behind her 14th studio album, "A Recipe for Hope," we celebrate the role of music in bridging divides and fostering a sense of community. Psychotherapy, too, becomes a focal point, illuminating the shared moments of humanity that reveal our true selves. We delve into how authentic interactions and inner work enable us to emerge as beacons of hope, encouraging each of you to find and share your own light.
The final notes of our dialogue bring us to confront head-on the pressing social issues of gun violence and abortion rights, and how music serves as a powerful medium to provoke thought and foster change. We examine how art can open the floor for meaningful discussion and understanding, with an emphasis on compassion and the need for fundamental societal change. From the intimate to the global, our conversation charts a course through the critical conversations of our time, all aimed at inspiring collective improvement and a more harmonious world. Join us for this heart-to-heart, and let's journey through these essential themes together.
In order to be the kind of therapist I am, I have a commitment to always be working on my healing, my learning, my growth, which will go on for my entire life and perhaps beyond. And the more I work on me, the deeper space I have to hold someone else and offer to them as they work on whatever it is they need to work on to grow, to heal, to learn, to embody more of who they are, to communicate better, to have better relationships. It's a real privilege.
Speaker 2:Ladies and gentlemen, and anyone else who is here is Dom L'Amour, and you are listening to the Black man Talking Emotions podcast. On today's episode, I speak with Linda Marks about listening to her body music, gun violence, abortion rights and so much more. When a country with less than five percent of the world's population has nearly half of the world's privately owned guns and makes up nearly a third of the world's mass shootings, it's time to stop saying guns make us safer. We went to japan last year and my wife and I did a tea ceremony in Kyoto.
Speaker 1:Lovely.
Speaker 2:Oh, it was so nice. I love history. I love to dive into those little things Like why do you drink this? What is the difference between roasted green tea and matcha green tea and this and that. So we went to the tea ceremony and they gave us the proper way to make a matcha green tea for yourself and granted the tea ceremonies with the government there last. They say up to four hours usually, but she taught us how to do this in 10 minutes, which is great.
Speaker 2:I try my best to incorporate healthy habits. I live by the fact that it takes 40 days to create a habit, but once you create that habit, it's with you for as long as you want it to be. And trying my best to drink cleaner water, trying to do coffee without any cream or sugar, teas with no cream or sugar or anything, if I can avoid it. Eating healthier, less cheese, less meats, just walking more, exercising more that's the idea, and this matcha tea always reminds me of that kind of healthy habit. Starting philosophy.
Speaker 2:I wake up I'm usually the last person to get out of bed, so I make the bed up, I make sure that I take my vitamins, I make my matcha tea, I have my breakfast, and I'm in a place now in my life where I don't have to rush out the door anymore, I don't have to rush to the bar, I don't have to rush to go work at the customer service place anymore. I'm able to really wake up fully, be awoke, embrace the day, and so this matcha is just a symbol of that. It's in my Star Wars mug, it's my favorite one and it's really a great start to the day. But having you on today is a great start to the day as well. I appreciate your time. I'm so excited to pick your brain and talk, and I already know where I want to start, so I'm going to just start here, at the end of your email whenever you message me.
Speaker 2:I get your newsletter every month as well, but at the very end is listen to your body and follow your heart I love that.
Speaker 2:I feel like that is an incredible final words for any conversation. Hey, goodbye. And listen to your heart and your body Like that is so important, because a lot of people will avoid that and they'll listen to the voices coming from social media. They'll listen to the voices coming from the negative people in their life that they don't really believe, but maybe they're right. They're not sure, they're looking for guidance and maybe they're being guided by the wrong forces. Just talk to me about why that's your tagline, why that's the way you think and where that came from.
Speaker 1:Wow, thank you. That's a wonderful place to begin and it's well. I can say that's how I lead my life, and the way my life has unfolded is whether it's as a singer-songwriter, writing songs at the heart of our times, or a mind-body psychotherapist, because I have two professions that are interrelated. I support people to do that as well. In terms of where it came from, I could go to a lot of different layers. I mean, at some level it was an intuitive sense I had when I came into the world.
Speaker 1:Even as a small child, my body knew things that I didn't know, and we didn't live in a society that taught us to listen to our bodies. And I found myself in places of conflict because, for example, when I was a little girl, my dad used to do exams for people applying for life insurance. He did that on the side to try to make a little money and he had these insurance charts that said what people should weigh. And I remember being 13 and I was five foot seven and I think I weighed 127 pounds, which if you look at it today it's like that's totally normal. It's even a little thin, but his life insurance chart said that I should weigh 115 to 118 pounds. So I thought, uh-oh, I'm heavy.
Speaker 1:And my response was becoming anorexic, which I didn't know. There was a word for it. But I basically started to starve myself because I thought there was something wrong with being a 13-year-old kid who was 5'7 and 125 pounds, or 130 pounds when the life insurance chart said 115 to 117. And I actually succeeded over many months of getting myself down to like 117. But the only problem is I'd become anorexic and I'd lost my period, which I hadn't had for that long when I was 13. And.
Speaker 1:I ended up having to go to a doctor at the Mass General Hospital who was studying a pattern of very bright young women from very critical families who were starving themselves, and when she did lab tests on my hormones, what she discovered is she caught me just in time. If I had gone on any more, I could have both made myself permanently sterile but also killed myself, because the first part of your body that shuts down when you don't weigh enough is your reproductive system, which is why I'd lost my period. And she basically said that not only did I need to gain back what I lost, that on my body type, I should not weigh less than 140 pounds, which was more than I even weighed, weigh less than 140 pounds, which was more than I even weighed. And that was a big wake-up call about listening to my body versus reading something external like insurance chart data that said this is what I should be. That had absolutely nothing to do with who I was. That chart was not based on my body, on my build, on my bone structure, and the doctor at the hospital who was doing the research. She told me the minimum I should weigh, based on my body, my bone structure. So that was a huge, huge lesson about listening to the body.
Speaker 1:And another huge piece of this happened when I was 16. I had a job at Boston's Fenway Park because I loved baseball, and the way I got the job was really sort of unique, because most of the jobs were through a network of people who knew the people that ran the concession business of the people at the ballpark, yeah, and they were getting sued for nepotism. And here I walk in off the street, I know nobody, I just love baseball and wanted to get a job. So it was perfect timing. They needed a young woman who knew nobody there and I got the job. And so I would take public transportation home from my job.
Speaker 1:And one night, as I was walking off the public transportation and I had a second job at a Brigham's ice cream store a man came out from behind the shadows and tried to strangle me. He threw me to the ground and tried to strangle me. And again, I was five foot seven. I played tennis. I thought I was athletic and strong, but the man was at least six foot two and really angry. And I discovered that, no matter how strong I was, he was much bigger than me and had the ability to force me on the ground and strangle me. So first I tried to talk my way out of it and I took a course called the Law and the Individual and I learned all kinds of legal things that 16-year-old kids usually don't know. And when I started talking to him he goes why did I pick you, lady, why did I pick you? And then he took my pocketbook strap and wrapped around my neck and called it his security belt and he wasn't going to let go and I realized I could not escape with my physical strength, I could not talk my way out of it and he then dragged me by the neck through some bushes into an alley where he started to beat me and I realized I might not come out of it alive. So I turned it over to the God I was never raised to believe in. When I was a little girl I used to say God was dog spelled backwards, which I still think is not a bad definition, because dogs are awfully angelic and four-leggeds have always been my spirit guides. But I said to God I want to live and a little voice came inside me and said to me then you need to commit to the mission that you know deep inside of you.
Speaker 1:And when I was a little girl, I was born right around when Martin Luther King was murdered and John F Kennedy was murdered. I was so small when that happened A lot of kids would never have noticed, but it made a huge impact on me because I was like them. Even though I was a shy introvert, I had a sense of wanting to make a difference in society and culture and build bridges between people and go much deeper, to the heart of the matter. But when I saw them get murdered, when I was so small I could barely talk. I was afraid to be me because I was afraid that would happen to me. And here I was, just a 16 year old kid who was doing a lot of leadership in my community, but only the kind of leadership a 16 year old kid can do. So I realized that my life could be ended even then and there, in an alley, on my back at the hands of a stranger. So I said to God I commit to my mission.
Speaker 1:And then a little voice came through my heart and what the voice said was to forgive the man.
Speaker 1:And without using my brain to understand what forgiveness meant, I spoke from my heart. I said to the man I forgive you, and he burst into tears and stopped beating me and, metaphorically, that was my first therapy client and that's what I call my initiation into the power of the heart. Because by slowing down and literally going deep into my heart slowing down and literally going deep into my heart, committing to my mission, and then saying to this man, without even understanding what it meant, I forgive you, because that's what the spiritual guidance said it somehow touched his heart. He burst into tears and instead of killing me, he was bawling and talking about his life, the first words being I don't want to be doing this For me. I can say my heart saved my life and I can say my body saved my life. And between the two different experiences the one at 13 and at 16, that's where listen to your body, follow your heart, came from. And from that point forward, that literally became my own path and a path that I like to support others in finding for themselves.
Speaker 2:I think that's fantastic and I love that story, not in the sense that I don't love that you got beat up and all this stuff. That's horrible. But I love the message of it because for me, talking to people and kind of getting to know the real them is the goal I've always enjoyed. When you can see you broke down the barriers that they had up and you're just talking to them and in a way I feel like that's like you. Like you said, the hardest talking at that point is not them. They're not thinking of how to make you like them. They're not thinking of I should say this because I don't want them to think this of me when you break down those barriers and they're just talking freely and they're talking honestly and they're being their true self that no one else sees, usually that's them talking from their heart.
Speaker 2:And I've had a lot of experiences like that where, you know, I remember in college I'm not going to say the name of the girl, but this girl was someone that was popular. She was someone that everyone kind of was intimidated by. She would come into the room and people would look at her like, oh, I can't say anything to her. She's mean or she's aggressive or she's powerful or she'll make me whatever. And I remember one night we were talking at a friend's house and everyone had left. It was just the two of us and we had known each other for years. At this point this is the first night, I think she actually looked at me and was like he doesn't want anything extra from me, he's not trying to take anything from me, he's just talking to me, he just wants to from me.
Speaker 2:He's not trying to take anything from me. He's just talking to me, he just wants to know me and she kicked her shoes off, literally and figuratively, and by the end of the conversation I never looked at her as that intimidating figure ever again, still to this day. I see when she puts those guards up and it's fascinating to me to watch someone fully give themselves to you and then go back into the cage. You could see it and with me. I'm not a. I've never been like the I don't know how to phrase this.
Speaker 2:Feelings and energy is everything. I usually can walk into the room and feel the energy in the room. I might not be able to see it, but I can sense the energy. And whenever someone close up that cage and push those emotions down and put on their persona for the people and the masses the one that they want people to see on social media, the one they want people to see for their professional outings or whatever you can feel that energy of them holding back. You can see that that's not their full aura. You can see that they're not truly pushing out that energy that they usually put out when they're being themselves.
Speaker 2:And that story, like you said you, you awoken something within yourself that allowed you to speak with a different voice, with a different energy to push it out. And I'm sure he sensed that like wait, this wait, oh man, how did she know? How did she know? That's that's incredible. It like, as you could see, I I just wanted to explain how I related to it. But taking in that story and truly realizing people have these moments a lot. I've had a lot of conversations on this show with people who kind of talk about that moment that it all clicked for them To have it at 16 is incredible. Of course, you've pushed on to do so many things in that same area where you're talking to people and working on their different problems, trying to push them into a better light or energy. Just explain more about the work that you've done since then and how your music has incorporated into that as well.
Speaker 1:My music and the body psychotherapy come from the very same source. Around my neck I wear two silver pieces, a heart and a G clef together because that's me. I wrote a song when I was a grammar school kid called my Music Is Me, and that music was my first language. I didn't talk until I was three, but I was already even as a toddler. I didn't have a piano, but whenever I went anywhere there was a piano, I'd toddle my way to the piano and start writing music. So music literally is the language of my soul and my heart, and talking came later. So what I realized at a very early age, besides a way for me to to heal, for me to process in the process of writing music, we process and we can heal from the process of writing music ourselves. But what's even more powerful is that music is a direct bridge from heart to heart and soul to soul. It's deeper than words. It can bridge all divides, it can bridge all cultures and, as someone who always cared a lot about bringing people together and what I can call it is creating community of heart, music does that, whether it's a person on stage singing from their heart, so that your heart feels the energy on stage, singing from their heart so that your heart feels the energy, or whether some of the songs I write, I call them, you know, anthemic songs that are literally designed for groups of people to sing together, and if people sing the songs together, they feel they're together. They may cry, you know, they may feel like there's hope. My 14th studio album that just came out, january 1st, is called A Recipe for Hope and three of the songs on the album have hope in the title. But to uplift, to bring people together, to help them feel they're not alone, to help them feel there's possibility and purpose.
Speaker 1:One of my newest songs is called Lighthouse and the refrain is basically saying shine, shine, shine, shine, shine through the lighthouse of your soul, you know, and it's inviting people to find their light. You know somebody needs to see your light, you know, to find a haven in dark night. Turn it on and let it beam, offering safety and life stream. We all have a unique frequency to bring to the world and no one can bring it but us, and there are people waiting to see our light, to feel our light, to resonate with our light, and that will open a door. Help them heal, help them not feel alone, help them move towards their vision, take a new step, find a new resource. But if we don't do the inner work inside ourselves and learn to listen to our body, to heal the trauma in our body, to learn to access and appreciate the resources in our body, in our heart, then we won't be able to be that lighthouse shining that light beam and some people who need whatever it is we have to offer won't be able to find us because we're not fully showing up. So you know, just as that song is about that message, the body psychotherapy work that I do, you know, is also about that message.
Speaker 1:So, in essence, you know, I developed this body of work because it was inside of me. It was part of what came from my own healing process, from the trauma I went through at many different levels as a child and I learned that trauma disconnects us from ourselves. It disconnects our core sense of self from ourself but it fragments us into lots of little parts. So, for example, the anorexic 13-year-old in me was a frozen part. The 16-year-old, you know who was an attempted rape and murder, you know subject was a part of me. The baby, born with a cord wrapped around my neck, who couldn't breathe, was a part of me and at different points in my life those parts would come up inside me and I'd have body sensations and feelings that went back to those times that were arising for me to, with my presentday self presence, witness, heal and even offer to myself things that weren't available back there then. You know, when I was born with a cord wrapped around my neck, doctors were more concerned about was I gonna die or live? Versus how traumatic it is for a baby to enter the world that way that maybe the baby needs to be held and not just run around with different medical devices. You know that babies need to feel welcome in the world. That's not really a way to welcome a baby. So, whatever they did, they did get the cord off my neck.
Speaker 1:I'm here today, but there were times like even as a therapist, there's something called counter-transference and there's transference. Transference is when a client is working a therapist, something from their past, some deeper emotional piece or some experience is triggered and then they start to move into that state of consciousness. Sometimes they project stuff onto the therapist and maybe they get angry at the therapist as though they were their parent, when clearly they're not their parent. But they're triggered into a state and something happened with a parent and now they're yelling at them the way they'd yell at a parent. And then there's an opportunity to try to slow down, create emotional safety, get grounded in the body and maybe the person is really sad because they felt powerless and maybe they felt the parent was preventing them from doing something really important to them. And they're getting to cry that through and they're getting to have a compassionate adult in the therapist not that whoever the parent was that was shutting down something important to them. Hear them with compassion and support them. I hear this really matters to you. How can we support you in following what matters to you? I don't want to shut you down. I want to support you and that's like a completely different missing experience that can heal Well.
Speaker 1:One thing that happened to me this is the counter-transference side with the client is I had a client who, as he was doing some deeper work, started to feel like he was choking and he was feeling like he couldn't breathe and he put his hand on his throat and, as he was choking and couldn't breathe, I noticed myself having a hard time breathing and I noticed myself choking and I noticed myself putting my hand around my own throat and while in the session I tried to focus on what was happening with the client and his body memories. As soon as the session was over, I called on what was happening with the client and his body memories. As soon as the session was over, I called up the person I saw for therapy and supervision and said I need a session with you. Here's just what happened as my client was choking and feeling something on their neck that happened to me and as I worked with my own therapist and supervisor, I was having a body memory of the baby being born with the cord wrapped around my neck where I couldn't breathe, and I was choking and I cried and I released some of those feelings and something changed inside of me.
Speaker 1:So the gift of my client having his transference that I helped him through was I had my counter transferference, which of course, I kept contained in me so it wouldn't contaminate his space. But then I got the support for me to process my own feelings so that by the time that client came back the next week I had a whole new space for holding myself with which I could hold the client. So there's something quite powerful. In order to be the kind of therapist I am, I have a commitment to always be working on my healing, my learning, my growth, which will go on for my entire life and perhaps beyond. And the more I work on me, the deeper space I have to hold someone else and offer to them as they work on whatever it is they need to work on to grow, to heal, to learn, to embody more of who they are, to communicate better, to have better relationships. It's a real privilege.
Speaker 2:I met Linda back in 2015. I was a part of the St Louis Cabaret Festival's first pro-level class. Everyone I met that week made a huge impression on me, and one of the common struggles for performers is not truly knowing what people think about you professionally. You know, linda was always straightforward with me. She offered tips, compliments when she believed that I needed them. She also is one of the few people who has actually kept in touch with me consistently since the Cabaret Conference.
Speaker 2:I was told that networking is key to a long career, but I've noticed, even with some of the people who taught me that, that they are horrible with communication and networking and keeping in touch. So Linda helps me believe that there are people who really want to help. She's someone who is really invested in her relationships and she's someone who's honest. I appreciate her friendship. I thank her for being on the show. This means the world to me and I'm so happy I got to learn more things about her today.
Speaker 2:That's the way I feel everyone should think honestly. I know that you're a therapist and you're trained for this and this is the way you're supposed to work on yourself, but what you said is so powerful. Everyone, no matter what's going on, should be able to look at themselves and say what can I do to improve myself so that I can help more, and how I can actually take on more and I won't push that energy onto the others. Or if I see myself pushing myself on the others, how can I get help to help myself so that when I get into that scenario again, I won't do that again. That is so important. I feel like 2024, I told my wife I don't really do resolutions, but for 2024, I do want to be more efficient. That's what I told her and that's it. No implied nothing extra on it. I just want to be more efficient in life and with that I honestly feel like I'm thinking about myself more. I'm working on myself more I'm speaking to people about things that I can do to improve myself. I'm reading more about ways that I can improve myself. The books, the information that I'm choosing to put into my life is helping me be a better person for the people around me, and that is so powerful and so fantastic and I applaud you for the work that you do because it's so important.
Speaker 2:The things that I think would really help the world. One is communication. I'd say this all the time. If we have people just communicate properly. If there was no gaslighting, there was no competition. You were just talking honestly about what you want and need and how can we get there. Things would be better in so many circles. And then, secondly, working on our mistakes.
Speaker 2:There's so much that we've done in our lives that we have to grow from. And if you do things and you look at yourself and say you know what? I'm perfect, everyone else needs to change. That's where the friction comes in, that's where people tend to butt heads and that's when we don't get anything done. That's when nothing is fixed for everyone. If things they're right and you're wrong. If you think that way and the person on the other side thinks that way, how is anything going to be fixed?
Speaker 2:And then if there's three people, if one person thinks that way and the other person thinks that way and they're arguing with each other and there's a person in the middle who's working on their self, those two arguing more than likely will eventually overpower the person who's truly doing the work.
Speaker 2:You need everyone on the same wavelength. You need everyone on the same energy. You need everyone pushing for the same goal to better yourself so that you can help others. That's the goal, that's what we need, and I'm just like I said, beyond words impressed with what you do and how you approach everything you do, your goals, your work, your music, everything.
Speaker 1:Great job, thank you. Thank you, and I appreciate you know that you really understand, and you're doing that with your life too, because I totally agree, I call it. You know creating community of heart. You know there's a kind of emotional safety that we need in order to go deeper into the heart. Sadly, one thing I learned many years ago is that emotional safety is very hard to come by and too much of the world is not the least bit emotionally safe, and when people aren't emotionally safe, they tense up. You know they can't breathe. Like I learned that just about every symptom that sends people to medical doctors and to psychotherapists whether it is a headache or a lump in the throat or a knot in the stomach or can't breathe, or high blood pressure or reflux or anxiety or depression at the core is experiencing relaxation of all those tensions and a sense of well-being and more inner peace. So you know, for me, my first step is how do I try to create inner peace within myself? How do I get grounded in my own heart and body? What can I work on, as you said, to be a better person? Where do I need to learn and grow? There's a humility that I think is really, really important in being a human being and that every single person has a unique contribution. Every person has a story that's a worthy story. The way we become is a combination of our core soul and the experience and the things that happen to us along the way, and that all of us have raw material to, in essence, become a lighthouse and shine a special light. And we all need support. There are things we can only do ourselves and there are some things we can't do all alone. And finding that magic balance of where is it our work to do ourselves and where do we need to find support, champions, therapists, coaches, mentors, whatever cats and dogs you know that can help us shine our light and heal and grow and contribute what we have to the world and it's lovely hearing you, you know, talking about how valuable it is when people can focus on, you know, growing and learning and contributing and making the world a better place and helping others Like I believe, like all the work I do on me shows up in, as you said before, in my energy.
Speaker 1:And I remember years ago I went to a gym that is now closed. I would be on the recumbent exercise bicycle because I've written a couple of books, that I was working on a book and people would always come talk to me and just start talking about their lives. And one person once came up to me and said what do you have? A little sign on your forehead in invisible ink that says safe person, vent here. And I laughed because it was really cute.
Speaker 1:But in a way that's what happens. Like you know, the more peace I can find in me, then I may have that in my forehead. You know, safe person, vent here. And I consider it a privilege. You know, when a person feels safe enough to confide in me or talk about their lives in a way, they may not feel safe to talk to other people. And likewise, if I write a song that touches someone in a deeper place or they get to feel something or relate to something that feels very personal, then I'm very grateful because I feel like my song has actually served a purpose because I feel like my song has actually served a purpose.
Speaker 4:A little boy came up to me how do I make this world a better place to be, place to be? A tear on his cheek and more in his eyes I held I see, is riddled with deep pain.
Speaker 2:I want to make sure that I play one of Linda's tunes for you to kind of see what she's talking about on her music and how she's looking to move things forward. She's always honest. She is speaking about the things that's happening today and it's really encouraging. I highly recommend it. This is her title track, a Recipe for Hope. That's the name of the album. The best way to support her is by watching her YouTube channel. That's at L-S-M-H-E-A-R-T. Make sure you actually support the things that she's doing. She's trying to really push a different message that you don't hear much. You can listen to my music also on all streaming platforms. You can support me at DomLamorecom, where you can get anything and everything Dom Lamore and you can support Linda. You can support her and learn more about Linda at wwwLindaMarksMusiccom. That's Marks M-A-R-K-S. Linda spelled the way. It is Much love. Of course.
Speaker 2:You sent me the Dropbox of your Songs from your last album and there was three titles that I just wanted to talk about Facebook Songwriters Blues. You have another Stop Gun Violence song and then you have Coathanger Abortions and People Shooting Guns. I want to start with track 11, coathanger Abortions and People Shooting Guns. Everything I said, all of those titles, are very relevant. Everyone knows why they're being sang. Everyone knows this is because we're living in a world where social media controls all.
Speaker 2:Facebook is the place, tiktok or whatever is where we go, so that makes sense that we're talking about that, the stop gun violence. Of course, this is why because we need this conversation to truly happen and even though there's been so much violence, even though there's been so many deaths, even though there's been so much going on, there has not truly been a conversation yet. Still, and every time the conversation started, the reply is usually this is not the time to talk about this and that's not okay. And then coat hanger abortions and shooting guns, which kind of tacks onto that stop gun violence, but also roe v wade and the different things that has been happening in our society. Just today, I was listening to the news. I was listening to something on CNN and they were talking about the idea of abortion and how this country should be in a better place with it.
Speaker 2:I've been doing a lot of reading on different figures in our society and Shirley Crimson was someone that I wanted to learn more about, because she has a movie coming out that Regina King is going to play her in. In her book that she wrote years ago, decades ago, she referred to the idea that in New York, women were dying from illegal abortions or this and that, and she was questioning the world. Then Would you prefer women to have an abortion in a hospital with trained professionals or somewhere with people who are just trying to make a buck? The fact that we're still having that discussion today baffles me. Why did you choose that song title and to write about that topic specifically?
Speaker 1:Well, the lyrics of the song say quite a bit about that. What I was just absolutely astounded by was that something that I think is really, really important for the psychological health not only of women, but of how we bring children into this world. I take how we bring children into this world very, very seriously. I've written quite a few songs about that. Actually, my 2023 album was called Everyday Legends, and that one is dedicated to our children, and it has a whole bunch of songs about what it's like to be a child in these times, including another one of these Dapka and Violin songs called Our Children's Prayer, that I wrote in the voice of the children of Evaldi Please don't bring me flowers at my grave. Don't tell me that in my life proves that I'm brave. You know, it's a huge privilege to become a parent. It's a huge responsibility to become a parent. It's a huge responsibility to become a parent. If people don't consciously choose to become parents, sometimes they're pretty horrible parents. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And children are put in positions that they don't deserve in any way to be put in, where they're neglected, they're abandoned, they're beaten, they're starving, they live in abject poverty, they have no love. I mean they're treated like objects not humans.
Speaker 1:Horrible things happen to our children because they're born into circumstances where a person wasn't conscious or ready to have a child. So, no, I don't think using abortions as birth control is a good idea, because you know I hate politics, I don't like to go there, but there's a political thing about. Well, some people just use it as birth control. It's like I would really hate to think that that's a major threat and if so, we have a big mental health issue, because that is, it's an endangering to your life, potentially as a woman, to have to do it, and it also gets into the whole thing about the sanctity of life and what it means to potentially, you know, grow a child. So it's a huge, huge, big deal.
Speaker 1:But the thought that you know, a young woman in today's world, with the repeal of Roe versus Wade, could be in a position where it's either her health or the baby's. I remember I was at a conference many years ago and there was a woman at the conference who'd been put in an impossible position. She was pregnant and she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer while she was pregnant and she was put in the position of if there was going to be any chance that she lived, she couldn't keep the baby and if she didn't get the treatment the baby might not even make it to the world. But if she had the treatment, the baby might die from the treatment.
Speaker 1:You know what kind of choices are. None of those choices are good choices. It's a devastating choice. And if that woman, you know she hadn't made the choice yet, she wasn't sure, she was so paralyzed by the situation she didn't know what to do because she didn't want to have to lose the baby, she didn't want to have to die. She didn't want to give birth, lose the baby, she didn't want to have to die, she didn't want to give birth to a baby who you know was being birthed preemie in order to not die. I mean, what kind of choices are those? Yeah, but if she made the choice to have the abortion so that she didn't basically kill the child through cancer treatment or die and leave a child that wasn't informed enough so they die that way, like what kind of choices are that? And if you follow Roe versus Wade, it would have been even more torturous for this woman because there wasn't even the option of before the baby was sufficiently developed that they could be more harmed. She might spare them that torture.
Speaker 1:You know this is a very personal thing that many people would not like me to disclose, but that story I told you about when I was 16, not only did the man try to murder me, but he also tried to rape me when I wouldn't die and because I was terrified, he didn't succeed in doing it. But I had a father who was so afraid about his daughter not being a virgin, he went berserk and wanted me to take the morning after pill and the. You know, I didn't. I refused to take it and I knew that I didn't need it. But you know, if somebody is raped by a criminal and they get pregnant, should they be forced to have that baby?
Speaker 1:And in addition to that, the way again I go into the way a child is conceived to consciously choose to become a parent and to consciously welcome the spirit of the child before you get pregnant and to consciously welcome the baby as you're pregnant and hopefully, if you're able to have a birth that's supportive of birth, which isn't easy in our medicalized world you know to do everything you can to create the conditions to bring a healthy child to the world.
Speaker 1:That is really the world I seek. And a woman who becomes pregnant from a criminal raping her at a teenage age. The energy around that conception is not good energy and, you don't know, maybe there's this amazing being that's going to come out of it, you know, who's going to have an amazing life and do amazing things. Or maybe a person who is, like so traumatized by this as the context of their being brought into the world is going to be created and they're going to have a horrible life and they're going to die and they're going to be ill and it's going to be horrible and maybe the woman's life is destroyed and ruined because it was a traumatic thing like this that led her to have to have a child. I mean, those are not the conditions that I wish children to have to be brought into the world from.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So the coat hanger, abortions part. You know the thought that you know I happen to have a son who's 27. I don't have a daughter, but if my daughter were 27 and something horrible happened to her that she wouldn't have the right to choose, wouldn't have the right to choose, whereas me, because I was a young person before Roe versus Wade that rescinded. Thank God I didn't have to use it, but if I needed to it would have been there. So it just really sort of cut to the quick, just also looking at kids growing up today, two of the most predominant things are all the gun violence, the unmitigated gun violence, and I've written so many songs in response to gun violence incidents it's hard for me to even count how many. The first one I wrote, whenever I wrote that, I was hoping that by writing a song to touch people and get to the roots of gun violence, maybe it would make a difference. But as you said, dom, we haven't even had those conversations and you know, as the song another stop gun violence song says, the roots of our problems are deeper than we know. Can we slow down and mind the depths of our heart and rally together before more shootings start that song another stop gun violence song. I can't believe how many stop gun violence songs I've had to write and that I keep having to write more because it just doesn't stop. You know it just blew my mind and the coat hanger abortions and people shooting guns.
Speaker 1:To be a child growing up in the world today, gun violence, including school shootings, just as a thing. It happens every day in every city. You know all different ages in school and it's heartbreaking. And then you know for young women and young men to be in the position where, if some horrible thing happens and a child is conceived who wasn't intentionally conceived, that there isn't the option of sparing the child and the parents. You know all the horrible things that come when people aren't equipped at any level to be parents. So just again thinking of what's it like to be a child growing up in the world and the things that weigh on today's children that didn't weigh on previous generations of children.
Speaker 2:Yes and see everything you're saying is hidden, everything.
Speaker 2:I agree with the idea that a child who doesn't choose to be born, a child whose parents choose to have a child, even if it's on accident or if it's through those horrible ways that it could be, it is still a choice that was made by an adult. At some point, an adult made a decision and then the baby was here, and to put a kid in a position where they have to live a hard life or an unplanned or even it just breaks my all of this breaks my heart. I think about this stuff often because I feel like in society you hear a lot about immigration, you hear about how the Mexicans are taking over, and one of my biggest problems with the news with CNN, with NBC, with Fox News, with all of them is the negative stuff is only important because they're highlighting it, it's only on our minds, because they're highlighting it, they're pushing it towards us. If you tell us one thing constantly, that thing will get more important. Trump, I don't, I'm not gonna go into politics, I don't know where we stand everything.
Speaker 2:but he's very popular, not because he's doing stuff. He's doing stuff and people are talking about it and fascinated by it and pushing it even more and talking about how bad it is or just plastering his face everywhere. He gets more free press than any elected official in history. I'm sure he's doing this horrible stuff, yes, but he could easily be shut down if you don't talk about it. And that's kind of the thing where I see, with gun violence, I feel like the strategy to avoid change is to not talk about it. That's the strategy. We're not even going to bring it up and when it's brought up we're going to say you don't have the answers, we won't listen to you, period, or they'll try to find one little stat they can cling to and say well, in this city, in Chicago, this is the most violent city in the country and there's a lot of gun violence and that city has some of the biggest restrictions on guns in the country.
Speaker 2:It hasn't done anything. And it's like I hear this stuff, I see this stuff the fact that people can come out and argue a point but not have a solution and be okay with no solution, Baffled. Being from St Louis, I grew up in a place where gun violence was normal. I grew up in a place where I knew a lot of people who died.
Speaker 2:I grew up in a place where it was normal for people to die. I grew up in a place where people would talk about how we're the murder capital of the country. That's where I grew up and it was constantly said, it was constantly pushed. It was almost like it was a bragging point.
Speaker 2:We're the murder capital of the country, and I weirdly saw the violence. I saw the drug use. I saw the people around me who were involved in different things like that, and I don't know how more than likely it was my great grandfather's voice, but I saw that and I was like, oh, that's bad, I don't want to do that. People who grew up like me in that same place, around those same things, who didn't think that, who didn't say, hey, that's bad, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2:They saw that and said that's the only option I have right right and we are constantly watching our youth and people that we love make these decisions that are life and death, and there's nothing being done about it. Yep, that's why I wanted to talk about those two songs that song having the last part being people shooting guns, and then another stop gun violence song. That title got me and really shook me because, like it implies, this isn't the first one no this isn't I.
Speaker 2:I'm not making this because I'm doing something fresh and new. I'm not doing this because this is a new idea that needs to be pushed, maybe no, I'm doing this because nothing's being done and it's been spoken about for years and it's almost like it's a video game. It's almost like we live in a country where we're free, we get to do what we want and if we want guns, we can have guns. And they don't hear the people like me, where I'm like I don't care if you have guns, I care if you mentally shouldn't have guns. Right, exactly, if you want to have guns and you're perfectly permitted and okay and you're in your right headspace and you're out back shooting it at the target practice and you're shooting it at the deers and you're trying to kill that, great, go get your meat, do that. But if you mentally are unstable and you're building a fortress under your house because of World War III and you're afraid of Mexicans coming into this country, people who are poor and scared and need to be somewhere where they feel safe and, weirdly enough, our gun-toting country is safer than where they're coming from. If that is how you look at this world and say I need guns to protect myself, and I'm going to have as many guns as I want and I don't need to tell you if I'm mentally stable or not, and I don't care if unmentally stable people are walking around with guns. What are you talking about? The rebel guns, what are you? What are you talking about? How can you truly say that and believe that and and think that we're going to be able to move our society forward? Period?
Speaker 2:I get very upset with government, with things that happen in our society, popular culture Ever since I was a kid I don't know why I've just always kind of been a rebel towards popular culture and I have a lot of friends who are conservative. But the one thing that I always get when I talk to someone directly about gun violence, when it's just one on oneone they're a gun-toting person. I'm not. I get two answers. I ask them about the mental thing and they're like no, yeah, everyone who know what they're doing, who's properly trained, should be able to get guns. And yes, a permit wouldn't be a problem for me. I get that answer usually all the time. It wouldn't be a problem with me, especially if it's just to make sure that we are mentally stable and they're properly chained in it. Because the people who are properly chained despise people who aren't.
Speaker 2:Because they make them look bad and they're taking their guns away, even though they are doing all the right things with their guns.
Speaker 2:That's one response and number two and it doesn't matter what I ask, it doesn't matter what I say, it doesn't matter what the conversation is about when it comes to guns. I don't care, I just want my guns. Those are the two responses. And it's a hard lesson being in this country and now enlightening myself by going to other countries like Japan and Mexico and going to the Bahamas and going to Ireland and actually seeing the world from other people's perspectives and seeing how they think of us. And that's one of the first things you hear outside of this country is oh man, like, are you afraid? Like people are walking around with guns all the time there, right? And I'm like, wow, that's what they think of us and we for some reason, can't even talk about it.
Speaker 2:We can talk about Mexicans crossing the border, even though that's not really affecting our day-to-day the way that gun violence is. I don't even have a question. Yeah, no, it just I understand. I appreciate you bringing attention to it because it is something that I've grown up with. I've seen, yeah, I had a cousin just get shot last year. He's OK, but it's not that far away from me. It isn't like oh man, I've heard of this stuff. Right no.
Speaker 2:I have family members that's been shot. I have close family friends who have been murdered. I've seen this, I felt this and, being from St Louis, now living in Atlanta, living in Chicago for as long as I did, living in Los Angeles, all of these places I've lived these big metropolitan cities this is a problem. This is something that needs to be spoken about and there are people doing the work. There is, but their voices are not being amplified because the people on the opposition are finding every way to just eliminate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Some of the deep, deep pieces that are so hard to talk about. And it's very traumatic, literally growing up in a culture of gun violence. It's very traumatic when a cousin or family members or friends have been shot or murdered. It's devastating.
Speaker 1:You know we have huge mental health issues in this country. You know the lack of emotional safety, the lack of physical safety, the amount of violence. Violence comes from pain. Violence comes from unmet needs. Violence comes from a life where people feel trapped with no way out. You know, people shoot their way out of something, whether it's their own inner demons or the abject poverty or oppression or powerlessness or hopelessness of their life conditions.
Speaker 1:There's a huge mental health crisis and underlying the mental health crisis, I could say, is a crisis of people having basic human needs, whether it's food, shelter, clothing and the right to a livelihood and a right to a safe home or a right to food or a right to just having enough. If there was a way that people could just have enough in many different domains, our world would be so different. Instead, there are ridiculously wealthy people who have enough for a whole country, and then there are people who have absolutely nothing. I remember speaking with a woman who happened to be a Mexican immigrant and she came to this country with literally nothing, literally nothing, and one of her brothers still has literally nothing and has gotten into all kinds of trouble, and one of her brothers somehow was resourceful enough that he started his own business so that he has something you know and and just to listen to the suffering of she and her brothers and her mom, who ended up, you know, having no ability to speak the language, no skills that were employable, knowing no one, it's like you're literally out on the street. You're not homeless because of a drug addiction. You're homeless because, as you said, you escaped a place.
Speaker 1:That's even worse, but you have nothing and no, nobody and no access to resources. I mean you have nothing and no, nobody and no access to resources. I mean it's like feral kitty cats. The average feral kitty cat lives three years, whereas the average kitty cat who's someone's pet lives 13, maybe 18 years. It's quite a contrast. And there are feral human beings literally walking the streets of life and nobody cares. There is no catchment net. You know I talked about, you know, the holes in the catchment net for the healthcare system and someone said no, they're not holes, they're chasms. There are chasms that people fall through and are swallowed by. So there are very deep structural issues about what's missing, that are basic human needs that underlie these crises.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much Before we go, the final thing I wanted to speak to you about, because I think we should go out on a high note. One thing that you told me that you were passionate about was beauty yes and I loved that sentiment and you spoke about different things that you started to do and see during a pandemic.
Speaker 2:That really helped you started to go to the gym when they were when we all closed and stuff. You started to practice a daily walk in the neighborhood looking for beauty and capturing pictures. And I think about the pandemic very differently than a lot. I know how serious and horrible it was for a lot of families, but for my we were very blessed and fortunate no one passed. We had people get sick. I remember my uncle Mark I'm going to say his name to put him on blast because he eventually turned around but he started off saying he thought this was all fake.
Speaker 1:He thought this was all this.
Speaker 2:And then he was the first one to catch COVID. Oh boy, and after he had COVID he was the biggest avid he was. Everyone needs to get tested. Everyone needs to get their shots. We do not need anyone else in our family to catch that thing ever he was highly affected by it and he changed his tone and it really helped us because I didn't have to do the hard work that a lot of other people had to do. I didn't have to convince my grandma to get it, because her brother caught it.
Speaker 2:Her brother told her no, you're going to get this shot. And there was only one family member in my family that I had to kind of talk to, and then there's another who just medically couldn't take the vaccine which is understood. Take the vaccine which is understood. With all of that great stuff, I was able to once again, like you said, take a daily walk. I was able to really me and my wife were dating at the time and actually moved in March of 2020.
Speaker 2:So, March 1st we moved in together. We flew to St Louis for a wedding on March the 9th. The city and the world shut down within that wedding. Pretty much. We thought the airports were going to be closed. We got back. March 12th.
Speaker 2:We landed in Englewood, a Los Angeles area, and went to the closest grocery store and this was the first pandemic moment I had where I had a panic attack at the grocery store and I told my wife listen, I'm going back to the car because there were people frantically running around, there was no toilet paper, there was no paper towels, there was shelves, was empty and now I felt like the end of the world. But we got back to our apartment and then the rest of the lockdown really came in and we were able to get to know each other. We were able to really take our time to have dinners, we took our time to have Zoom meetings with friends, we read books, I took piano classes and Spanish classes, because my wife is fluent in Spanish. We did all of these things with each other, for each other, and then we moved cross country.
Speaker 2:You know we really took our steps during the pandemic. I proposed on our trip from LA to Georgia. I proposed on that trip and my life has been forever enhanced ever since For you tell me about that beauty that you got to learn and discover and become passionate about during the pandemic.
Speaker 1:Yes, first of all, you know you've just described a lot of really beautiful sentiments and you know the transformational part of the pandemic and the way it really enriched your life. For me, I had been a person who'd gone to the gym seven days a week for my entire life and the gyms all closed and so I started taking daily walks. It's a two and a half mile circuit in my very ordinary neighborhood and I've always loved photography and I've always loved nature, but I'd never walked the same two and a half mile circuit every day for years.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it made me acutely aware of how, every single day, nature changes. Every single day, the seasons are cycling a little bit. Every single day, the clouds look different. Every single day, the sky has a different color. Every single day there's a pond that I can walk by. You know, I take a little detour from the exact circuit, but I go to the pond Every day.
Speaker 1:The pond looks different, and I realized that there was so much nuanced beauty that if I slowed down and stepped back, I could find something absolutely amazing that was only there at that moment, on that day. So I started taking photographs and I literally called it taking my daily walk, searching for beauty, and, as far as I was concerned, if I found one thing, whatever it was, that was unique for that day and beautiful in its own way, then I'd just enrich myself. There are things that I would have never thought to look for until I started that practice and I ended up writing a song that's going to be on my 2025 album. The song is called Learn to Really See a Flower.
Speaker 1:I used to have a terrestrial office and I had a poster that had a saying by Georgia O'Keeffe on it that said no one really sees a flower, because to really see takes time. Like to have a friend takes time and I always felt there was so much wisdom and depth in that and I, at one point, as I continued my walk searching for beauty, I realized that what Georgia O'Keeffe said was what I was doing in the walks I was learning to really see a flower. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I was taking the time. So there's a really cool song that I co-wrote with my New York lyricist friend, mike Greenlee, called Learn to Really See. A Flower dedicated to Georgia O'Keeffe.
Speaker 2:That's incredible. I agree, adrienne and I would take our walks. I'm living in a house that was pretty much dreamed of. During those walks I lived in a neighborhood in LA which I don't really get to talk about. This on the pod a lot, I think people think I hated LA when I lived there, but I didn't hate it, it was just hard. It was very hard being so far away from family, especially during the pandemic. It was so expensive living there during the pandemic and not being able to see my family that getting away from there, being closer to home, now that part is great. But those walks I lived in a neighborhood called Valley Village To this day. If I ever had to move back those walks, I lived in a neighborhood called Valley Village To this day. If I ever had to move back to LA, I would move back to my neighborhood. That's how much I love that neighborhood.
Speaker 2:Walking around, we were saying doors, the driveways, the gardens, the swing, sets on the trees, the type of trees, everything. I was able to truly just take time, take my earphones off, put my phone away, listen to the voice of my wife and look at everything, feel everything, hear everything, the different birds. Everything was so beautiful. Life was so simple in the sense that we really followed the protocol. We didn't leave the house too much.
Speaker 2:I personally love to drive, so I would leave the house more than my wife. Because I was joyriding. I actually would joyride around LA, but that was another form of seeing the beauty. Because I was joyriding, because I was able to go to Malibu in 20 minutes instead of an hour. I was able to go down to 405 and be the only car on the 405.
Speaker 2:There was no smog the first couple of weeks after it hit. It maybe took like a couple of weeks, but then you noticed when you were driving. It was clear skies. When you were driving up Mulholland Drive, you were able to look and see for miles. It was beautiful. La is so pretty and I never saw it that way. I always saw it smoggy, I always saw too many people, I saw trash everywhere. That was what I was highlighted. But during that time period, for some reason, I was able to see the blue skies. I was able to see all of the green, because there was not a lot of green. Usually In my head I thought it wasn't that green, but it was more green during the pandemic, for some reason.
Speaker 1:Right, well, things changed and slowed down and we have the ability to see. There's so much there to see when we slow down and we step back. It's quite amazing.
Speaker 2:We made it to the end of the episode. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:All I have to ask now is how do you feel?
Speaker 1:I feel peaceful and I feel appreciative. You know I appreciate your reflections, I appreciate the chance to share deeply and I feel peaceful because this is talking about things at the heart of the matter and it's a real privilege and joy to speak at the heart of the matter.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much and cheers to you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much and thank you for what you're creating.
Speaker 2:I want to thank you for listening to the Black man Talking Emotions podcast. The opening quote. Credit goes to Dr Deshane Stokes and shout out to Linda for being on the pod. Follow Linda at L-S-M-H-E-A-R-T on YouTube and check out her latest album, a Recipe for Hope, on YouTube as well. Please subscribe to the podcast, share the podcast and give us a good rating five stars, please, and thank you. You can support the show by clicking the link at the bottom of the episode description and also tell me your plans for the upcoming year. We should collab. Follow me at d-o-m-l. Underscore a-m-o-u-r. On instagram or at domlamorecom. I'm domlamore. Much love, dom L'Amour. Much love.