Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey, welcome back to the light hit Just Right. Thank you so much for tuning in. I appreciate the feedback that I got from the first episode.
[00:00:09] I again, you know, this is kind of a new thing for me, doing it by myself and being back on the mic. So I just appreciate everybody's attention and I'm so grateful that you guys tuned in.
[00:00:19] I want to talk a little bit about the last episode before we move into today's episode, just because there's some things that probably needed to be cleared up.
[00:00:28] I got some comments about, you know, me talking mostly about, I guess, you know, corporate jobs or whatever. I'm definitely not saying leave your corporate job. I'm not saying don't get a promotion. I'm not saying don't work hard for a promotion. I'm not leaving my corporate gig yet, you know, no time soon, actually.
[00:00:48] I'm transitioning to being a life coach. Not quite there yet. I don't have enough clients to justify me leaving my job.
[00:00:56] So I'm definitely not telling you to leave your job. And while you. You're at any job, no matter what that is, I don't care if you work at McDonald's, if you work somewhere, do your best. Obviously, do your best while you're there. So let me clear up what I. What I meant, though, about some of those things I was saying about identity.
[00:01:14] So I still want you or I don't. It's not me. You should still want to get promotions. You should still do what you need to do to get promotions. You should still do what you need to do to stay grounded in your job and be successful. There's.
[00:01:30] I think what I didn't quite articulate correctly was that don't lose yourself while doing it.
[00:01:39] Don't lose yourself while getting that promotion. Don't give away some of yourself to get it. If there comes a time where you feel like you're losing yourself or you have to lose yourself to get that promotion or to be there and be successful, that's when you perhaps look at another job.
[00:01:56] If you're able to maintain who you are, if your boss or, you know, your leadership understands that you're going to still maintain who you are, I'm not saying don't still pursue your dreams in corporate America. That's not what I meant at all. I'm just warning you that it's very possible.
[00:02:14] You know, all of our parents or most of our parents learned the hard way that when you get that silver watch, that's all you get. You know, maybe you got some pension or retirement or something. But if you haven't planned properly for that, you might not even have anything good for that anymore. You know, 401ks or whatever. I'm not saying don't still, you know, chase your dreams in corporate America or entrepreneurial whatever, but just like I told my daughter, know yourself before you get there so that when they start asking you those questions, when they start asking you to sell a little bit of yourself to be in the music industry, or they start asking you to sell a little bit of yourself to get that promotion, recognize beforehand what your identity is. Recognize beforehand who you are so that when you're asked to do that new job, you can weigh it against who you already were.
[00:03:03] So that's what I. That's. I'm sorry if I didn't articulate that correctly. That was the point I was trying to make. I was trying to bring that point home. Maybe, you know, just being nervous, I forgot to articulate that also.
[00:03:17] But that being said, again, thank you so much for tuning in again this week. We're going to handle a different topic.
[00:03:25] So when you hear the phrase man of the house, what emotions rise up for you?
[00:03:35] I would say some people might say something along the lines of horror, and some people might say something like confidence.
[00:03:44] I think all little boys fantasize about the day when they get the chance or an opportunity to step up and be a man.
[00:03:55] I don't think everybody gets that fantasy, though. I don't think every boy gets to fantasize about that because they're thrust into jumping in those clothes that don't fit, sometimes without notice. You know, maybe their dad died, or maybe mom and dad had an argument and dad left.
[00:04:13] Or maybe dad never came to see you ever. Like, you've never even met your dad. You know, he's alive. Maybe he lived down the street somewhere, you know, across town, and you just never met him because he didn't have the interest or he didn't have the time, or you don't. You don't even know why. You've never even spoken to the guy.
[00:04:30] And so then I'm asking, can a woman be the man of the house? Because a lot of times that's what happens when dad leaves or dad passes or something along those lines. Mom has to step up. But can mom be the man of the house?
[00:04:42] Of course she can.
[00:04:46] Can mom effectively be the man of the house?
[00:04:50] Of course she can't.
[00:04:54] You would need an actual man to be the man of the house, so. But why can't some men do it?
[00:05:03] I mean, even at my age, there are men that aren't actually men.
[00:05:10] You know, where have we failed this?
[00:05:15] So my family dynamic, I would technically be considered someone who came from a single parent home. But let me explain that. So my mom is from the country in Georgia.
[00:05:29] Her parents were sharecroppers, believe it or not. Sharecroppers, where if you don't know what sharecroppers are, basically you.
[00:05:37] You get to work. You get. You get a. You get to work on land that's not yours, farming.
[00:05:45] And as payment, which is very. You get very little money, but you get to live on the property that you work on.
[00:05:57] There was an old, old song.
[00:06:00] What was that song?
[00:06:04] I can't remember the name of the song anymore, but it says something about the. I sold my soul to the company store.
[00:06:09] That was a sharecropper song.
[00:06:13] Oh, 16 tons. 16 tons and what do you get? Another day older and a deeper in debt. St. Peter, don't you call. Cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store. So what that song was about was sharecroppers. The way it worked was the boss or the person who owned the land would let you live on the land if you worked it, and then he would pay you. But because you know, you're out in the country, there's not. It's not like you could go very far. So you would buy stuff from his store and end up being in debt because you know you wouldn't have enough. There wouldn't be enough to last you. The money that you would get would not be enough for you to take care of your family. So you'd end up having to get on, get credit from the boss, and you just get deeper in debt.
[00:07:01] But my mom grew up in that environment, but decided at some point that she wasn't gonna be a country girl. So she came to Atlanta with $60. I'm not kidding. This is not a joke. My mother left the country in Georgia and came to Atlanta on a Greyhound bus with $60 in her pocket.
[00:07:24] Could my mom be the man of the house?
[00:07:26] Definitely.
[00:07:28] I mean, my mom has a master's degree now. My mom is very successful.
[00:07:34] She did all that with two kids.
[00:07:37] Could she be the man of the house? Sure. But effectively, no.
[00:07:41] Not even my mom, not even that superwoman, not even that woman who was able to go against all the beat, all the odds, where she should have failed and succeeded to the extent that she did.
[00:07:56] But that's my mom's side, my dad's side. My dad is from another city in Georgia.
[00:08:03] But his.
[00:08:04] My grandparents were together for their lives, so he had a model of, you know, husband and wife, his. His parents.
[00:08:17] And I think that's why he upheld his presence in my life even though my parents weren't married.
[00:08:24] I saw my dad every single weekend. I don't remember. I mean, it's possible he might have missed one or two here or there, but he was so on point that I don't remember him missing a weekend. That's how often I saw my dad. Every single weekend.
[00:08:38] Sometimes Saturday, sometimes Sunday. But I saw him.
[00:08:41] He was a part of my life.
[00:08:45] And it's funny, you know, I had this. I'm doing the same thing now to my dad. Like, you know, I had this amazing story about my mom, and, you know, I just. My dad this and that. But my. My dad is no punk either. He's no slouch. My dad also has his master's degree. He did his thing as well, so no shade to dad. He spent money to take care of me when I needed things.
[00:09:07] I was able to ask for advice. I was able to see how men behaved and acted.
[00:09:14] I didn't get the model of how my parents interacted, really, because by the time I was old enough to understand anything, they weren't really intimate anymore.
[00:09:27] So I didn't get to see the model of how a man treats a woman.
[00:09:32] I didn't get to see the model of how specifically, not necessarily just how a man treats a woman, but during times of conflict, how a man treats a woman, because I think that's the issue, right? That's what the man issue is all over social media. And, I mean, people like Kevin Samuels rest in peace. And there's another pod. I can't remember the name of the guys. They're younger, but one of them is. I can't remember the name of the. I can't remember the name of their podcast, but I'm not even sure if it's a big thing anymore. This was probably a couple of years ago, but, you know, there's so many podcasts and social media influencers who are constantly telling you that there's this situation between men and women that we need to resolve. Men need to be tougher men, and women need to be more womanly women.
[00:10:25] And, I mean, I can't speak for the woman side of it right now. That's not what this episode is about. It's more about the man side of it. And that's just terrible advice.
[00:10:33] That's really, really bad advice.
[00:10:35] I don't think the guys who are, who are providing this, I don't think the guys who are giving this advice either. One, I don't think they had good models.
[00:10:46] Two, I don't think that they're with a woman for real, not in any sense of family.
[00:10:53] Maybe they have a girlfriend or maybe even a wife, but I don't think they have a family.
[00:11:01] I don't think that they're qualified to give the advice that they've been given. And that's why we're in the state of disarray that we're in right now where men and women seriously hate each other.
[00:11:13] And so I don't even need to tell you the stats.
[00:11:19] Black boys are at a much higher rate than, more susceptible to growing up in single parent homes or not knowing their dad at all. And I think, I think the number somewhere around is in the 70s, 70% of black boys grow up without their dads or in a single parent home. I should say more specifically.
[00:11:45] And see, that's the problem, right? So even somebody like me who I had an opportunity to know my dad, I had a dad who understood conflict resolution and could teach me that through actions and advice and time and love.
[00:12:05] But if 73% of boys are growing up without a dad and I grew up in the inner city with them, there's only so much my mom and dad, specifically my dad, can do.
[00:12:19] Because even if I get it, the men, the boys that I'm interacting with don't get it.
[00:12:28] And I can't, I can't be weaker than them.
[00:12:34] I can't allow myself to be weaker than them because I'll get eaten.
[00:12:43] So that's why in the black community this is so much more important. And I'm not, I'm not, you know, saying that. I'm not discounting the white experience at all.
[00:12:52] I, I have white friends and I don't have very many white friends who grew up without their dad. I'm, I'm trying to think back now.
[00:13:04] Most of my white friends either were in, grew up in a married household or had a similar situation to mine where their dad was always around.
[00:13:16] You know, and I know black kids, I know black boys who also had that situation like mine as well. But what I'm talking about though are the stats. This is facts. This isn't my experience versus your experience versus, you know, the silver lining. This is about facts. If 73% of black boys are growing up without their dads, are in single parent households, let me be very specific because I don't know that they don't have dads, it's just that they are in single parent households and they have the potential to not get the love. And the advice that I got me having that dad and that experience doesn't protect me from having to deal with that experience on a day to day basis at school, out in the streets, wherever I'm at, playing ball at the club.
[00:14:03] So all the training that my dad gave me on how to resolve conflicts still puts me in a place where I'm having to be the only one resolving conflict. And how do you think that goes if you're the only level headed person and everybody around you is, or 73% of people around you are not level headed?
[00:14:26] That's boys and girls. Now because see the crazy part about it is it's not just the boys because the girls have seen this same behavior, they've seen this, they've had this same experience as well. So they're not letting you off the hook because you had a dad and you had experiences and you had love and you know how to resolve conflicts. They're like, nah, that's not the way you supposed. You gotta fight, you gotta be hard, you gotta be tough.
[00:14:50] So the environment still has equal to or more influence than even the kids that grew up with dads.
[00:15:01] What happens then in that situation? What happens? I'll tell you the first thing that happens. Goodbye tenderness. Goodbye tenderness. Goodbye gentle. Goodbye compassion. Goodbye love. In most cases, being a man is rough and hard. In those environments, there's no room for things like tears, there's no room for crying, there's no room to even submit to your pain.
[00:15:31] I learned very early that a man or a boy that could not push through pain was never going to be a man.
[00:15:41] You were ostracized very early. You were called feminine or you were picked on or bullied. And I'm not going to be a bully. I mean, I'm not going to be bullied.
[00:15:54] I wasn't willing to be bullied.
[00:15:59] And so it didn't matter how much training I had, it didn't matter how willing I was to turn the other cheek and walk away from something.
[00:16:12] There are going to be some opportunities for me to do that. Yes. And trust me, whenever I had those opportunities, I took them.
[00:16:18] But that's not always possible.
[00:16:21] There were situations in my life where I had to choose the low road for survival.
[00:16:31] And now I'm not saying that adversity is not something that all of us need to learn to overcome. Again, like I'm saying, this is not Just a man thing. Women also need to learn how to overcome adversity.
[00:16:45] The difference I think in our cultures, though, is that even the women that grew up with no dads still have a support system. Women are very good about supporting each other. So when a woman goes through something, that's why they flock together. That's why they huddle up.
[00:17:03] As soon as a woman goes through something adverse, women have this beautiful gift where they all huddle up and they just support each other, they love each other, they just pour into each other. Sometimes in a.
[00:17:15] Most of the times I would say in a bad way, especially if, you know, those opinions or ideals don't align.
[00:17:24] But nonetheless, regardless if it's positive or negative, women are going to huddle up and they're going to support each other. There's nothing you have to be tough for when you're going through something. In fact, women allow you to not be tough. I'm talking about with each other, not men. Definitely not. Because I'll tell you, I'll get to that in a second.
[00:17:42] Women allow you to be sensitive and soft and, and cared for other women. They allow their other women friends to be soft and not have to be tough.
[00:17:56] You lean on me, girl, we'll take care of you. We're gonna go do this, we're gonna go do that, we're gonna get you a massage, we're gonna spa day. They're gonna do all these things to pour into each other. You know, men don't do that. You know that.
[00:18:09] We don't get that opportunity.
[00:18:15] Men don't get that opportunity at all. Because men are not gonna do that for each other. When men go through stuff, the rule is, yo, man, toughen up, get over it.
[00:18:26] You know what I'm saying?
[00:18:27] Distract yourself. Go do something else.
[00:18:30] If it's a breakup or something like, oh, I'm gonna let you, I'm gonna meet, I'm gonna introduce you to this other girl. Just get over her and get on this one. If it's, you know, loss of a parent or something, it's like, hey, man, I get it, man.
[00:18:40] I lost my dad too. Now let' there's so short of a period of grief.
[00:18:46] There's so short of a period of sitting in your pain. We don't know how to deal with pain. We deal with pain by being aggressive.
[00:19:02] The sad part about that, though, what I said I was going to come back to is that women don't let us do that either. And it's not women's fault.
[00:19:12] They also grew up in Those same households, they didn't see a man bear his soul. They didn't see a man cry. They didn't see a man weep.
[00:19:24] They didn't see a man go through something and break down.
[00:19:29] So they don't want to see you do it, because that's not manly.
[00:19:34] So your guy friends are like, yo, that's not manly. Your women friends are like, yo, that's not manly.
[00:19:41] Most likely your mom is like, yo, that's not manly.
[00:19:49] And so where. Where then does a man grieve alone?
[00:19:57] That's where a man grieves. I guarantee you, your hardest friend grieves somewhere.
[00:20:05] Now, it might not be the grieving that you think it's going to be, though. It might not be tears.
[00:20:13] It might be anger. It might be violence, because that's easier, right?
[00:20:20] That's the model we got.
[00:20:23] That's the model we always got.
[00:20:27] So when we grieve, it doesn't look the same.
[00:20:30] Is not a spa day.
[00:20:36] And with that type of arrested development, with that inability for us to actually mature past our angry brain, our angry time, you know, our temper tantrums, we just develop.
[00:20:51] We develop coping mechanisms that allow us to turn grief into anger easily. Much easier now. We trap it all away.
[00:21:01] And at some point, our women stop wanting us to come home, even though they know we're just emulating the model that we've always seen, even though their dad did the same thing.
[00:21:17] But we look at it like this. Hey, our dads couldn't come home. And I'm not talking about me specifically, I'm saying in general, our dads couldn't come home. So it only makes sense that I can't come home.
[00:21:27] That's what being a man is.
[00:21:29] I'm always forced to tiptoe the line of being enough, but not too much.
[00:21:37] Enough, but not too much. We're applauded for being the bad boy. And then we get punished once we get involved with someone.
[00:21:48] And again, women, they know this.
[00:21:53] They see men the same way we see men.
[00:21:55] Their dads couldn't come home either.
[00:21:59] So they expect that behavior.
[00:22:02] But then they also, like, desire us to be the exception to their own rules and expectations, like what they expect and what their rules are. They want us to be the exception to their own ideas of what a man is, their own ideals of what a man is. They don't even realize that that's their ideal.
[00:22:20] I don't know if a lot of people know this, but, like, a woman's first love affair with a man is her dad. And I Don't mean that in any kind of sick way.
[00:22:30] I mean that the. The love that a man gives to his daughter is how she sees the world in a men, in a man way. It's what she expects. That's why a lot of times, if you date somebody who has a dad in their life, they don't take the same kind of stuff that women who don't have dads in their life take. They don't behave.
[00:22:51] They don't behave the same way. It's a totally different mindset. And no disrespect to women that grew up without their dads. There is a difference, though.
[00:23:02] It's not 100%. It's not always that way, but there is a difference.
[00:23:07] And the sad part about all of that is how do we grow with those types of conditions?
[00:23:18] How do we grow where we really need to be? We need to show up in our homes.
[00:23:22] We have to do the work. To be dangerous out in the streets, but still be gentle at home. And that's tough.
[00:23:32] It's tough. We can't use those rough and rugged hands that we use out in the streets to get our way and to make our way.
[00:23:45] We can't use those hands when we get home.
[00:23:49] I remember always feeling like I had to have an edge at home just in case, you know, somebody might break in or I needed to be ready.
[00:23:58] So I needed to always have my edge because I felt like if I was on my heels being a soft guy, somebody could take advantage of. Of the element of surprise and get in the house and do damage to my family.
[00:24:14] So I always felt like I needed to walk around with an edge. I always had to. I always had to have that edge on, you know, that edge on the outer edge going. Because I wasn't. Again, I wasn't going to be bullied.
[00:24:28] But that's so wrong.
[00:24:30] And it's unfortunate because I didn't want to be that way, but I felt like I had to be that way. I feel like a lot of men feel like they have to be that way.
[00:24:44] You have to cut the tenderness out.
[00:24:47] You have to cut the compassion out. It needs to be understood by anyone who's in your vicinity that you don't take it. You don't take none of that.
[00:25:01] It's almost like, you know, how body language is like 80% of everything. So, you know, when you walk into a room and you're meeting someone, they've already picked up on so many clues. I can't remember how many. There's a number, and it's a lot, by the way.
[00:25:15] They've already picked up on so many clues about you before they even speak to you or you speak to them.
[00:25:21] Is that like guys accept that. And so we're going to just always have the energy. You know, it's almost like. And I mean, probably nobody will probably admit this. I don't care. I don't care. I'll admit it. I walk differently in different places.
[00:25:38] There's some places where I need to have more swag.
[00:25:41] And I'm going to use the word swag. I know that's old school, I don't care. But there are places where I need to have a different type of attitude.
[00:25:51] I need to let everybody in that vicinity understand that I carry myself a certain kind of way before there's ever even a need for conflict or confrontation.
[00:26:06] That being said, I do code switch if I'm at work, I'm not going to walk that way because I don't want someone to get the opposite.
[00:26:16] I want to make sure that if I'm in that environment, I don't get confronted or run into any conflict that would make me be that person either.
[00:26:27] And see, that's the weird thing, right? I just called it out on myself. So I can do it at work, but I can't do it at home. That makes absolutely no sense.
[00:26:36] But it's true.
[00:26:38] It's a different thing.
[00:26:42] Unfortunate. Unfortunate, yeah, that's a different thing. But there have been studies done on where they've asked thieves, people who do like, you know, stick, stick up kids and people who mug people. And they've asked them like, you know, what do you look for in a potential victim?
[00:27:04] And most of the time it has more to do with body language than it does anything else. It doesn't matter what kind of jury you have. And obviously if you look like you have more money in your pocket, you're more of a threat than someone who doesn't look like that. But I'm talking about how they choose a victim. Who. Let's say they. Let's say that there are two people who have on jewelry and look like they have money. How do you. How do they choose between those two people? They choose between those two people by body language. Things like how comfortable do they look in their skin, how fast are they walking? And you'd be surprised.
[00:27:40] People who are walking faster actually look like they have more purpose. So that would be the person that they wouldn't attack.
[00:27:48] Somebody who's lollygagging, walking around, looking around like they don't have Anywhere to be, that's the person that's gonna get hit, even though that you would probably think in your head, oh, that person seems more comfortable. No, not actually. The person who's walking with purpose is somebody that they're not gonna attack because they don't. They feel like there's more commitment to what they're doing as opposed to the other person who's lollygagging. But. Yeah, but most of it is body language related, though. How comfortable are they in their skin?
[00:28:20] But, you know, and going back to the gentle or having the edge at home, I mean, that's just so wrong. That's like, what is a woman supposed to do with all that aggression?
[00:28:34] We need help.
[00:28:37] We need a lot of help from each other.
[00:28:45] We need men who are willing to reframe tenderness as not being something that's weak, but as something that's purpose.
[00:28:57] Purpose driven and essential to our masculinity.
[00:29:05] The only way we combat all the aggression is by having equal parts tenderness and figuring out how to mesh that in to our being so that we, you know, all the courage that we have to fight Goliath, we're going to have to have that same courage to soften our grip without being. Without feeling feminine.
[00:29:32] Tenderness is not feminine.
[00:29:36] Compassion isn't feminine.
[00:29:38] Love is not feminine.
[00:29:41] You love your mom, you love your sister, you love your wife, you love your girlfriend, you love your kids.
[00:29:53] But general love, though, do you have general love?
[00:29:58] Are you too mean for love?
[00:30:01] Are you too angry for love?
[00:30:04] Do you have too much edge for love?
[00:30:10] I don't think we get to the place where we need to go without other brothers saying it's okay.
[00:30:20] And I know that there are brothers online right now. There are a few.
[00:30:23] There are a few.
[00:30:26] But it's going to require us to start saying that it's okay. It's going to require us to start forming support groups.
[00:30:34] It's going to require us to start accepting therapy.
[00:30:40] Shameless plug. It's going to require us getting a life coach or some kind of coaching. Think about, think about.
[00:30:50] Let's just take coaching as an example. Let's dig into that for a second.
[00:30:55] A lot of these boys who don't have dads in their households do play sports.
[00:31:02] And that's why the coach in the black community is such a important person.
[00:31:09] Coaches. If you're a coach for, you know, middle school, high school, whatever, football, basketball, baseball, soccer, whatever it is that you coach, you are so important in our community.
[00:31:20] You gotta be a better dude than y' all have been.
[00:31:25] I'M holding you accountable. You gotta be a better dude than y' all have been.
[00:31:30] You're sometimes the only dad we get.
[00:31:34] You gotta be better dudes. You gotta stop touching girls, and you gotta stop coming to school raggedy doing all the things that I'm seeing these coaches do. Yo, y' all have to do better.
[00:31:48] Thank God for the coaches that I had. They were all great men.
[00:31:52] Some of these coaches, though, we got to start holding our coaches accountable, because in a lot of cases, they're the only dad our black boys get.
[00:32:00] Our white boys get, too.
[00:32:03] We have to start holding them accountable. Coaches, you are very important in this community.
[00:32:09] That family of being on a team, a lot of times is the only family some of us get.
[00:32:16] It's very important, and it might be the last family we get.
[00:32:22] Moving on. Sorry about that, that rant, but something just touched me then.
[00:32:27] We need community.
[00:32:32] We need fellowship.
[00:32:34] I don't know if you're. If you go to church, but at my church, there are several groups for all kinds of things. There's marriage groups. There's just men hanging together groups. There's all kind of groups.
[00:32:47] There are all kind of groups.
[00:32:50] We need that.
[00:32:52] We need that.
[00:32:59] But where do you. Where do you practice this?
[00:33:02] Because I want to. I want to.
[00:33:04] I want to give you guys something to work on.
[00:33:09] But right now, what can I do? You're probably saying, what can I do? Right now, I don't have a support group. I don't have any community. I don't have any fellowship.
[00:33:21] I don't know if you absolutely need that tonight, today, wherever you are right now, you can practice on yourself.
[00:33:32] I'm betting most men aren't kind to themselves. I know that, you know, you probably treat yourself to something every now and then, but I'm talking about the emotional part of it, though.
[00:33:44] It's amazing how rough we are with ourselves.
[00:33:49] When is the last time you treated yourself with kindness and tenderness and compassion and love?
[00:34:00] I was a person that used to treat myself pretty unfairly.
[00:34:08] It was terrible how I treated myself.
[00:34:13] I would do something wrong, and I would regret it, and then it would be turned into shame. And at that point now, I felt like a lost cause. I would say terrible things about myself.
[00:34:24] I kept it up to the point where I got so out of whack that I really started believing and then became the terrible person that I kept telling myself I was just living on autopilot.
[00:34:44] But I turned it around by practicing on myself first.
[00:34:52] And that took some of that edge off of me on my Exterior.
[00:34:56] It allowed me to break free of needing to be that edgy person.
[00:35:04] I started with me.
[00:35:09] I would do something wrong.
[00:35:12] I would acknowledge it.
[00:35:14] I wouldn't judge it.
[00:35:16] It's very important not to judge yourself when you're practicing this.
[00:35:21] I wouldn't judge it. I would acknowledge it, but I wouldn't judge it. And then I would just talk myself through it. You know, what made me do that thing, what made me react that way, what made me respond that way, you know, ask myself those types of questions. Not necessarily what I did, but why I did it, why I felt the why I felt like it was okay to respond that way.
[00:35:45] What made me justify that in my head.
[00:35:49] And I started asking myself that question. And that's what that is. That's mindfulness, in case you didn't know. If you're ever trying to work on mindfulness. That's mindfulness. Stopping for a moment, pausing.
[00:36:00] I did this thing.
[00:36:01] I did. You notice what I said? I didn't say I did this thing. I did this thing. That was wrong. I said, I did this thing.
[00:36:07] No judgment.
[00:36:08] I just pause.
[00:36:11] I acknowledge it, and I consider it. Okay, I did this thing.
[00:36:16] What made me do that thing? What was the. What was the actual reason why I did it?
[00:36:21] You'd be surprised sometimes when you stop, when you pause and actually give yourself a minute to breathe about it, that what you thought was the reason why you did it isn't actually the reason why you did it.
[00:36:33] You know, go a couple of layers back. Like, why did I do that? Oh, I did that because of this. Well, why did I do that? Or why did I feel that way? Oh, because of that. Well, what made me. What worldview did I have that made me assume that that was that, you know, you can go further back. You know, the longer that you take, the more time. The more time that you have. I encourage you to do that. In fact, that's what I want the exercise to be for this week. Be kind and tender to yourself. Practice this.
[00:36:59] If you make a mistake or you do something that you regret, don't judge yourself. Just talk to yourself. The same way I'm saying I talk to myself.
[00:37:08] Talk to that. That little boy that had to learn how to be a man without lessons. Talk to him. Forgive him with tenderness.
[00:37:19] Let yourself know that you're gonna. You're gonna do things a little different from now on.
[00:37:24] You know, figure out all of the ways that you're letting yourself down without judgment, and then commit to trying to do better, not doing better, trying to do better. You don't have.
[00:37:39] It's not immediate, you know, me walking myself back from being a person that was very reactive wasn't immediate.
[00:37:49] I was the type of person that was on autopilot. I had already figured out everything about the world that I needed to know.
[00:37:56] I kept my edge up so nobody could take advantage of me. And then anytime anything happened, I would react. Based off of calculations, of course, things that I'd analyzed and figured out. But the problem with that is, is that I was no longer recognizing the reason why.
[00:38:16] Yes, something happened.
[00:38:19] I reacted to what happened and never took any time to understand why that thing happened.
[00:38:27] And there's no room for tenderness without a why.
[00:38:34] You see how this kind of all comes back together.
[00:38:39] There's no room for love without the why.
[00:38:46] Men, we have got to stop being reactive.
[00:38:52] We need to learn how to be responsive. There's a difference in a reaction and a response.
[00:38:59] That's how men fix this. Through community, through fellowship, through presence of mind, learning how to be responsive, how to respond to something, as opposed to being reactive.
[00:39:16] React to something.
[00:39:18] That's how we fix this.
[00:39:20] I encourage my brothers to build your own communities.
[00:39:27] The same way women get together and pour into each other when they have a fallout or a tragedy in life.
[00:39:37] We have got to start being that for each other.
[00:39:41] You'd be amazed how many people, many men just need you to show up for them when they're going through something, when they're grieving.
[00:39:53] You don't even have to say anything. You just need to be there, show up.
[00:39:59] Try it. Try it sometime. You got a friend, a male friend that's going through something.
[00:40:03] You may not have the words because a lot of us don't.
[00:40:07] We don't have those same tools. Women, we don't have it inherently.
[00:40:11] I don't think they did either. I think they just practiced it. And because we don't practice, we don't know what to do. We don't know what to say. We don't know how to show up for each other.
[00:40:19] That's the next way you can practice after you've practiced on yourself, giving yourself that space and giving yourself that tenderness.
[00:40:27] Show up for one of your friends that's going through something, and just try this.
[00:40:32] Just try this. You don't have to have the words.
[00:40:36] You don't have to have distractions for them. You don't have to take them anywhere to go, do anything to get their mind off anything. This is what I want you to try.
[00:40:45] If a friend calls you or your friend comes to your house and they're just going through it.
[00:40:51] Just tell them something along these lines.
[00:40:57] I don't really have the words to help with what you're going through right now, but I do want to say that I really appreciate you sharing that with me.
[00:41:06] It means a lot that you trusted me with that.
[00:41:11] What I would like to do is just sit here with you. You know, I know I don't have the words, but would you mind if we just sat here?
[00:41:17] I'll be here with you. And, you know, you can still go through what you're going through. You can still take the time. And I'm just gonna provide space for you to do that.
[00:41:25] I'm sitting here with you, bro.
[00:41:29] That might be too soft for you, what I just said. That might be too tender for you, what I just said. You put it in your words, but just try it.
[00:41:43] Be well.
