"Remove the Crowd"
A thought provoking experience to cover topics and views. Striving to empower a community of people to be better. Say uncomfortable things to bring understanding how to create comfort in the same space ♥️.
"Remove the Crowd"
How can you Mend a Broken Heart
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We have (5) Men on this episode to discuss the beginning and lasting effects of childhood trauma.
We are back for another thought-provoking experience to explore how everyday people view topics of our world. We offer viewpoints and opinions all in good faith for the sake of understanding one another as we grow. Inspire yourself to step out of the box by joining me, your host Fleetwood, as you and I bend the needle because I like to uh move the crowd. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to Move the Crowd. And I am excited about this episode. This, this, this is the embodiment of Move the Crowd. I have five brothers on this panel, and we are going to do some work today. So, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna introduce this title. We're gonna have a short intermission, and we'll come right back with the bios, introduce themselves, and we're gonna get to work. And this episode is called How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?
SPEAKER_10A Broken Home.
SPEAKER_08Alright, alright. So I got two of my brothers, all five of my brothers, I've known for an extended period of time. But my first brother wants to introduce himself. He's been on Move the Crowd a couple of times. I'm gonna let him introduce himself, tell us about himself. Go away, brother.
SPEAKER_06What's going on, fellas? Uh, my name is Milton. One of the younger viewpoints of the crowd. Uh, this is uh something that I really, really enjoy doing. It's good to open up, it's good to see fellas fellowshipping, bringing everything together, bringing different views together. Good world to be in.
SPEAKER_05What up, fellas? My name is Anthony. I'm a father of two. Um, I mentor a lot of young fellas in basketball, and I'm uh happy to be here. I really enjoy being on the podcast.
SPEAKER_00Uh my name is Lou, um, and I drive dump trucks.
SPEAKER_09What's up, everybody? My name is Van Zeko. I go by Van. I'm a graphic designer, uh, pawnbroker, manager. I have two kids, one grandchild. They call me pop pop. Um, I'm probably the old head of the crew. I'm 51.
SPEAKER_01Damn.
SPEAKER_03Good afternoon. Um Jermaine. I go by JD. Um what am I here? Uh uh Operations, head of operations at UBM, founder of ABX, um, father of many. Next podcast. Oh, the 42. I'm 42.
SPEAKER_08All right, so two important things before we get out and come back with our first question. Uh, this podcast is primarily inspired by Milton. He's been in the season of awareness, and he came to me and said, Hey, I think we need to talk about this. I said, Oh, really? Let's make it happen. So he inspires it. JD is the one that provides the space for this to happen. He opened up the doors of the of the studio so we can do this. So without these two brothers, this episode would not be possible. So we're gonna go into our first question. First question is Can you identify what broke your heart as a child? I'm gonna start with Van.
SPEAKER_09All right, so one word, one syllable. Crack. Okay. Um and I'll bill a point, then we can move on to it, probably another brother for their answer. Um, for me, uh, I'm a product of the 80s, 70s, 80s. And my mother had uh started abusing crack um around the time I was like maybe 11 or 12. Uh, and that's when everything shifted and changed. Before then, life was pretty stable. Father was in and out, but you know, I knew where he was at and I knew him. Uh, but crack changed everything.
SPEAKER_08And that that's where you identified. Is there a specific you're saying that period of time is what broke your heart? Do you have a specific, do you have like a memory like this? Is where um, because as Newton understands, I tell him, Ayala and some people identify with the moment in which your heart is broken is where you're stuck at emotionally. So do you remember like a specific place where you, if you can picture a little boy standing there waiting for somebody to come back, do you remember that time?
SPEAKER_09Many. But one that stands out is uh what would happen occasionally because I was a uh non-sleeping child, I always stay up late and I would see my mother leaving out from the kitchen window, going to cop. Um, so that's kind of a you know standout memory.
SPEAKER_05Okay. All right, uh, brother Anthony. Yeah, I was gonna say it's funny because our stories are similar. Um it was that crack epidemic for me too. But I I can remember exactly where I was. I was in Brooms Island, Maryland. We were renting a house above the white people who lived in the basement, and my mom literally telling me we're about to move with my grandparents. And that move is what set the trend. She got with my uncles and it just went left from there. I think that was the only time that we literally ate dinner together. We it was family, it was me, her, and my sister. You know what I'm saying? And at that point, that's when it just fell apart. How old were you? I was in the fourth grade.
unknownWow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
SPEAKER_03Okay, JD. Definitely, but um, I lost my dad at the age of seven um to heart failure, well, heart and lung failure, um, due to secondhand smoke. However, um at seven I couldn't process the I guess the emotion, so I never cried and that pretty much um restructured uh I saw life uh emotionally because I tried to figure that out, especially through my teen years. So if I had a moment, then y'all would tell me you was you were saying uh being able to flash back to a moment. But I I held that moment in my head, like standing at the casket, trying to figure out why I wasn't because I knew I loved my dad, but I couldn't process the emotion, but I didn't understand that until I became an adult. So through my teen years trying to figure out that yeah, that was that's the moment.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_08Okay, Lou.
SPEAKER_00Um I remember sp uh specifically, I think I was um probably seventh grade. Uh you guys remember Career Day?
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Different folks come in, firefighters, chefs, all of that, you know, intrigue kids or what you want to be when you grow up. So I remember uh distinctly there was a chef that came in, and I don't know what it was about her, but in that moment I knew exactly what it was that I wanted to do, you know, as a kid. So um my mom was married at the time, my stepfather, very abusive uh relationship, extremely domestically violent. And I remember coming home that day, we were riding in the car at a 1989 uh white Cadillac El Dorado with the Burgundy Leathers. We were coming across Silver Hill Road and with Marlborough Pike intersects, ex on the right-hand side. So I'm telling them about, you know, the whole day, what's going on in school, career day, this, that, and the third. And I tell uh my mom, I said, I know what I want to be. You know, a jubilant kid, you're excited, you're telling your parents exactly what you, you know, what you want to do. I said, Mom wanna be a chef. She was like, You want to be a chef, you wanna be a chef, da-da-da. You know, your mom's gonna always encourage you. My stepfather turns around, he says, a chef, he said, Man, you ain't gonna never be no chef, man. Turn around. Shut up, said that. And in that moment, as an adult, going through therapy and and recognizing and understanding what exactly happened, in that moment, it was um, it was almost like defeat. So, regardless of of what I got into as a uh a growing boy into a you know a young man until I did the healing on myself, it was always gonna be this feeling of uh of defeat, regardless of what it was that I did.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_08Wow. All right, Milton. Let's go, man.
SPEAKER_06It's funny that you picked me to go last because all of our roads intersect. At Marlborough Pike? No, pretty much. Not far from me. So my dad uh was on drugs pretty much his entire life, so wasn't there. My mom didn't know he was on drugs until she had me, and they locked her up after she gave birth because it was cocaine in my system. Um, so he was in and out. My grandmother passed when I was in the third grade, so I was eight. And even though my mom was there, we lived together. My grandmother lived next door, she worked so much, my grandmother helped raise me. So seeing her every day, didn't know she had cancer, and come home and she's gone, I shut down. Um it was a rough transition when she passed. So those are kind of my breaking points. Oh I was eating. And then she did get married, my mom got married. Me and my stepfather had a great relationship until my little brother was born. When my little brother was born, you know, we were still cool, hang out, he'd take me everywhere. But when my little brother got of age, he left me up, he left me to the side. Now he could take his son. He didn't have to parade me around. Wow. So it's a funny little field we all grew up in and just branched off from different roads.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_08Okay. That's uh that's a rough first round, fellas. Um, I'm gonna say a few things and we're gonna get on to the next question. Um, you know, as a as a wise man once said, I'm gonna say to each and every one of you guys, you are enough. You guys are enough. You persevered, you're in a place of being successful, and more work needs to be done, always. Acknowledging that we need to do work is half of the struggle. Uh, resources and know-how is a whole different beast. Um and ironically, this is something that Lou does. Uh-huh. He um he's heavily installed in mental health. So that's a great thing for him. And he may have some resources to help everybody if you guys need it, self-included. But um it's uh it's heartbreaking to to hear where everybody's heart broke. That you can remember it, and we all carry it that long. And um, wow, I'll be right back.
SPEAKER_02I can think of younger days when I lived for my life was everything man could want to do.
SPEAKER_10Could never see my told about the sorrow.
SPEAKER_08All right, welcome back. So we just heard where everybody's heart broke for pretty much the first time or the time they could remember the most vividly. Which leads us into the next question. And this question is What relationship suffered the effects of your fracture? I'm gonna start with Lou.
SPEAKER_00All of them every every last one until I did the work to fix myself. Yeah. So everything that preceded that took a hit.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Yeah. That's absolutely true. That's absolutely true. What's the relationship you didn't realize you were fractured and you made it about them? You you really, you know, because until we, you know, accept it or understand it, it's always, man, what's wrong with you? Like, we can't really figure out. We think it's them until some life-altering thing happens and this mirror turns around.
SPEAKER_00Like my relationship with my father, um, him being, you know, absent from 90% of my life. It wasn't until I met my um his father. That the resentment that I had towards him kind of dissipated like immediately. I met my uh my grandfather, probably was like 32. He lived right off of Bennett, uh, old folks home right off of uh East Capitol.
SPEAKER_08That's your first time meeting your grandfather? Yeah. At 32?
SPEAKER_0032. Wow. 32. So even up until that point, I get to forgave my father, but even still, there was there was some residual, something that was still there. Um so I went to meet him and uh opened the door, and this lady, man, she had a mustache, deep voice deeper than mine. She was she was like, uh, she said, hey baby, your grandson at the door. So he came to the door, whole fifth of Vedic off, no teeth, just I'm looking at him, I said, Oh my gosh. I said, Man, if this is what you come from, no wonder why you was never there. And and that interaction, I left out of there, I was it was a weight that I never didn't know that was a weight on me. Because I th I I thought I had, you know, did all the forgiving. But that was that was a part of it too. Wow. And then my marriage, same thing.
SPEAKER_08How did it affect you in the marriage? Um Did you find out during or after, or when did you realize your part in the marriage, the failure of your marriage due to your fracture, nobody else?
SPEAKER_00It's a it's a it's a continuation of story. So you you got my father's situation, growing up in a domestically violent situation, you know, you would see those things and say to yourself, you know, when I grow up, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna be what I saw. Um and the reality is there were bits and pieces of that reality that became my my reality during my marriage. So it wasn't until I did the work to identify why I moved a certain way or what triggered me or why I responded a certain way. Uh getting to the root of it, because it's not just that surface value issue, although me and her, we we've got problems, but it's it's a little bit more deepening than that, and it's not even connected, you know, to her.
SPEAKER_08That's big. That's that's big for you to understand. It's not connected to her.
SPEAKER_00But that's after therapy, man. That's after the work. That's three years of consistent therapy doing the work and uh being honest with myself. That's the hardest thing people can do, is like to be a hundred percent with yourself because you know you're gonna we we can cuss. Yeah, you can't question No, you know you can um you can you can bullshit yourself all day long, but it's only one two people that know the truth, that's you and God. So being real with yourself, that's a hard thing to do. So coming to grips in terms with you know where I was, and then the biggest part of it was forgiving myself or everything that I did in the marriage.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_08You must have rubbed off on me, because one thing I I say, it's really bad to lie, but the worst thing you can do is lie to yourself. Right, and that's the worst thing you can do. You can lie to other people, that's bad enough. When you go around lying to yourself, that's pretty bad. That's terrible. And you start believing it, that's pretty bad.
SPEAKER_00But it becomes your norm. So what what you name is like, I'm nigga, you're crazy. Like, how the hell could you do something like that? That's my norm. I I've become comfortable in this space. And it's not until like you hit kind of like rock bottom to where you you start to really wake up. Because during my marriage, I was smoking weed every day. And not for the pleasure of it, because it's recreational, you can enjoy it. But for me, it was an escape. The react the current reality I was in. So once that that 20-minute highway off, I'm I'm rolling another J. Wow. Wow. All right, Brother Milton.
SPEAKER_06Wow. Same boat. Um, all of them, but I didn't really realize how bad it was until I started going through my divorce. Um me as a person trying to hold everything in, men don't cry, be strong, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The frustration and the stress turned to anger. And I lashed out at everybody. I mean, everybody got a piece of it. Um it was to the point when I realized it, I wouldn't even stay in the house. Ring sleet snow. She started arguing, we started arguing, I would leave out. Because I didn't want my kids to see that side of me. Because that's the same thing I had to watch my mom and stepdad go through.
SPEAKER_00What side was that?
SPEAKER_06The the fighting, the cussing, disrespecting each other, and my two oldest are girls. And that's not what I want them to look for in my absence, if anything was to happen to me. And then my son at the time was five. So that's not what I want him to grow up doing. So I would leave the house. I slept in my truck, stayed with friends, whatever. Just to escape that, so they wouldn't get it. And like you said, you you see it and you try to be better, and you don't realize how much stuff you drag with you.
SPEAKER_00It's in you, it's downloaded in you. Program. That's good.
SPEAKER_03Ooh, JD. Same but a little different, right? So I think uh the relationship that was the most damaged was the relationship with myself. So losing my dad early on, um and not so during that time coming from the city, like y'all was talking about the the uh crack epidemic, and a lot of my friends and their parents were in that situation, but I wasn't in that situation. My dad, um he literally lost his life from secondhand smoke from working, basically. Uh he had asthma, bronchitis, the doctor told him he couldn't keep working in clubs, he kept working, had to take care of his family, literally kept working, it killed him. Everything gave out. Um so and understanding that, connecting to that and losing him so early, but not having much to go on, and then hearing the stories of okay, well, he's a ladies' man, he had this, he had that. So you I targeted things that I heard that um didn't necessarily serve me as a young man that eventually led to causing issues in my marriage, which I'm learning now, um going through the separation, that even though there were things we both did, some of the stuff was just inherently hurting myself, not even necessarily hurting her with some of my decisions. So if I had to say the relationship that suffered the most probably was myself because I'm just at 42 starting to get like, oh yeah, no, probably shouldn't have. That part. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_08So it's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, yeah. As long as you get to that point, you know. I mean, you here 42. I mean, some people can get to it till 62, some people it's 102 and gone and still ain't get to it. So the goal is to get to it, you know. It's that's the difference, is is knowing when you hit the wall and the work begins. You know, when you when you're at your lowest, that's when you have to climb the furthest. Yeah. You know, you you gotta acknowledge it there first. You know, you you can walk around and you can trick the world. Can't trick yourself.
SPEAKER_03Getting there is tricky though.
SPEAKER_08Uh well, yeah, I agree. I agree. You know, uh sometimes, not even sometimes, no matter how How much you do as long as the sun is up and people are around, you always have to let down by yourself. I'm telling you, when it's when it's quiet, there's nobody around, everything you run it from will climb on your head and beat you while you sleep. Everything. You can't run from yourself, brother. You ain't got enough pillows and enough dock for you to get away from yourself. I'm telling you, man. It's it's rough. It's rough.
SPEAKER_05All right, brother Henry. It goes back to what Milton was saying earlier. It's funny how all of our stories end, like they just connect. Because, you know, with my situation, it's a two, like two ways. Like it all of my female relationships, I feel like it was hurt, but I think it was because of me, my longing for a motherly love, someone to nurture me. Um, and I think I didn't start working on me until I found out my wife was cheating on me. And and and it was it was crazy because my first day at therapy session, he told me to go stand in the mirror and tell him what I saw. And he was like, I told him, I was like, you know, the strong black man, da-da-da-da-da. He said, bullshit, sit down. And once he said that, I was really like, damn, I don't even really believe in myself to even speak on myself. Right? Um, and we just started talking and going through a series of things. He was like, you know, we can't fix that, right? What do you want out of life? That's what we need to start connecting. What you want and what you need. Um, you know, I was making a six-figure salary and all I cared about was other people. Like, I was sharing a vehicle with my wife. I wouldn't fix my own truck. And he was like, So why don't you have a car? I was, I couldn't answer the question. And he was like, Well, go and get one. He was like, You work hard enough, you deserve it, go get one. Uh next day I went to CarMax, walked in the door, didn't have to put no money down, no nothing, picked the Lexus that I wanted, and I was out. Right. But I really discovered myself when I went to a health and wellness retreat in Jamaica. During that retreat, I actually realized what I was doing in the marriage. My part.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Right? Um, and I publicly apologized to her and my kids.
SPEAKER_08That's big.
SPEAKER_05And I also apologized to her directly, whether she received it or wanted to give it back. Don't got nothing to do with you. Nothing to do with me, right? I was able to get it off my chest. That was in 2019, and I'm still in therapy two days a week, bro. Still. Because my relationship with new women are just as fractured. I meet some of the most intelligent, beautiful women, but I don't trust them. They all crazy too. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00Cool. News anchors, they ain't no different. On the next episode.
SPEAKER_05I think my focus now is is primarily me. It gotta be. Primarily me. Like I'm no longer suffering at the hands of no one. If it doesn't fit me, I'm okay now to walk away from it. Because I know my journey. It's like I know through therapy, I know what's for me and what's not for me. And it's their responsibility to figure out that for themselves.
SPEAKER_08Exactly. I don't got nothing to do with that. Yeah, that's that's that's big right there. Pass.
SPEAKER_09Oh man. Um you're right. All of our lives does intersect at some point. Um, our stories at least. Uh for me, it was my mom initially, because of course I put up a wall against her. Um, now my foundation is strong. My grandfather instilled a lot of core values that I had to hold on to. So whereas during that whole season of her using, and she used up until I think I was 19, um, and about to graduate from college when she actually decided to stop for the third time trying. Um but by then I fell back on, okay. So early on, everybody started hustling, started getting money and all that kind of stuff. By the time I was 14, 15, I knew five millionaires. But that was not me. My core foundation and my value said I couldn't do that. I couldn't partake in the selling of drugs or anything. It felt hypocritical to have my mother on, my friends selling, everybody looking like, you know, brand new stuff. And here I am foregoing all of the trappings of what could have helped me, I guess, my uh financially at least, because she was using it, not giving me any money. I, you know, couldn't take care of myself, couldn't work at the time. Um, so I fell back on uh honorability, being honorable. Saying, okay, what can I do to make my life easier? One, first thing I did was forgive her, and that's an ongoing process. Yes. Um, but I had to keep that forefront in my mind that whatever caused her to go out there and use wasn't me. I'm just saying the the results of what's been brought to me. So I had to take her off the hook in a sense. Now I have the words to say it now. Back then I didn't have the words. Back then I just had the actions of throwing myself into what my core was, which is art. So I started drawing more. So I, you know, did that. But it also had to put up a distance between the her then because I couldn't allow so much of that pain in of seeing her walk up the street or bringing some young hustle home. And me and my uh my first cousin was like a brother to me, having to put somebody out of our house who's our age. Wow. Who we know the streets. You know, I might not have been in the streets, but I know the streets. I knew what that was about to do. So those type of things fractured it, changed me in a sense where I became more uh uh quiet, um reserved, observant of everything, uh somewhat distrustful and people. Um yeah. Uh who else did it affect? Um, my two kids. Uh I think that somewhat going through that type of stuff affected them in a positive way. Because one, I don't drink, I don't smoke. Um so I haven't had them exposed to that, especially for me. I stayed in their lives even after her and her um their mom split up. Um and we were married almost 10 years when we did that. Um But I stayed in there, unlike my father. So they don't have that story of daddy, where is he? Right. Um Man, that's tough. I didn't think it was gonna be this tough.
SPEAKER_08I know you didn't. That's why I kept coming to the shop. Um It's okay, brother. We're here, man. Right. I mean, you know. Yeah, we're here. Let's push through.
SPEAKER_09Here's the crazy part. I've been through counseling. I I've worked for a church that uh I worked for the Soul Friday for over 10 years. My brother is uh was the uh assistant pastor or co-founder. And it allowed me to be in a position where because we were heavy on you couldn't even be on staff unless you went through counseling.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_09Oh, that's cool. Yeah, and we counseled each other, we had big meetings, you know, it was everything on the table. So you were you were exposed in your areas. Um, and it made you a better person. Um, it was challenging, brought a lot of tears sometimes, but it also gave me the ability to give me the words to uh express how I felt back then. Um some of my friends got the the walled up me. You know, they don't get the you know, the inner, inner I only have really maybe four really good friends who really know me. Other than that, everybody else is pretty much a close associate or associate.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_09Might call them friends, but a true friend is somebody that I know. I can call five o'clock in the morning. Hey, this is what's going on. Come come over here. And I am that to them too.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_09Um, so yeah, it's it's it's been different. I got a lot of stories, man. I don't know. I got a lot of space for this D color.
SPEAKER_05I'm gonna piggyback off of uh Van real quick on uh I actually had to go to therapy with my mom. I'm 45, and my mom, like I said, have been on drugs since I was four in the fourth grade. And I I had to let that go once I heard her story. You know, she originally started using crack because my dad left her when she was pregnant. Um, her brother at the time, my uncle, was like, you know, I can show you something to help take that pain away, right? Um, not only that, she was molested by her father. You know, so it was like all of those demons that she was dealing with, that was her outlet, right? So it was like I You understood better. Right. So it was like all that anger and frustration that I harbored and not wanting to be in her life or my kids be in her life, it was like, well, well, damn, it's like I I forgive you, you know. So I think that was therapy, it's not just for you to go and have a conversation. Right, you've got to bring those people in the room to have that conversation.
SPEAKER_00But just imagine if you would have had a relationship or your your children would have had a relationship with their grandmother, it would have been the same broken type of situation. So, in a sense, you you're protecting your children from potential trauma.
SPEAKER_08Right. Like what Van said, yeah, you you you try to fixate yourself on not becoming a ghost. It's just a ghost, but it's it's powerful enough that you you you want to face it. It's not there, it's not saying that it's gonna happen. Because you go through things doesn't automatically mean your children are gonna do it. But is it worth risking it? No. No, it's just not. And I think sometimes as men, we overcorrect things by chasing a ghost that doesn't exist. We just and that's where they get the overprotective from. You're over the top, you're this, you're that. No, what I am is I I've my pain is magnified by the thought of you being hurt. So it's not really to you, it seems like I'm overreacting. To me, I'm right where I need to be. But somewhere in the middle, probably is where we should be at. So your sensitivity and my overbearing probably both are wrong for the situation. The goal is to find out where we need to be between the both of us so that you can grow and I can protect you effectively so both of us can grow. I think that's where a lot of us get caught up at. And that's what really affects our parenting-child relationships. They see us as overbearing, they see us as too protective, and we see it as I'm doing my job as long as no harm comes to you. Not realizing we are harming them. So it's not a good thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's yeah, that's another beast. Parents, and that's that's something totally different. I I mean, I know I know I have a five-year-old son. LJ. Yeah, LJ. Um and I don't raise him how I was raised in any sense of the word, from discipline to any of that. I never had to uh beat him. You know, I feel like these children now, they're extremely intelligent. It's definitely. And I can have a conversation with them without screaming at them. Because I know for me that fear, when your father screams at you or father figure, or that they scream at you or scare you. Yeah. So it puts you in this like dormant type of um position. And if you're not strong enough, you can that can really affect you. So for me, I'm like, nah, I ain't gonna never shut you down. I don't care you know what it is. Like, I'm the door gonna always, you know, be open. And my parenting skills, you know, might be different from somebody else's, but talking to them and explaining to them, you know, what's going on, what's happening, why I'm doing this. Like I feel like that's way more effective. Beating a kid's extremely problematic.
SPEAKER_07This is gonna hurt you more than it hurts me.
SPEAKER_00It's allowed. I'm getting the lashes. Not at all.
SPEAKER_03You realize like we believe we that it's not even necessary now.
SPEAKER_00But it's ingrained in you, like it's it's it's almost it's it's systematic, right? Because we uh our ancestors got beat by slaves. Right, right. To do what? To put them in submission because you can't control them. Exactly. But you ain't never slave masters, ain't never really sat down and had a conversation to be able to understand where we're coming from. So we carry that same position. Amen. My mother did the same thing with me, so it's like it's a yeah. So it's like, all right, and let me try something different. Let's see if this works. There you go. You're like, damn, this I don't really get to teach a call. I don't know what you said, but behavior just changed. What people only live at the level they taught. Come on, man. Until you gain some new information. Come on, Lou.
SPEAKER_07Come on through the door, Luke.
SPEAKER_09So I remember being in the second grade, and it's it's two parts. Being in second grade, and somebody in the in the class was cussing, but they was trying to tell me what the person said. So I'm like, with the class is going on, so we're writing stuff down, corner the paper, showing it, no, scratch it out, erase it. Well, I turned that paper in. And you can kind of read what was there. This is the vivid memory. Come on, man. Kind of read what was there. You know, every Friday, you work go home with you, back then at least. And uh my mother's going through my paper and she said, Well, what's this? Just the two things to me. I tried to explain to her. She didn't want to hear. I got two words, and she smacked me across my face and told me, shut up. So from there, I stopped talking to her. At least on important stuff. Um, but it also said to me that, you know, with my kids, I didn't want to do that. So I didn't take the corporate punishment. It actually sent me into uh, as I got older, child development classes. All four years started taking care of other people's kids. So by the time I had mine, I had a five-year plan of discipline. Um that in some cases you have to put your hands on them, not beatings. Because I went through beatings for no reason. I I walked into my mother. We had an open door policy at one point. Walter and her having sex. And I got a beating for it. Wow. And I'm like, okay, that's just crazy. Um I would get beatings for other people doing stuff because I'm in the group. You know, I didn't do it. So for my kids, and my kids are uh 27 in a month and 24 just turned. Um my thing was five years. So first five years, only put hands on one open hand, spanking on the butt, two hits only. And it was only if it was their safety that was in danger, or they put somebody else in danger. Meaning if they was about to set a fire and it was burn the house down or something, but it's also behind it is this explanation. Why did I do that? I go in the other room cry. But I also had So it did hurt you more than it hurt. Right. You know, uh, but after five years, I've never put my hands on my kids. And didn't have to. And the product showed that, you know, one, I had an open policy that they can come talk to me about anything. Um, and again, that it goes back to the foundation that my grandfather put in me, the values, and seeing what my mom had went through early on, and it was like, all right, look, I gotta break this generational curse. If I'm gonna be crazy about certain things, cool. But I can't pass that crazy down. So hopefully by the time my grandson is here now, and he's just turned four uh end of last month, and it's like he has joy. He doesn't see none of that. He doesn't get any of that. So I can see him and see, you know, the the progress that from my oldest daughter, not my oldest, my daughter, my son, to him and say, okay, that five-year plan worked. That open policy of we can talk about anything as long as we're doing it respectfully. You could be mad at daddy. Daddy ain't perfect. Tell me how you feel about it. We can work it out. Um that came out of watch my mother walk down the street, two, three o'clock in the morning, try and call.
SPEAKER_08Wow. All right, so before we uh get to the next question, I'm gonna say a couple of things that um I need to say. Um first thing, I don't own the rights to any of this music. I do not own the rights. Secondly, uh Wednesday, Wednesday, uh my very first friend um he took his last breath. And uh that single-handedly is the hardest death I've ever had to deal with. Um I'm still in it, um uh navigating through it. I talked to his wife today and um it's it's it's a very heartbreaking season for me. Um 46 years, 43 years. It's a long time. Uh to love someone, to have somebody love you. That's a very long time a year. We're related, but we didn't, of course we didn't know we're six years old, but we were related. So we developed this love, this camaraderie, this relationship. And as I told his wife, when I used to go down to North Carolina after school, the very first person I would look for was Danny. And I just wanted to acknowledge his legacy and his life on this podcast. Uh rest in peace, Danny. I love you, brother. Um thirdly, these five brothers at this table had no way of knowing what I knew that all their stories are the same. They they just didn't know. I knew. I orchestrated this that way. I knew you all's stories were the same. That's why you all are here. I knew that having organic conversation into a microphone about your hurt would reach across the table to someone else and inspire them to speak on the same hurt. That's why I did it that way. That's why the table set up the way I set up. That's why I didn't want a round table. I talked to JD about this. That's why they want a round table. All of this is orchestrated this way. I I don't know how or why I had the responsibility of knowing all of you fellas for as long as I have to get to this point where all of your stories, I knew y'all before your stories. And somehow the stories are the same, and you all know each other from a blade of grass. I have distinct blessing, pleasure, and love to orchestrate this effort to symbolize love amongst men and be able to speak about this and perhaps help somebody else and help ourselves and forge a camaraderie of likeness and love through the pain. I don't take any of this stuff for granted, and I really appreciate you guys being here. How can you mend?
SPEAKER_10No one, no one ever told us about the stone.
SPEAKER_02Uh money.
SPEAKER_08All right, fellas. Next question. We've talked extensively about uh trauma and the effects of the relationships. And so next question is how are you managing your healing within your growth? Let's start with JD.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um that's a little tougher. I'm not sure I am at this point, if we be honest, I don't want to tell y'all to lie. Um, thank you. Um, I'm going through literally, I'm moving right now. That's why I was late. I'm going through the process of separation, and my kids are gonna be with me. So I have um eight, well, I have eight, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, but eight, fifteen, sixteen are going with me. Um 14 is by another mother. So I'm literally in that process now, and I've gotten to the point, which I haven't had a chance to talk to you about that, but gotten to the point where I've had a conversation with her, and she's apologized to me about things that helped me look at what I need to do going forward, and I'm not sure how or what to do with that. But um, like I said, in reference to overcompensating from losing my dad with certain things, um, taking on certain roles, because she and I were together since 16. Um, married at twenty-five, we pretty much just spent our whole adult life together. So kind of taking on that role and leading that charge and not really knowing how to take care of myself. Like I can take care of everybody else really well, but understanding now, okay, well, what does it look like to uh Like everybody else saying, like, worry about you. I'm hearing everybody saying, and I'm just looking. That's why I'm looking quiet. Like, oh. What does that look like? What does that look like for me, though? You know what I'm saying? Like, I have no clue how to take care of myself. I know how to because that's that's easy for me. It's as crazy as it sounds. Like, it's easy for me to systematically run my household, make sure this person's good, that person's good, I take care of my mom. So she, but having to kind of sit back, and I still haven't chat. That's what I'm saying. Like having to sit back and really think about okay, well, what does this new journey for me look like? Not for me and her, not for me and the kids. Just you. Now, yeah, just what does this look like? I have no clue.
SPEAKER_00You're not gonna know though. Yeah, yeah. I have no clue. Initially on, you never gonna know. Like when I first separated, my mother was married for almost 30 years. So she knew early on, you know, the stages of grief and everything that I was gonna be going through. So initially, when it set in, uh, it was, man, bro, it felt like the worst. I wanted to die. Like, I ain't know how this thing was gonna work. I got my son, I didn't built this family, and I'm I'm I'm just so confused. She like, you just gotta take it one day at a time. You ain't gonna know if you knew the ending before the beginning, then what's the journey for? Okay. So you you're not gonna know. You just gotta, you just gotta focus on yourself. Focus on yourself. Um find yourself. Yeah. Find yourself and then learn to focus. You gotta be able to do that. But are you in therapy? No. I will highly recommend therapy. Therapy changed my life. Yeah. It was by far the best decision I I've ever made, was going to therapy. And myself, I've been working in mental health for almost a decade. And my first time going to therapy was 34, and it was brought on by, you know, my divorce. Having to face these things head on.
SPEAKER_03Ironically, she's not sitting here now, she slept out, but my mother just said she, because she was standing in the kitchen and she looked at me and she was like, after this is done, and you finish moving and we settled. I want you to go get a physical and go set up an appointment with a therapist. Just for me. Just sit down. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Just make sure you're good. And I'm like, all right. Because it's gonna identify every if you're willing and open to it. Yeah. It's gonna identify everything that's that you feel is wrong with you, things you ain't know what was wrong with you, connected to your dad, how you process, and then overall, especially as black men, we don't know how to process. We were never taught how to process. Well, given the space to process. Yeah, well, given the space or have examples of what that what that looks like.
SPEAKER_08Life gets heavy fast. You know, I I I remember Lou was one of my mentees, and I remember when you came to Just Tires. Life was fast. You you didn't have time. I could see it. You you didn't have time, you're trying to figure it out. You're trying to figure it out. I can see it in you. Uh, you always been articulate, you always been brilliant, but life was just heavy. And it didn't tell you why, and it frustrated you. It just like, why is life so heavy? And it's just not, I can't get a break. I feel like it's following me around, picking on me. Life is bullying me, and nobody wants to tell me, hey, it's behind me, and then when I find it, why are you doing it? It won't talk to me, but it won't leave me alone. And that's what you're saying about not having the proper tools. I I use this analogy a lot, and I use it a lot at just tires when I was trying to help young guys out. One of the main analogies I like to use to describe myself and my growth is when somebody said to me, I need to get my keys out of the car. All I had my toolbox was a screwdriver. So I go over to the door and I mess the paint up and I jam it in the lock and I finally get the lock out. Then I stick it in there and I keep moving stuff around, bending the inner workings of the door up. The door is open now. I get the keys and say, I found I got your keys. Then I say, Well, you mess my door up. You said you wanted your keys. I got your keys for you. Now you complain about your door. I didn't understand that I needed more time to understand to develop tools. They develop tools to help me get in that car without damaging the door. I didn't have them in my box. My mind was there to help all of you guys, but I didn't have enough tools to not create more damage. I was all I was doing was opening the door up, and I didn't understand that I was creating damage while trying to get this, I damaged that. And as I got more tools, I learned how to now adequately open the door and get your keys without damaging the door. But that wasn't the lesson. The lesson was learn how to not ever lock your keys in the car. And it took me forever to get that. The tools aren't there to help you over something you forgot. The tools are there as the very last means to use in case, break in case of emergency. That's what it was for. And I had to learn that. And I was so angry when people would ask me to do things like I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm not paying attention to the damage of the door. I just have your keys in my hand. I I I had no way to understand the method. I wasn't taught. I wasn't given the grace. I wasn't given the space. And that's just all I saw was just here's your keys. So all right, eh?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's that's a lot. You know, I was gonna piggyback off of JD a little bit too, because again, you know, I was with my wife since the 12th grade. So we were together 20 plus years before we got divorced. I didn't cook a meal, I didn't do any of that. And when I left, I couldn't take my kids. Right? I couldn't even, she wouldn't even let me take furniture, nothing. So I had to start from scratch. And let me tell you, sitting in that apartment in those four walls, I cried a many nights, bro. Oh, yeah. Deep by myself, trying to figure out and discover what my life was gonna be like.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, what it looks like on that. That first apartment after the step, bruh. Hey, I ain't had nothing in that junk but a TV. I ain't had nothing, no paint, I had a little sectional, a bed, and that said it was no life or love in that junk whatsoever.
SPEAKER_05Only time I saw happiness is when my youngest would come over. We had joint legal custody, so we did a week on, a week off. Those weeks was my joy. But when he was gone, I had to sit with myself again. You know, so it's like for me, healing and growth is like now, like I'm in a space of I know I still got a lot of work to do, but I also know I'm growing. You know what I'm saying? I'm able to articulate my wants, my needs. When you trigger me, I'm just flat out telling you, that doesn't work for me. You know, so it's like that's where therapy has gotten me today. You know, it's allowing me to make choices for me, even though I know it may hurt someone else. It's like, I matter most. I'm first. If I'm not together, these kids can't be together, and nothing else works if I'm not together. So take the time to get you together. And like I said, we're all here for you. If you need me, let's make sure we connect afterwards. But us as men, we need this love. Yeah. If we don't have this love here and the time to process and heal, it's gonna be a long journey.
SPEAKER_00And it's gonna take a minute, bro. Yeah. It's gonna take a minute. An ugly minute. Ugh, an ugly minute. Yes. I remember Tony when I was first when I was going through uh my divorce, and I just seemed like I just disappeared, I fell off the planet, which I really pretty much did. Um that was like a horrible experience. So we're talking three years removed from all of that. Three years of therapy. It's gonna take you, and that's the timetable may vary depending on the person. But you're something three years, bruh. That's it's a long time to be consistently pushing through barriers, and at every level, it's gonna be some new, some new shit. I'm on year four. Like at every every level, because it's it's like the the where you are now is preparing you for all the shit you're gonna experience at the next level. Yeah, but until you get all these, you know, these tools together, what you need to move to the next level, you're gonna be spinning in circles. But then when you get it to the next level, it's gonna be some more shit.
SPEAKER_05And it's funny you said that because immediately after my divorce, I felt like I've been with a person so long, I needed that.
SPEAKER_00That attachment.
SPEAKER_05I can't tell you how many times that I bought rings for women, and I really didn't even know these women. But I just was longing for a person. Yeah. Because that's what I was connected to and used to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you identify with it.
SPEAKER_05You know what I'm saying? And it's like, luckily, those triggers happen, and I'm like, whoa, I've seen this story before. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07I've seen this story before. You start you start valuing identifying factors.
SPEAKER_04I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Nope, that ain't gonna work. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_05So it's like that's what therapy helped me identify my triggers, how to respond to them, how to acknowledge them, and just be like, you know what? That's not for me.
SPEAKER_00You took it in for so long, that's the only thing that's coming up. Like what you ingest is what you're gonna digest. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09Man, we are probably the same people. I know. It's crazy. All right, so my first ex. Uh, the breaker was horrible. My kids were young. Um, it was all her doing. She she started making money, started going out our route. I have a wishy-washy relationship with money. Uh, I saw what money can do the people that had it. I didn't care for it. Um, I know money's important to have, of course, but at the end of the day, we can't take it with us. Nope. I I value the important things in life. Um, but uh, she didn't. She wanted the greener things, and you know, she didn't see the long term of being with me being that. So she decided to cheat and all that, and you know, still probably don't know all the story behind that, but you know, it ended up with me doing the same thing, being in an apartment by myself, wishing I wouldn't hear. Jesus. Um and I think my mother caught something in my eye. Now, of course, she's you know far past uh, you know, using and all that kind of stuff, so we had developed some sort of relationship. Part two of that story. Um which she saw something in me, asked me one day. I'm sitting there talking to her, she says, You okay? I'm like, Yeah, I'm alright. Don't do nothing. Like, what are you talking about? Don't do nothing. Don't don't do that. Like, but she didn't know that. I was thinking about it.
SPEAKER_08Wow. Mama's no.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_08She had that look before and sold her baby. Right. Wow. So yeah, true.
SPEAKER_09Wow. Two weeks before I was born. True. Wow. Um, so it's like, you know, even though I had this was just like early, early, it's like maybe a week or two after we broke up. And because of the the chaos, I grew up in everything, I always wanted my family to stay together. I didn't want to be the absent father, I didn't want to go down that route. And this is what was forced me, you know, me being forced into. Um, so it hurt. Um, I was the nurturer in the family. My kids got up, if they stumped a knee or you know, bumped a toe or something like that, they would come to daddy. They wouldn't go to mommy.
SPEAKER_00You know, I was the one that went to all the PTAs and name.
SPEAKER_09I cooked. I, you know, made sure they had and all that kind of stuff. So it was hard for me to now be forced not to be with my kids.
SPEAKER_00That's how much every day.
SPEAKER_09I was the one that read the books at night. Um, it was hard. Uh I will say that um after the breakup and the healing journey started, and I started working at the church uh almost a year after we broke up. I saw doing electrical for a while, then jumped in to uh doing graphics at the church and just volunteering. Again, my brother is the assistant pastor, which means I know the pastor, Daron Cloud. So, you know, I'm in just volunteering at the time, get off at two o'clock in the afternoon, so I'm there for the rest of the day. And he came in the office one day, he said, you know, why don't you join staff? Like, I heard stories. So I did, and you know, it started the path of understandings and counseling and all that kind of stuff. Um, so I am an advocate of it. I believe that anybody that gets with me has to go through counseling at some point in our relationship. Um uh on this side of a second marriage. First marriage ended badly. $90,000 in child support later. Um, yeah. And I don't like money, and that's another reason. Um But the second marriage didn't end the same way. The second marriage was we walked into the divorce court, and I'm paraphrasing, I'm shutting the story out. Me and my second wife never argued, we never fought, you know, had those types of things. We had tough tough conversations, but not yelling matches or anything like that. Um, walked into the divorce court hugging, um, arm around each other, and she brought her girlfriend as a you know, support assistant or whatever. I went by myself. And walked in hugging. We cracking jokes during the proceeding. The judge looking at us like, yeah, sure, this is what y'all want, but okay, you know, walked out hugging. Her girlfriend is walking behind us crying. She gets in the car. We know she's crying, we're trying to decide if we're gonna give you something to eat. What do we want to do? And both of us have been counseling for years. I see her girlfriend sitting in the car crying. I'm like, what's wrong with her? So we asked her, she was like, I just don't get it. Y'all love each other like we do. It's just not, this is not for us. And we understood it. So from the time we split up, me and my second wife, to the time, I can well I'd say probably last year when she got a boyfriend, um, talked almost every day. She would go on vacations, being the Gulf of Mexico on a yacht. She made money. It uh would video chat me just to say hi. I mean, it's different when you have the the counseling behind the story of what you went through to understand the stuff that everything's gonna happen. Shit is always gonna happen. It's never gonna be to your liking sometime. So what do you do with that? So I could have took that second time around and walled myself up again. I could have been you did this and woe is me and all that kind of stuff, and hate women and all that. I don't. Um I've learned.
SPEAKER_00Been honest with yourself, yeah.
SPEAKER_09And after sitting them early years, sitting by myself in them rooms and like, and then having good brothers to talk to at the church. Um, you know, it it changed things, it changed my perspective. One of the things that that Lou said that was uh the journey, I always uh had this thing of we all had books given to us when we were born. Each book had blank pages. God knows the story, but you needed to walk that story out. Every day you get to wake up and you turn the page, and it's a blank page. And you get to fill out that page with your day's events, your your lessons, your hurts, your pains, and all that. And that means that if I got a book, he got a book, he got a book, my kids got books of their own. Uh my mom has a book, hers is almost 70 years into it. Um, that means that I can't judge anybody's for their story of where they are now. Uh which also meant that if I didn't know their story, i.e. my mother, um it gave me an opportunity to look at it like, well, let me see what her story like. So after my second wife and I split up, I moved in with my mother. And I've been there ever since, and we're coming to the end of that journey. But I realized I had never lived with my mother for any length of period of time after that started. Um, so this gave me opportunity to one see what happened in her life, hear her stories I've never heard. Um, but I had to get through the wall of her being who she was, hurt and all that kind of stuff in the pain. I had to build a trust with her. I had to be open, I had to let her, ah, lack of a better word, be a terrorist. A terrorist? A terrorist? My mother has anger issues. Tell you. Um, so I had to let her be that and not be reactive to it because she had to get through a certain point to be able to open up and talk to me.
SPEAKER_00Right, right.
SPEAKER_09Right. Yeah. And not see me as I look just like my father.
SPEAKER_00Gotcha. That ain't got nothing to do with you.
SPEAKER_09Didn't got nothing to do with me. So I had to let her get past that.
SPEAKER_00How long was that for?
SPEAKER_09Uh we moved in. I moved in 2014.
SPEAKER_00Until now? Until now. Bruh, you relived all the years that you missed or that you were supposed to have. Exactly.
SPEAKER_09And it was it was on purpose. She didn't know that. This was a conscious thing. I could have moved out plenty of times. You know, this was a uh initially a I need to come here for like a month or so. And then once I got there, I was like, you know what, nah. Let me take this opportunity. Because I may not ever get it again. So let me take this opportunity and do this and be all the things that one, she might not have known me to be. Show her that many kind of, you know, because of course we all have, you know, interchanging stories that, you know, at some point we interact with people that they think they know who you are and they react to you in certain ways. That's how my mother was. So let me give her the understanding of why I am the way I am. How I talk, how I speak, and all this kind of stuff. And it's it's been challenges, it's been arguments and stuff back and forth. Um, but at the end of the day, I'm uh, you know, it did this. During the pandemic, I was about to move, right before the pandemic, I was about to move out. I thought that the that part of the journey was over, it was coming to a head. And the pandemic said, nah. And we went and got my grandmother so she wouldn't be by herself, she couldn't get out and all that kind of stuff, and brought her here to stay with us. And not knowing that that would be her life's journey. And the end of it. So we took that full year, the first full year after the pandemic, taking care of my grandmother. My mother has a sister who lives around the corner, but she wasn't part of it, you know, that that often, whatever. So I was able to show my mother that honorable side I talked about that that my grandfather's uh uh values of being there even in the tough times, and help my mother go through the transition of her mother. Um which I guess now she gets it, whatever. So, you know. Uh and she realizes my mother needs to go counseling. She she realizes we've talked about that. She just gotta do it on her own and force it on her and you know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08That generation's tough, man. It is. That generation's tough, man. They they you think we struggle with mental health, they it's taboo to them. They don't want to acknowledge anything. You my child, you stay in your place, you know what I mean? And and it's hard for them to just be able to understand. Two things can coincide in the same space. It's absolutely possible that I'm hurt by something that you didn't know you were doing. It doesn't mean that you didn't hurt me, and it doesn't mean that you're a bad parent. Right. Both of us have space in the same place if you just can hear me. But that's not what they're taught. They're taught it's it's one way or the other. If you say something and isn't adorned to them, I'm a horrible parent. Well, I spent a lot of time in school and I can articulate pretty clearly. I didn't say you were a horrible parent. Right. Well, that that is what you said. Okay, this conversation's over. It's just now the conversation is more about your emotions and not about the resolution. And you know, it's living at the level you talk. Yeah. Oof, come on, man. I keep telling people, man, how you speak is how you think, is how you show up.
SPEAKER_00What do you mean? How do I mean you can't you can't really fault a person for not knowing? Right. Like if if I know, but I know you don't know, and I'm consistently allowing myself to have those feelings associated with a person that knows, I say something about me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08You expect them to be who they're not, and that's your fault. When people show you who they are, please listen, everybody. This is a public service announcement. When someone shows you who they are, and let me let me let me go sideways in this. I say this a lot. You never can ask anybody to change. You can absolutely say, I expect you to grow. Growth is. Invokes change. So two things. If somebody shows you who they are, believe them. If anybody tells you they don't want to grow, there's nothing left to say. Just like make condition. That's that. If you choose to stay, and I say this light too about God. Once God tells you no, everything beyond that point is your fault. Don't come back. Oh God, how can you do this? God got his back turning. He's looking at TV. He told you don't do that. But you wanted to do it, and they want to come back. How could you do this, God? He was like, man, go ahead. Then I've got the game on. Leave me alone. Yeah. So you know, come on, Milton.
SPEAKER_06I don't want to sound like the broken record. It's it's pretty much the same thing. I mean, I the the one thing I do realize about myself now, I knew it back then, but I hated saying it. I was a yes man. And I was a yes man to everybody. It wasn't just my wife at the time or family, it was it was friends, whatever. Um my pain and hurt went so deep that the only way I could sleep is if I was dog tired. So the drinking, the smoking at one point didn't know anything. So I had to physically and mentally exhaust myself to get any sleep. And it's still like that now.
SPEAKER_00Have you identified why you were uh uh yes, man?
SPEAKER_06No.
SPEAKER_00Have you been to therapy? It's a common thing in uh uh communities. Like we we don't go to hospitals, right, for our uh physical health. We indoctrinated almost like it's it's a black thing, you know. You don't go to the black men don't go to hospitals, right? So you're neglecting your your physical health, right? Um going to the gym, uh going to church or whatever you it is that you believe in spiritually. Like you get those things in in tone, um, but you neglect your your mental health. When one is off, all three gonna be out of sync until you until you get all of them on on one accord. And the like the common thing that I hear amongst everybody is like forgiveness. Like I hear that a lot. In order for you to move to that next level, you're gonna have to forgive. And there's there's gonna be some things that it's gonna be hard for you to deal with, especially you identify it. First, first off, you acknowledge in the fact that you are a yes man. So identifying what is it in you that allowed you to be so I don't want to say subservient, but pleasing. Yeah, pleasing to other people. That's connected to something that you you know you gotta be willing to do the work to identify. Because that's blocking something. That's blocking, it's blocking a blessing, that's blocking growth, that's blocking progress. So a therapist is therapy is essential. And then the type of therapist, that's huge. I need a black therapist. I'm not against anybody else. I need a black male therapist, somebody with some life experience. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, the life experience part. Because I myself, I know four therapists that are broken as a person. Who are you gonna therapize when you are broken as a person?
SPEAKER_00You know how many people work in the field of mental health, social workers, therapists, teachers, all of that that's just that need to be clients themselves? Yes. Like I I work with a lot of them. I'm like, yeah, you have you ever done the work? But it's easy to become a hypocrite. Like I said, I've been in this field almost a decade, and my first time going to therapy was almost four years ago. So I here I am, you know, I ain't necessarily practicing what I'm preaching.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so believe it or not, I have my bachelor's in child psychology. So I'm definitely a hypocrite in that sense. What's wrong with you, JB? That's why I'm over here with my hand on my head.
SPEAKER_08Have you ever seen a walk of shame on the from a stool?
SPEAKER_06Go ahead, Milton. Same, no, same thing. It's like being in church. You know, at this table right here, right now, everyone's telling their own specific story and journey, and it feels like everybody's talking to me. I'm just trying to figure out where to go with it. Um, I was against therapy. I was so against therapy when I was married. Two weeks ago, I'm not paying nobody to tell me what my problem is. I already know my problem is. You I'm not gonna spend a couple thousand dollars right now.
SPEAKER_07I think that's one of the biggest disceplers, right?
SPEAKER_05Like, my therapist costs me ten dollars every time I go. You know what I'm saying? So it's like it's not even three skills, you know what I'm saying? It's ten dollars, brother.
SPEAKER_08And that's part that's part of learning, that's part of learning the different programs and different ways to actually get help. Everybody assumes it's expensive. And you don't know how many people don't understand the difference between a therapist and psychologist. Right. You know how many grown men tell me I'm not sitting on the couch? I'm like, we're on the furniture in your house. What are you talking about? I mean, are we talking about the same thing? I'm not gonna pay nobody to sit on the couch. You don't have a couch in your house? I don't understand what you're talking about. Right.
SPEAKER_07We're talking about therapy. What are you talking about? Right. What you see on TV.
SPEAKER_08Maybe you should go back to night school to understand the difference between the two. And let's come back to this conversation later because you clearly don't know the difference between the two. It's being in love with Tony Soprano. It's being in love, it's that whole thing, you know. Of course, I age, you know, they got it set up that way. And it's like, that's not what we're talking about. That was back in the 70s and 80s with a psychiatrist. That's different. Right. Now we're just talking about therapy, it's more like a more like a running, running tab of what you're doing. It's not getting deep into how you construct it and what's your mom's problem. And it's not as deep. It should be sometimes, but that's only when you bring the problem to them. If they can see the problem is perhaps related to a cycle, then that's when they may go back a couple of generations. But if you go in and talking to them, they're more or less just trying to help you unpack your own thoughts. And the fact that a lot of African Americans don't know the difference creates pause within itself. And so to be factored with, lack a better word, the ignorance on top of the broken cycle of therapists, that's why we're in trouble. And and they have this false facade of I'm in therapy. So, and well, let me real quick, but let me say, I'm I'm a victim of this. My daughter says she's in therapy, and she sent me a long text last year saying, you know, you never were there for me, and I don't want you to talk to me again. And I'm like, but how did you go to a therapist to talk about me and you've never had a conversation with me yourself, and your therapists have never talked to me. All you have is the optics of a child. You don't understand correction, you don't understand my job as a father. If you ask me, I can have this conversation with you. And if you text me like that again, I'm gonna cuss you out. I'm just keeping it 100. I'm your father. You don't disrespect me that way. So we haven't talked since June. Well, I'm sorry, we haven't texted since June. Uh-huh. And her, when I talked to her last, she actually said, When you called me, it was too much. So when I called you, it was too much. The once a week I called you. I understand. And then when she told me she was in therapy, it made sense. You're spending time with someone broken to speak about somebody that you don't talk to about something you don't understand. That would invoke a text that looks as crazy as it did. And that's fine. That's that's the wave of where we are now. I was upset about it, and I'm not so much now because she's 27, she's a college grad, and she has a career. I don't need to be your friend. Job well done for me.
SPEAKER_09Let me jump in real quick. So, three things. Uh, people pleasing. Um, one of the benefits of working at the church that I went to, we did uh plays and drama artists is what they called them. One of which was called People Pleasers. Um, I'm gonna see if I can get that DVD for you. Oh, because one of the things I heard in that that always stood out was no is a complete sentence.
unknownDamn.
SPEAKER_09Wait asking you of things, or if you feel like you're always generating yourself to do things for other people, you have the right to say no, and you don't have to have an explanation behind it. No is it in of its complete sentence. Wow. Um my kids are older. I don't know. You said your oldest is what? Uh 16. Yeah, yeah. My oldest is 27 next month. Um, one of the things, again, I always pride myself on is having an open communication with them. Uh however, I didn't have that with my own father. Um, but also did not reserve any anger because I didn't know his story. Uh when he would call when I was younger, and we had a short period of time where from like birth to seven or eight, when he decided to get married to my stepmom, that we saw each other a lot. Um and after that is when things went awry, and him and my mom's relationship got really chaotic, and anytime he would call to talk to me, I would never get on the phone because they had an argument and uh, you know, things went south. So I never had a chance to even, even as a young kid, say that anger, Daddy, why you not here? So as I got older, gone through counseling, got my own family, um, I had an opportunity to now uh uh sit him down and ask him, you know, look, we we grown men now. I don't have this anger. I can build the anger from this point depending on what your answers are. But I'm giving you the opportunity because I never passed judgment. Again, I don't know his story in that book. So I needed to hear his story to see why he wasn't there after a certain point. Um and luckily I had the opportunity to do that two years before he passed, which was great, and to build a we had a great relationship after. Um people pleasing. Yeah, that that's a that was that's a that's a strong hit.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I mean I I think I know what it is, but I'm not a hundred percent. Um and honestly, it's not something I talk about. It's something else that I just bury way deep down and I just cross that bridge when I get to it. I just didn't expect for that bridge to be today.
SPEAKER_08No, it's not. It's not, it's not. You identify it and you you write it out, write your thoughts out, and you know, as you seek therapy, you can speak on that.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_08That's all. You you know, when when you unpack things, write them down so you keep them. So a therapist is gonna say, hey, what brings you in today? You know, when you get there, you start to say, Well, there's X, Y, and Z. But you always have your notes to talk about that whenever you're ready. So, you know, there's a cause and effect, so a lot of things that we go through. Yeah. So, you know, you can absolutely take your time and you get to it when you get to it. You know? So I wouldn't I wouldn't consume myself with it as of now. You know, just let the bridge be toll-free until you're ready to cross it. So when you when you get to that bridge, you just you just cross it then and worry about it then. We're gonna round this out with Lou. Um, how you managing your healing within your growth.
SPEAKER_00Um every day. Uh what I'm what I'm taking in, being conscious of what I'm allowing into my space. Filtering, you know. Pretty much what I'm bringing in. That's a daily thing. I was waking up, that's meditating, that's what I'm reading, that's my daily activities. And then checking myself, because every day ain't gonna be a perfect day. That's right. But just being real with myself when I'm having those moments to, you know.
SPEAKER_08Keep your day manageable.
SPEAKER_00Not even that, but accept those feelings when they come, process them and keep it, keep it, keep it moving, as opposed to harboring and sitting on it and constantly dwelling on it. Like, take it for what it is. You're gonna feel those moments. It's it's cool. Tomorrow'll be a better day and keep it rocking.
SPEAKER_08That's dope. That's real dope. I'm I'm proud of the work you're doing. I I can see it in you. Well, use a firecracker. Wow.
SPEAKER_00Lou would go from zero to 200. And sideby, if y'all need a therapist, I can get you a therapist.
SPEAKER_08Um that's why you're here, Lou.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that was actually going to be on the next question because just last week, my therapist literally uh shrunk his caseload. Okay. So it's like now she was like, she can see people once a month. So it's like, nah, I'm not at them once a month, you know, stage in my life.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna give it a shot.
SPEAKER_03Give me some time. I'm gonna give it a shot. So definitely give me the information before I get it back.
SPEAKER_08Okay, okay, cool. We'll be back shortly for our last question to wrap this up and get out of here.
SPEAKER_02Just wanna, just wanna, just wanna, just wanna, just wanna do that.
SPEAKER_08All right, back for the last question, and uh, I want to again extend my my gratitude, my love, and my thanks to my brothers for facilitating this podcast. It's been a phenomenal journey. It's everything I thought it would be, and I couldn't think of five more stand-up solid brothers to share this with. Last question, and let's get out of here, because it's been kind of heavy for a Sunday. Lana Richie said easy like Sunday morning, but it ain't been it easy. Where would you like to have support in this process? Where would you like to have support in this process? We're gonna start this out with Lou.
SPEAKER_00Um I don't know how to answer this question.
SPEAKER_08Well, I mean, you're already doing your work, so you know you can reflect. Yeah, you can reflect, you know what I mean? This because you're doing your work. So this is really designed for people who haven't gotten to the realm of mental health yet, and you're in it. So speak from a point of your mission. Where do you feel men need the most help? Where in that process do they need the most help? Do they struggle with identifying, finding somebody continuously going?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, identifying is the biggest problem. Like, like I said all day, being real with yourself. Uh where you are and what it is that you're going through, finding a therapist, that can be a challenging issue in and of itself. Because, you know, some people have preferences. Me personally, I don't want a female therapist, right? Simply because I they sp they're speaking from a different perspective and point of view, not to say anything wrong with it. It's just I need somebody who understands what it is that I either have gone through, went through, and can help me, you know, mitigate, you know, the situation. Um getting started, it is it's up to you. But oftentimes it's brought on by like a traumatic experience. Me, it was it was a divorce. You you're going through a divorce, you went through a divorce. You're dealing with the situation. You know, it's it's always a traumatic experience that brings it on. And one of the things that we've really been trying to do uh at this agency is called life enhancement services, is really kind of break down the misconceptions of how our community, you know, views mental health, and that's oftentimes associated uh with a person that has a cognitive disability. And that's that's not the case. Your black man in America, black person in America, you've been through some level of trauma, so you should be seeing, you know, some therapists. It's just that you gotta, you know, get through the wheeze of what that we've been downloaded to do, and that's not take care of ourselves in in that capacity. Um for me, it has been probably the the the most eye-opening experience, you know, I've ever had in my life. Like ever, period, going to therapy. Because it it opened my mind to different avenues to see different perspectives of um you know things that I've been going through. Taught me to learn how to listen to uh understand versus listening to respond. That's big. Because most of us we we like uh we head trigger, so we I don't give a damn what you got to say. We know what it is that I'm about to say to you, so what's it? Go ahead. It's coming off. It's like a six shape. I don't care what um but it it taught me uh a lot, man, and it's it's helped me to help other people uh who in the same situation as black men. Um I wrote a uh self-care. Well, I didn't tell you, Tony. I ain't tell nobody, I haven't even uh released it. Well, promote it. But I did an ebook. It's uh self-care for black men, so it helps you to identify um where you get started as far as self-care. For me, um it was, you know, getting my nails done. Like uh growing up, you like that's soft. You don't get your nails done, man. I I it's an enjoyable experience for me, man. Getting getting facials and taking and going on vacations, doing things that I enjoy, that I love, that bring me gratification at the end of the day, helping people. Like that's that's self-care. Um, you hear women talk about it a lot, like especially black women. You constantly hear self-care, self-care. And nothing be wrong. Yeah, but for us, it's like, all right, where do we where do we start? Because we we're we're taught to grow up in a very stoic kind of uh sense, meaning that you gotta be hard. You can't be soft, and if you soft, you're a bitch. You can't show no level of emotions if you do. You know, you just you soft, and you don't really want that. What that ends up creating at the end of the day is who we've become and who we walked out, uh uh walked into.
SPEAKER_08That's right.
SPEAKER_00Invulnerable men, we're invulnerable boys that became invulnerable young men that became invulnerable men that has destroyed relationships in our lives because of it.
SPEAKER_08And fulfill a status quo of everything other than ourselves.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And until you get the work done, until you start doing the work 100% emphatically, you're gonna be stuck in that place. And if not for you, do it. Do it. I wouldn't even say do it for your kids, man. Because if you're successful in doing the work, your children's gonna be a byproduct of yourself. You don't really gotta worry about LJ having a you know a good sound mind and making great decisions and having a springboard, or you know, great education, all of that. It's I'm worried about the kid that might not have a nigga like me in their life. That's the that's the biggest piece. LJ gonna be straight. Okay. I'm trying to produce a million of me's to go to grab another one. Because Tony did this. What this is, it's just a reciprocation of who he is. Tony, when I was 17, nigga reached out and he grabbed me. It took some work for me to get to where I am now, but I'm I'm teaching niggas just to reach out and grab him and bring him back. That's right. And that's what you did. So I'm I'm producing losing Tonies, man. Respect.
SPEAKER_01Respect. Uh come on, eh.
SPEAKER_05Nah, I was gonna say, uh, for me is is, you know, finding another therapist, preferably a black male. And because, you know, I've been in this this weird space of, you know, ultimately I do want to have a life partner again, right? But I want to make sure it's the right person, you know. And right now I've been talking to a couple people and it's a struggle.
SPEAKER_00Dayton's trash. It's a struggle.
SPEAKER_05Social media screwed that all up. But but it's not even social media, is is it's like when I'm doing my work and another person's not doing their work, and you can tell they have some things going on and they're not doing their work, it's hard for me to sit back and be like, oh yeah, we're gonna work because I'm constantly growing and working on me and you stagnant.
SPEAKER_08Stagnation and loyalty look the same.
SPEAKER_05It's not gonna work.
SPEAKER_00Chances are she's scrolling. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But that's the thing. So it's like, how do you how do you get to that point? And without having me being healed and having those tools, like I I won't even see it. I'll miss it. And I don't wanna miss it this time.
SPEAKER_01You know, let me let me
SPEAKER_09Don't chunk first down this one. Go ahead, man. You know, I I used to look at being divorced as being uh uh me being somewhat of a loser. I lost. Yeah, you know, I didn't conquer, I didn't you know win that battle or whatever.
SPEAKER_05Inadequate.
SPEAKER_09Right. That's the first time. Second time, I'm like, I already have an understanding that I can't change this person. I I literally have no expectations on people. You know, I well, I mean, I'm sorry. I expect people to be who they are. And that allows me to say, okay, that if I do that, that means that I can't look at somebody else's journey and whether or not they're on the page of bettering themselves. It's a it's a form of tolerance now that I have to have what do I tolerate? How much of that person's BS can I tolerate? Everybody got BS.
SPEAKER_00It's just how much you can do that. How much are you gonna deal with it?
SPEAKER_05It's all gonna come with some shit. And Tony tells me that all the time. Everybody comes with baggage. Who baggage do you want to deal with?
SPEAKER_07It's the end product. It's the end product, you you because we're not a high school. You don't you don't date for love. We're dating for who we can build with. Everybody has luggage. It's when you open it, what's in there? Are they gonna fit your end goal when you put up with what they have?
SPEAKER_08And and here's the thing: if you have somebody that's pushing you and it's like, man, I don't know if I can deal with this, nine times, 9.5 times out of 10, you're gonna deal with somebody and you have to exert more and they have less. That's called Murphy. And that Bama never play fair. He's gonna make you go through more and she has less upside. I think what's the song says love to when you with.
SPEAKER_07I'm trying to tell you, man. It's a crapshoot. Lou said Damon's trash. It is.
SPEAKER_00That's a badge of honor though for me.
SPEAKER_09I can look back at it with my first wife, right? Both my ex-wives made over $150,000 a year, which was great. But they always looked at their money as their money, and my money is our money. That's that book.
SPEAKER_00That's that was that was when my first wife.
SPEAKER_09What year was this? Oh, yeah, that's yeah, the antithesis right there. You know, when when people saw that when women started looking at life as I can do bad by myself, I'm better than him, not understanding the mindset that this man had, that he had longevity mindset, not short-term I'm gonna go on a vacation mindset. So looking back at her at her at her story now, she's been in and out of two other engagements, four stalkers, uh man, uh foreclosures, with the type of money she's making. And behind her decision making of leaving me, she could have we could have been in a nice spot, nice place. And I'm talking about relationally, right? But she chose something different. Now, I don't hate her for it. She still had that book of hers that she had to write out the pages on. So I can I can just look back at it and say, hmm, I see the end result of that right there for her. And we still communicate now. Of course, we have grown kids and grandson now, so we still have to be in each other's face. That's never gonna end. I don't relive any of the pain that she sent me through, any of the cuss outs over I moved to Atlanta for a couple years, and you know, you coming up here for this event for the kids. I'm like, I'm here working.
unknownAll right.
SPEAKER_09I just can't pick up and leave. Ain't nobody got money like that, you know. She do. She did, yeah. But she didn't pay for anything.
SPEAKER_08That's but she expects you to. Yeah, yeah, that lack of empathy.
SPEAKER_09It's it's a million and a half stories with that one. But Curtis Blue. So I'm with Lou on this one. You know, uh I don't write books, I do art. So in my art, I get to uh meet clients who always say that I don't build clients, I build relationships. It's put me indoors I would never thought I would have even tried to walk through. Um I do not advertise. I didn't even say my name or company when I first said I do graphics. Um because it's it's secondary to the mission in a sense. My mission of being an artist is cool. The primary thing is my art is to inspire or touch somebody's heart. So if that's the case, then I'm a God's tool to bring people to some understandings or something. But he wrote a book. I've covered many books that deal with the same similar type of topics. Um I'm all about the you know uh seeking help, um, opening up, breaking the the social norms of what you know people think men are, black men specifically. Um I would consider myself one of the more stoic of that type of men, but I come from an older you know background. My grandfather never worked for a person in his life. You know, he always had his own business with competer and self-made and poker hustler. Um real quick, this is the type of grandfather, this is the type of lineage. I come from the same hometown Harry Tubman came from.
SPEAKER_08Hey, that's dope because her husband's from my hometown.
SPEAKER_09Um my grandfather uh was in the motorcycle gang early on. I heard a story that was confirmed years later by uh old friend that of his that he uh in his 60s was at a beach at a party and was walking past two cops and his cops was trying to harass him and he knocked them out. Both of them. Knocked both of them out.
SPEAKER_08I'm glad you're here, Van.
SPEAKER_09I'm glad man here. So this type of person that's Dorado that once he had a conviction of putting down, you know, what his morals and his you know self is when he was an unmovable person. You couldn't just sway him any kind of way mentally. He instilled that in me and my brother. First of all, but you know. Um so I have that, that gives me that that foundation of I can be the man's man. But my understanding of not being the people pleaser, knowing that I have to be saucy, I got a daughter, I can't just be a hard dude all the time. You know, I gotta be relational to my you know, my girlfriend or my two ex-wives. I can't be the hard guy all the time. So I get to wear pink now, you know, with understandings of I can't be that hard black wearing guy all the time. Um so there is a difference of trying to sway off of being the what people think black men should and are.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Okay, JD.
SPEAKER_03So sit here and listen and thanks again. Another time. So I I don't really know. Uh I mean, as I listen, and I'm not in a situation like I will have my kids, right? I um I do take care of my mom, so I have my mom with me. Uh the studio and the kids I mentor. So I'm not I'm not in a space where I really can say I don't have a village around me, right? But I I have no idea what it looks like now to because I spend so much time just making sure, you know, she's okay. They're not gonna be a good thing. You sound like a man. It's just it's like okay, I almost feel like I really shouldn't be complaining. You know, it's just one of those things. But I shouldn't really be complaining because I I'm okay. I'm not like not in in depression or something. Who checks on you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but that that village that village around you is not don't have to do the work to fix you. Who checks on you?
SPEAKER_03That's so that's what I'm telling y'all. I I don't I have no clue on how to connect.
SPEAKER_00So it makes sense, makes sense.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I don't know. Maybe because I feel like I shouldn't, I have no reason to wisdom of motherfucking and I probably should be focusing on myself, but like I don't The wisdom of mom was right then.
SPEAKER_08You you you that's where you're at. You're at the point where you need to seek therapy. That's where you're at. Because that's what it is. When you get to a point of saying, I don't know, which a lot of men won't say, I don't know. And I had this I had this conversation with Milton. You got to be at a point where God breaks you and you completely take your hands off of yourself. I don't know. I don't know. You have to let him break you. And when he breaks you, then he can rebuild you. You you're trying to fight a fight, you're gonna lose. And the only person that's gonna lose is you and everything that's up, that's that's worried about you. Everything that you're responsible for is gonna lose. Because you don't have the responsibility of just saying, I don't know. You you have to let God break you.
SPEAKER_00Have you ever been broken in a relationship? Like I'm talking like broken to the point where you cried in such a way that there's it was like some soul stirring type of cry.
SPEAKER_08You question your masculinity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean not. No, I'm talking like I'm talking I'm talking break your s your soul.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, because even So the answer is no. And I mean, even with this situation, it hasn't we we fought through the process to come to where we are, but that's it's it's still not to that point. It's like we just understand we we aren't good for each other.
SPEAKER_05Let me let me ask you this have you ever been in in your car and just started crying and you breaking.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, that's so that's that's part of the breaking, right? So when I tell y'all about my dad, like that whole process from seven to probably eighteen, every holiday season I used to lose myself emotionally, not knowing how to express yourself emotionally. So not on a relationship front, but but just your emotions and how you feel inside. Yeah, like not knowing how to and that's cool.
SPEAKER_08So that that's the emotion we're searching for. Yeah. The same way you cry for your dad, now you cry for yourself. That's all we're saying. The very void you said I felt with my dad being gone, now you're gone. Fill a void for you. Because you just said I don't know where to go. So that means there's no you. That's the void. The void is not knowing how to move forward. That's a void. So you can't try to matriculate through life by tricking life because you're not gonna beat life. So once you tell life, I don't know what to do, you're gonna lose. You know how many dudes are here trying to beat life?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_08I mean, and they lose, I mean, handly. Life just don't even bring a sweat beating you up. And you get mad and like, I can't believe this happened. I can't believe you're still trying to beat it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and that's sucked though.
SPEAKER_05That community and that voice that you're talking about, that support, that ain't them supporting you. That's you supporting them.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So it's almost like it's a distraction. So from you dealing with you, you're dealing with them.
SPEAKER_08You don't have to deal with that. Yeah, okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. You don't have to deal with whatever you're dealing with because you can tie yourself up into somebody else. Okay, okay. Hey, Dr. Anthony, I like you. I like this. That was good. You ain't slick milking you next. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07You ain't slick milking you necks. You do try to have this question. No, it's uh you close the show out, Milton.
SPEAKER_06I haven't done this question.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I know. That's why I let you sit over here and stew. Stew. You're shaking back and I help.
SPEAKER_00It's gonna suck, yeah. It's it's it's it's gonna feel like trash. You're not gonna feel good. But look at it like this, though. Um all jokes aside, look at it like this. I'm the best version of myself that I've ever been in my life. I married, divorced, thought that situation was gonna tear me into pieces. I'm extremely grateful for it because had I not gone through that process, I wouldn't be who I am today. So just look at it like Milton, there's there's a greater Milton on the other side of this whole mess that you're dealing with. But in order to get to that greater Milton, Milton's gonna have to be real with itself and do the shit necessary. Get out of it.
SPEAKER_09That's deep. Yeah. If my mother wasn't a crackhead, I wouldn't be here. Damn.
SPEAKER_08I mean, I can't just Well if you're if your grandfather wouldn't have got past knocking them cops out, you wouldn't be here.
SPEAKER_07That's why I said I'm glad you here. Right. That could have changed your whole lineage. Does that sound like a yeah, you hear me, Lou? That could have been a whole different lineage right there. Elite, yeah. They'd have got away with it. On the beach? Man, there wouldn't have been no DNA, no nothing. He'd have been in the water.
SPEAKER_09Hold on, what year was this? I don't know exactly, but it was in the 60s. Oh, Jesus. Oh, it wouldn't have been, it'd have been public. It probably was a civil rights kind of you know foreground.
SPEAKER_08They'd have been upset reporting it. Yeah, what you reporting that for? All right, that's enough distraction. Go, Milton.
SPEAKER_06He'd be trying to hide. I'm telling you. I mean, in a nutshell, yes, I need to seek a therapist. Yes. I definitely see that I need to I need help dealing with me. Yes. Um it's easy to point the finger, but it's a lot of things that I need to work on. Um honestly, I just need to really dig deep and find who I am. That's right. Um, I've realized and I see the change. I don't know if it's for better or for worse at the moment. Um, but I have a lot of people telling me about it, especially my ex. My ex-wife comes to me all the time, and I see the person that you are now, and that's who you started out to be before we got married, and that's the person I fell in love with, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's neither here nor there.
SPEAKER_00You're gonna have to let that go. Don't fall for it. You're gonna have to let that go because see what it's gonna do, it's gonna, it's, it's gonna be an emotional yo-yo for you.
SPEAKER_07Right.
SPEAKER_00And it's gonna it's gonna cause you to go back to those, those same places mentally where you were happy with her. Yep. And then when that detachment happens that really don't exist, you're gonna be back at square one trying to pick up the pieces again and fix yourself back up to where you just just were. So you're gonna that attachment with Shawnee, you're gonna have to uh you're gonna have to let that one go.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because that's gonna be that's that's and then at the same time, she knows that. Like uh she gotta know that. She gotta understand that women are emotional like creatures, they wired that way. And men, we lack emotional intelligence. That's why we be fucked up in our relationships and we arguing all the time because we don't have no emotional intelligence. So we have to create it, we have to gain it. But we we don't know what that looks like. Yeah, we don't know what emotional intelligence is. Like, how do I apply this in my relationship? Like, you don't know, and until you get some, that's when you're gonna understand. Damn, if I just would have communicated this way a little bit differently, or having that emotional intelligence allows you to understand this woman way better than what you would with your own male logic.
SPEAKER_08Absolutely. 100%. Learn your person, not a person, learn your spouse's love language, how to speak to her, which she needs. Right. A lot of guys use the the broad brushstroke, and it's like, bro, that's not gonna work.
SPEAKER_00A bunch of flowers, baby. Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_08She's allergic to them. Right.
SPEAKER_00I like some flowers. You ain't paying attention.
SPEAKER_08You bought her some flowers and some calamine lotions. Back to melting.
SPEAKER_07Exactly. Thanks, Lou. So you agree to go to therapy, and what was it?
SPEAKER_06I'm gonna go to therapy. I'm gonna get my life right. Um, that's what you say in church.
SPEAKER_00I ain't gonna go down the call today. I'm gonna get my life right.
SPEAKER_06Um, Tony was talking about letting allowing God to break you down. And I I thought I did that, and he was like, You ain't do it yet. That's why you're still going around the same circle that you've been going through. Like, just give it up. And I literally left the gun range, let him break me down, cried, felt all types of bad and weird and soft and weak, and that door that I was looking for for so long literally it didn't even open up. It I just fell into it. And he broke me down three times since then. So it's not just letting them do it that one time, it's a continuation. Every time you feel like you're at that that stopping ground, that point I can't go no higher, you got more work to do.
unknownYeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03You gonna keep getting broken. So that's when you say, so even being here right now, right? So when you say I haven't necessarily, I guess that wave of emotion comes in in different ways, but just going through the process in general is a day-to-day thing. So I told bro, I was literally sitting on the U-Haul truck, and I'm like, I don't think I'm gonna make it, bro. He was like, come on, man. I'm like, well, I need a break anyway, right? You need a break to come get broke. But yeah, I'm like, I know come up, we can do that. But I know as soon as I'm done, I gotta go in because I need to get a U-Haul truck back in by the end of the night. I'm not trying to pay that tomorrow. So it's like, okay. It's a continual thing of what what is it that I need to do to be the best version of me. So if this is something that's going to, well, this for me, I felt was something that would help me versus the versus whatever. So okay, I'm gonna take some time and do this. But that's a process of doing stuff like that. Because normally, he'll probably tell you, I would have like, you know what, I got too much stuff to do, bro. I gotta kids gotta go to school tomorrow, I gotta get moved, but I'm gonna be intentional.
SPEAKER_08Putting them in front of you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm gonna be intentional about coming to take this or two out and do this.
SPEAKER_00Because at some point, them kids are gonna get old. They're gonna be gone. You're gonna be stuck. No, and you're gonna have to deal with what you gotta deal with.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. And everything happened for a reason. I mean, I used to curse God. I'm like, why would you not allow me to have my kids? You know, I'm just like y'all, you know, the parent pretty much doing everything. Why would you give them to the lesser parent? And told me, the lesser parent might be for a reason.
SPEAKER_08That word was a little strong. Yeah, he's still a little hurt by it.
SPEAKER_00And that's why he didn't go to the third. Yeah, that you know, don't go to court speaking like that. He already did his thing. He already did. You said lesser parent in court? No, I didn't.
SPEAKER_08All right, but he showed it though. You know, it's it's it's a struggle with Melanie. It's like we're trying to, he's come leaps and bounds on I'm trying to instill in him his value and his worth. And when the judge basically gave the children to the mom versus him, he takes it as I'm less than. And that doesn't mean that.
SPEAKER_00Oh, not at all. Yeah, but that's how he takes it as well. That's just how that's how it's set up. The system is completely set up that way for you to be like that. I've I've raised my son the first two years of his life. Like had him strapped to my chest every meeting that I was going to. So that's a hell of a detachment to have to deal with. I get my son like every other weekend now, and I'm used to it. I live a great life. I'm having a good time. Shout out to South America.
SPEAKER_06I mean, yeah, I'm in the same book, but it took me a while to get to that place.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_06You know, I'm used to seeing them every day. Let's do this, let's go here. So it hurts.
SPEAKER_00It sucks.
SPEAKER_06Just if I fall back on that day when I left that court building, I went home, I put my gun in my head. I was like, I don't have a mom. It's no point. It's no point. I'm in a house that, you know, I got for us, and that was just me.
SPEAKER_00There's no more love in here. I don't know what else to do. Exactly. I don't got like work is work. It is what it is. I don't give a shit about nothing else. Like it might as well roll up out of here. Can I work a double?
SPEAKER_06Can I work a double? Can I work a triple? Yeah. Got nothing to do this week. I know. I saw it.
SPEAKER_08And we and we saw you doing it. And we saw you doing it real time. You trying to hide on post. We saw real time.
SPEAKER_00It's impossible, bro. We kept telling him that, but he wouldn't listen to us. It's impossible. And your and your friends ain't really gonna you gonna you gonna know how they really feel once you come out of it. Yeah. Because some of my homes are like, bruh, it was one point, nigga. I thought. I seen you, you man, I'm glad you came out, but they're gonna be there and encourage you. But that's the that's the process, bro. You're gonna go through it.
SPEAKER_08You gotta get yourself out. I be gonna go around to close it out. We're gonna start with JD. Just go around the table and close out. Y'all closing thoughts? Anything you might want to say, how you feel, anything. Let's go ahead and close it out. Once again, I thank you guys, and I'll I'll close it. I'll close it out for giving me coming around this side, but go ahead and start out, JD. Closing remarks.
SPEAKER_03Look, I appreciate y'all. Uh very, very, very enlightening experience being directly in the middle of the process of going through, I guess, a new journey. Uh-huh. This is it was needed. I appreciate it, folks. Absolutely, bro. Come on, man.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I'd like to say thank you. Uh, this is the first time being on the podcast. Watch many of them, don't know how it was going to be. It was kind of nervous. I I appreciate everybody's story. Um I appreciate them sharing the story. Uh we are my my good man uh Daron used to always say, I'm he was one valley ahead of us. So that means that whatever you're going through, I might have just gone through it yesterday. I came through it though. So I can at least help you. With that part of it. Tomorrow might be different for me. That's right. Tomorrow you might jump over me and be your valley ahead of me. I am glad that even with the thought of not wanting to be here anymore, all of us probably shared that you and everybody made the decision to push forward.
SPEAKER_00Come on, Luke. Listen, guys. Do the work. I just say do the work, man. Milton, uh, JD, you what? Two years coming out?
SPEAKER_05Uh four.
SPEAKER_00Four. Or you still do the can continue to do the work. It's gonna be a never-ending journey. Like, but continue to do the work to heal yourself, man. It's you're gonna be better, better off for it. And then with your situation with the kids, you felt how you felt. You're better off, you're gonna be better off. Your kids will be better off with the you after the work is done. Come on, man. Versus the current you dealing with what you're dealing with right now. So if you put that in the forefront of your mind, my kids are gonna be better off. Not to say they're not doing well now, but just imagine.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Just imagine. Where would be.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_05Come on, man. Yeah, I appreciate you, brothers, uh, for letting me speak my truth without judgment. Um, I think that's important when we get in these circles. Everybody's able to speak their truth and and walk away without feeling judged because that's uh can have someone shut down. So it's like it's good to have brothers in your circle where you can speak your truth. So I appreciate y'all, and I thank you, big bro. As always, you know, I love doing these. So whenever you need me, I'm here. Absolutely, bro. I like Brotherhood.
SPEAKER_06All right. Um I just appreciate everyone. Uh this community just thrives day in and day out. So I definitely uh appreciate the help and the values, and I guess the word for the day is gonna be therapy. There we go. There we go. We're gonna push forward, we're gonna keep doing our work and just start the you journey. Not start a new one, start a you journey. Okay.
SPEAKER_00I'm still in that.
SPEAKER_08All right. Well, uh, I definitely want to thank all you guys again for facilitating my dream, uh for being transparent, for uh allowing each other to grow and to share each other's stories. The optics that I see, because I know all of you all from different platforms, it's my world coming together. I have five different veins of a fractured man that God allowed me to bring together. And it's a beautiful thing to be a part of. It's a beautiful thing for me to see. Um, I am completely in awe and heavily entrenched in gratitude for all of you all coming. Um, this is not easy. The life we live is not easy, the growth we've done is not easy. And I appreciate all of you guys. I love you all, and um, I look forward to doing a lot of work with all of you, individually. I see most of y'all, you know, a lot. I don't see you as much as I want to, but I'm really looking forward to spending more time with you guys, creating more memories, and helping other people. Um I'm not pro-man, I'm not pro-woman, I'm pro-family. I've never been pro-man or pro-woman, I'm pro-family. Our community doesn't need any more divas or any more strong dudes. We need families. That's what we need. If you want to help our kids, give them a family. That's what we need. Um, so again, I appreciate you guys, and I pray that everything that we said did not fall on deaf ears. Um, nothing that was said was a malice. None of it was designed to hurt anyone's feelings. And I appreciate everyone again. I want you guys to tune in again and understand everything you ever could want out of a life comes from God and comes from self. Constantly invest in yourself and be better. And check back in the next time for move the crowd. Love y'all. That's it.
