How I Got 5 Years Sober ft. Kier Gaines

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Greater than 50 gigabytes. May slow when network is busy. See terms. Bro, I don't know how much of this you plan on releasing to people. I'll probably just do the whole thing, bro. Yeah, bro. Yeah, still speak. I feel like you could set a lot of this free, bro. Because none of this is anything that I've never heard before. But people only tell you. Only me. When nobody else is around. I am five years sober today. I often have trouble celebrating my victories, but I'm taking this one. Because drugs and alcohol was whooping me. Now, I'm beating the air. I started getting high when I was 10. Soon I was geeked up off the molly, snorting Adderall, lean, Percocets, pretty much anything you'd find in between future's couch cushions. I'd be off the molly and my jaw used to be like Bubba from Forrest Gump. Like my chin was trying to escape my neck. I'd try to put sunglasses on and say, "I'm not high." That crazy shit y'all saw me doing. I was on cocaine. Cocaine is a hell of a drug. Eventually, I landed in the 12-step program in 2019. And what it made me realize was that all that addictive behavior that had become my identity, the motivation for all of it was escapism. To escape my feelings of everlasting sadness. After getting in a terrible car crash drunk off the molly. It's difficult to drive like that with sunglasses on. I went to a silent meditation retreat and I cut everything. Cold turkey. Melanie was doing Sober September and I joined her and I just never stopped. I directly credit her with saving my life. Now I feel like I've become almost addicted to facing difficult feelings. I replaced an addiction to escaping them with an addiction to facing them. I go to the gym every day at 5:00 a.m. And I'm not a morning person. I meditate daily. I force myself to sit with the voice in my head. I have to do my Wim Hof breathing in the steam room. I'm addicted to that shit. This week on The Vic Mensa Show, I'm talking to Keir Gaines about how we heal. He's a licensed therapist who has become one of the clearest public voices on black men, fatherhood, masculinity, and mental health. And I'm kind of like unpacking the anatomy of addiction. Pick the orange from the tree. Put the layers back on the world. Strange fruit. They still swing your body to A to L. You know it's solid when they got Don Lemon inside the cell. Divided by black and white like Karl Lagerfeld. For the dollar bills. Forced to produce for corporate suits. Blood on that orange like OJ soups and juice. Presidents assemble troops for a slice of the pie. One gives DBC the bomb. My brother, Keir Gaines. Thank you for joining me, man. Appreciate you for having me, my boy. With the delicious OJ. This straight from the tree. Big-ass oranges. Football-sized oranges. That's ridiculous, man. What's in the soil over here? What you got going on? Fertilizer. That Wakandan fertilizer? Wakandan fertilizer, man. African gold. Thanks for having me, dog. No, thank you for coming through, man. I'm so excited to speak to you. Because today marks five years sobriety for me. Congratulations, bro. Thank you, man. That's huge, man. My therapist brain nerding out for a second. Is it, to you, is it like, do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel this being a huge milestone? Or is it like just another notch in the belt? Like just another thing to accomplish? It honestly feels like a milestone. And I think I do have a lot of trouble in general celebrating myself at times. Let me change the framing of that. I'm working on celebrating myself more in general. But the five years sober, it feels like a large milestone because I know where I came from. You know what I mean? And it's like proof to me that I've deeply rooted myself in an entirely new way of being. And I see the fruits of that growing. So many times in my life I would like build wonderful things only to topple them. You know what I'm saying? Like through self-destructive, self-sabotaging behavior. And like, you know, even as I kind of dissect the five years sober, I look through the seeds of the addiction. Which was something I honestly like wanted to talk to you about. Being that, you know, we're both fathers. And I think about this a lot. And context of having a son, you know, is like where did that journey start for me? How did it end up where it did? And let me understand it so I can do my best to not replicate it, you know? Nah, that's real. And you can -- because those things can be replicable subconsciously. I think it's easy to think that it's the obvious things that we do that may like institute a culture that allows these things to happen or that makes way for these things to happen. But it's not, man. It's not. It can just be things you experienced in your life that live deep in the back of your mind, man. Is this something a lot of people know about you? In terms of the sobriety? Low key, not. Low key, I don't think it is. Because I be talking about it online like recently. People are like, man, I just thought you was this unproblematic light skin. This is something I'm seeing consistently. And I'm like, oh, all right. You know? That's a big part of your story, though. For sure. I mean, it's like just paramount to my story in a lot of ways. And overcoming it, too. It gives me a lot of context. Like the experience five years ago that led me to becoming sober was I was drunk driving on Mali with a dirty pistol in the car. Okay. Totaled the car. And -- How many years ago was this? Just five years ago. Okay. Oh, wow. Right then I was like -- you know what I mean? Because I had been praying the day before. I probably told this story on this show plenty of times. But like I had been to the mosque for the first time in life, like a week before. And it was the first time I was praying to God in earnest. And I was like going through everything that the imam was describing. He was like, people are struggling with violence. They're struggling emotionally. They're struggling financially. I'm like, boy, I'm broke as fuck. Like I got trying to kill me. You know, I was up before. And now I'm struggling with all these things. At the same time. At the same damn time. And I told God, I was like, yo, I'm going to dedicate myself. I know only you would be able to get me out of this. Oh, man. You talking about something now. You got to treat yourself. I had this white homie, man, my white homie who used to cuss his mom the f*** out. He was one of them like, "F*** you, mom." He went there with it. Super, super rebellious, out of line white homie, Sebastian. Shout out to Sebastian Policastro. That's my boy, man. That was the first time I was smoking weed, though, when I was 10. And I was with Sebastian in the back of this. I don't know. I was with Sebastian in the back of this. And so I feel like I started drinking around the same time, around 10, 10, 11 years old. You know, there were kids in my orbit, like friends who were selling cocaine, doing cocaine, selling crack, doing crack. You know, I was I was like at this very interesting school called Little Lincoln, which was in one of the most affluent neighborhoods in Chicago. Lincoln Park. OK. And it was a mixture of some of the wealthiest kids in Chicago and the remnants of Cabrini Greens, which is like the most notorious. You know, I mean, project building one of the most notorious project business in all of America. And these two communities were like. In collision, collaboration, you know, I mean, like it was it was very American in that. Yeah. Little Lincoln, man. Hey, this place was crazy, bro. It was like. The richest kids in Chicago and some of the poorest, you know, I mean, all sharing space and everything that comes along with it. It's a lot of opportunity for conflict, everything that comes along with it. And it was like it was a lot of love, honestly, but also it was just a lot of drugs because it was like the people that were experiencing poverty were in communities where like. People were making their living selling drugs and then the white kids are like they're almost more predisposed to want to do drugs. So it's like, you know, we when we 10 years old, 11 years old, we don't smoke crack. You mean like not in 2010? Now, crack is almost like the catalyst to a punch line. Like you ask somebody if someone's addicted to crack, what do they look like? They'll get the itching or looking for stuff on the ground. I mean, being from D.C. like. D.C. Was was big in the crack epidemic, wasn't it? It was horrible, man. The mid 80s was so crazy. I lived in a neighborhood in D.C. called Simple City. And I remember my mom used to only let me go. I was like five, six years old. She only let me go about 15 feet from the front step because anything after that, she couldn't come grab me. Gunshots started raining out. The money was so crazy that everybody turned violent trying to get them a piece. So, yeah, I'm real familiar with what that's like. You know what's crazy, too? It's like the ways that that violence interplays to drug use and drug addiction. And I also I really characterize violence itself as an addiction. Like if I think about my own life, you know, I mean, to think about the ways that like. All of these things became a form of validation for me. That's what I heard when you were talking about. Like sex, drugs and alcohol. Like, is it safe to say those were. Yeah, that's the big three. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which. First thing that popped in my mind, though, is like the question of like what. Do you feel like you were running away from something? Were you running towards something? Were you trying to escape from something? Were you trying to become something? Yeah. What was all that about for you? I call it escapism. You know, I think that. In many ways, addiction for me has been all about escapism. It's been about seeking some kind of refuge from emotional pain. And I did this ayahuasca experience about 10 years ago. Yeah, ayahuasca. Were you local? Were you like in South America? I was in the holy land of Silver Lake, Los Angeles. Yeah. Shout out to that. It was this nigga, this white nigga, man. Oh, I say shaman Jerome. No, this was shaman Chad. Oh, OK. He had an all white robe on and a fucking acoustic guitar. You know, I was skeptical as shit at first. Yeah, it sounds like you. I was skeptical as shit. You had no reason to be. But there came a point in time when like the experience really got underway. And I mean, I was getting communication from my grandmother, from the grave who never spoke English. And then I was seeing scenes from my five-year-old eyes. And it was like, I used to want blue eyes. That is the root of my pain. Really? And that gave me like a deep sense of context that I never had, that I don't remember. I mean, my mother's white. So it actually makes sense, you know, in the ways that like we idolize our mothers and to not resemble, you know, either of my parents in a direct way like that. So that's like an identity thing. For sure that. And I feel like I've traced that to be a seed of what I think I was ultimately trying to escape. And I think you add in like the societal dimension of just the ways that black boys are criminalized by the school system. I mean, when I was in kindergarten, I was put into a developmentally challenged class because I didn't like to share like five-year-olds fucking don't. And so I'm in this class and I'm like, yo. I don't think I'm supposed to be here. Everybody's in wheelchairs and like, you know, having trouble like speaking, drooling. And I knew I was like, I was deeply offended. And just like I could tell that I was being attacked by the school system in some way. And shortly after I was actually kicked out of that school. For what? It was because I moved. I moved out of the district. It was like some benign shit that became illegal. But really it was because my teacher was a racist, though. Shout out to my ass was a racist. But I do forgive you, though. I got to let go of that, huh? Can you drop these names like this? She did the same thing to my girl, though. You know what's crazy? My girl was at the same school like a year after me. We never met in childhood. But she also had significant problems with the same teacher. But it's not about the teacher, honestly. And I might take the. The bigger point is that the school system, it, you know, it demeans the intelligence of black children, like as a systematic mode of miseducation. It's funny, man. So many times the individual gets the heat that the system deserves. Don't get me wrong. Individual still deserves the heat. But it's the system that empowers them to do that shit with. Straight impunity, man. And it happens time and time again. Especially the little black boys. I used to work in special education. Really? Oh, yeah, man. It's what I did before I started. Before I became a licensed therapist. Before I started doing content creation. Word. My mom's whole, like, career was doing physical therapists for special ed children in Chicago public schools. Yeah, we call them related service providers, man. It helps, man. They teach kids how to, you know, how to write. Teach kids how to speak if they're nonverbal. But you'll be surprised how many little black boys automatically, like, have IEPs or have these special needs diagnoses. And a lot of it is great because it allows them to get the help they need. But sometimes, man, it's just a misunderstanding of what black boys are, what black boys need, and how to build systems around them to support them, bro. That shit happens all the time. You know how many of my friends have told me they had the exact same experience? Not surprising. Not surprising. Not surprising. Not surprising. Like, Chance had a line in his album recently when he said they had me in that class. One of my director, Andre Muir, he experienced the same thing. And, like, I just remember, bro, like, I was so fucking, like, heartbroken. Like, the day they kicked me out of fucking kindergarten. Like, I cried all fucking night, bro. Like, it was all my best friends. Like, I felt like I had had everything ripped from me. And I didn't understand why. I just couldn't fucking contact. I just couldn't contextualize why. But I was like, school did this shit. Like, the teacher did this shit. So, by the time I get to be 10, 11, I'm like, nigga, fuck school. Fuck teachers. Oh, you're not supposed to smoke weed? Give me the weed. You're not supposed to drink? Give me the drink. You're not supposed to fight? Let's fight. Because I had felt so under attack by the school system. That as soon as I had the autonomy to, like, really act out, I was like, oh, I'm off to the races, bro. Like, this is all I want to do, you know? All I want to do is everything that is in opposition to your system. Because your system has been my aggressor and my oppressor. That's how I felt. The system becomes the enemy and everything along with it. I see that make you emotional, bro. Like, what's. What's happening? What's coming up for you when you start talking about that? Just, like, when I got kicked out of that school, bro. Like, when I got kicked out of that school, just thinking about how I was crying all night. And, you know, when you're a child, you don't have the language to understand what happens to you. You know, you just know the feeling. And you hold the feeling deeply. And I think for a lot. I don't know. childhood I felt like I felt an inability to kind of like push back against those forces that were compounding upon me and then I think I get emotional too just thinking about like some of my guys and in the public school system so that's my boy Eddie Simmons he came home recently me I mean but I have this vivid memory of third grade when Eddie Simmons was at the end of the hallway and he was being held back a grade you know third grade and he had to stay in second grade something like that and the whole class was like man this nigga must be dumb like you know I mean what's wrong how you get held back you know me and I could see us all and the school primarily you know I mean put in this label of inferiority on him and then after grammar school I didn't see Eddie Simmons again until he was on the front page for like you know a homicide and I was like bro I saw y'all do this shit to him so then when I think about what I felt like was done to me in school I get emotional think about you know what happened to him I mean it thank God he's he's free and he's like living a different life and he's but yo you know me the school-to-prison pipeline shit is what I'm getting that it's so fucking real it's not a real thing no it's not fictitious it isn't some figment of an overactive imagination but can I tell you what I hear when you when you say all of this it's so interesting man it's like these two opposing things that are still interconnected on one side you had this motif of manliness and on the other side what I hear you talking about is vulnerability and helplessness yeah and feeling vulnerable and feeling helpless and trying to change your use behaviors to change your internal experience man you feel like that's what you're escaping from yeah word for sure I mean I think like when I started when I started smoking and I started drinking I was really like definitely trying to escape an internal experience just a feeling of like pervasive sadness and I won't place that pervasive sadness on any one thing particularly to be the school or you know to be the identity crisis I think it's probably like an amalgamation of all of them you know I'm saying and and of course the ways that you experience America as a young black boy you know saying that continues into you being a young young and old and was once a man you experienced that all the way through but you know I think what's what's like beautiful about it is that in time when you when you do learn how to uh how to be fueled by those things um or at least how to like contextualize and and process but as a kid it was like nah only way I knew how to process the shit was like getting high and and fighting you know what I mean like that's why I really name uh violence as being one of my primary addictions too is because it was like I I grew addicted to fighting um in the same time frame and maybe seeing so many people around me um falling into a lot of substance abuse as well um and it being like the cool thing to do when it became the cool thing to do then it was just like okay not only is this rebellious you know because at first maybe sixth grade I remember when I first you know me was smoking a lot my girlfriend at the time was like man I don't want you to you guys to do that you know me like this is wrong you know and so it was like I I also wanted her to do that you know like I was like I I also wanted her to accept me so yeah you know but when you come into high school and uh I started to see my addictions kind of body jump like they they were transforming and morphing and and I developed uh I developed this anxiety that I hadn't experienced before even the weed started to affect me differently like uh I I'm sure you've heard of people say some people say that cannabis will relax them other people it makes their nervous system go crazy that's quite obviously yeah so that's what started happening to me once I had already I've been smoking for years at this point so it wasn't like that before it turned into no it turned into that like something happened in my brain that anxiety became a thing and I started to uh I start to have anxiety attacks and um I was in my parents house and I'm just laying on the couch and I'm just like shaking for no reason nothing had happened I hadn't smoked nothing I'm just having anxiety attacks and uh you know I was put on um I was put on antidepressant medication maybe zoloft okay you know I mean I I started off with the zoloft how old were you at this time I was 15. okay so we're talking about five years into the beginning of everything yeah five years into smoking it just a switch flipped and I start to have anxiety attacks maybe 14 15. I started to experience anxiety and uh you know I started to experience anxiety and uh you know at the same time I was uh I was just like learning secrecy and shame you know I mean like I uh I had started having sex maybe when I was 13 or 14. uh probably 13. and then around that time when I started to have anxiety I started to have sexual performance anxiety and it was like there was an older girl from the school I was a freshman she was like a senior and she was like you know kind of like cougar vibes to me you know what I'm saying like took me in a like a uh uh uh what do you call that like a van in a parking lot you know outside of Harold's chicken and uh and we were gonna have sex but I couldn't get it up and I was like yo what the just happened would know where to process it really didn't know know where to process it because I I mean I'm not going to tell my parents I didn't want to tell my homies about that and so that like that led to the alcohol because eventually you know I think I realized um after like a long time like this went on for a long time I'm just developing this this like this uh sexual performance anxiety what's a long time oh like all of high school okay so we're talking 14 18 15 18. yeah like actually 14. okay I think I started having sex before high school and then once this happened like all of high school I was just like hiding this yeah man and like I'm hella uncomfortable to even say this on camera but thank God I control the attic you know what I'm saying I was I was just hiding this yeah all of high school and so I was learning that um sex should be intertwined with secrecy and shame and that anxiety I felt um in the sexual performance started to spread into other performances like into live performance music performance the same crippling feeling that I felt I started to experience on stage I mean like I would forget all the lyrics and just feel like crippled by it it's a it's a similar anxiety that later jumped into uh like the studio I mean if I was like in a high pressure session with you know a big producer or something like that you know I'd be like oh my god I can't do something I would just get this crippling like chest caving in anxiety I was going to ask you that do you feel like the anxiety live more your mind where is the narrative that your mind attaches to your thoughts or do you feel like it lives in your body I've always experienced it as a combination of both I find it mentally as a runaway thread of attachment to the past so when I would be you know experiencing the sexual performance anxiety it would be like hey last time that didn't work and and the time before that you know and the time before that which would be the same thing that would happen when I was getting performance anxiety on the stage be like yo you remember you forgot your lyrics at the last show or in the studio I'm like yo you remember like that you did last session it wasn't that dope you know self-messaging get louder and louder loud like unbearable yeah I mean I can imagine the physical manifestation for sure yeah I mean if you talk about the the sexual performance anxiety that's just like a clear physical manifestation it's like oh your body just ain't working the way you want it to work the way it want to work you know and and like heart beating out of my chest you know I used to like um I used to try to like weasel out of it in like these ways that were like so um it's just a lot of shame surrounding it you know I'd be like uh my mama calling me you know what I'm saying like try to try to run off and I never stopped trying to have sex I was like uh and I was like uh I was already cool kid you know I had the music thing I'm talking to record labels, flying to New York to be in studio sessions. I'm going on a fucking tour, all this shit. But from freshman year to senior year, every sexual experience, it just didn't work. I just had all this fucking anxiety. Rob Markman: I can't imagine the gap that causes in somebody's life when, visually, from outside looking in, they seem to have everything. You got social visibility, you got notoriety, you have people who are attracted to you, they want to be intimate with you, they want to be next to you. And then privately, there are these feelings of self-doubt, there are these opposing feelings of all these masculine ideas versus things that are counterintuitive to those masculine ideas. And then there's a rebellion toward it. Do you feel like, in terms of the sex, drugs, and alcohol, do you feel like indulging in those things gave you something? Rob Markman: At the time, it was the drugs and alcohol that felt like they saved me from my anxiety. My anxiety was crippling. I mean, it was in between me and just biological anxiety. It was in between me and just biological anxiety. Rob Markman: Okay. Rob Markman: Okay. Rob Markman: Okay. Rob Markman: Okay. Five. but I love my mom your motivation was external I'm hearing you say a lot of things about your childhood experience about violence about shame about community that may be growth prohibitive about proving a point about self identity that may not have a safe place to exist where's a counterbalance there for young you where is the warmth where is the love where's the supervision man you know I think it was all around always you know I grew up in a house so full of love and I think sometimes when I get hyper fixated and focused on the the darker sides of of my experience that I can pretend or for pretend that they outweighed the the vibrant bright joyful loving part but they don't at all you know they never did it's something about the human mind no right it makes sense you think that's how something about the human mind fucking prioritizes you know that the negative things over the positive for some reason because like everything I've talked about today though from being five years old and you know getting kicked out of school and like not looking like my mother having that identity crisis also I have like nothing but joyful experiences and memories from that time so even when I tell my mom about some of these things tell my parents about it he'd be like yo you the happiest kid ever like what do you of course it was hard when you with the school thing happened but in general like you had plenty of friends at school you know loved playing soccer and skateboarding and yeah I mean like we grew up at a different time too when it was like man we really outside riding bikes and water balloons and like just like real childhood like we weren't even inside of screens no you know saying it wasn't a thing for us no it wasn't a thing it's like we were we were we were living real childhood I mean this is real but it's just different so there was joy in in and out of all of this you know even in the midst of that kind of like high school experience I was talking about it was the best fucking times of my life though you know I know it seems counterintuitive but you know joy and sorrow can live in the same apartment building no that's the bar go on they can live in the same building I think especially from a parent's perspective I think it's easy to say you had so many things you were so happy they could see these small moments but the outward expression is a completely different thing than the inner experience and the outward expression is not indicative of the inner experience I could smile right now and be happy and in all my words on an upward inflection and just be bouncing around the room and talking to everybody that is not indicative of my inner experience I could be profoundly sad yeah and you said something you hit on it you said something about how the brain attaches itself to negative experiences that negativity bias is real yeah like negativity bias is that what they call it yeah who the fuck needs to recover from the best day of their life you know but your brain tries to predict the worst thing that's going to happen to you and become self-protective which is a beautiful thing except for when it becomes overprotective right or when it miscalculates then and also just learning that like you are not your thoughts no like that's been one of the most profoundly transformative realizations in my life is like to learn that my thoughts do not reflect the entirety of me you know I mean and that thought can often be a distraction from being like one of the biggest things that has brought me healing in this process has been meditation mindfulness and the power of now like I was going to ask you how to get on the other side of this because looking at you right now and just keeping up with the theme of the outward expression doesn't have to match the in the experience like that incongruence exists and I talk about that in my book I talk about incongruence all the time but walk me through how you got here bro because this feels very different in almost every way yeah no everything that you were just talking about do you feel like you have before you answer that do you feel like you have legitimate joy in your life right now do you feel like it's something you arrive to or do you feel like you're still collecting things in the bag as you go man I feel like I have so much joy in my life man yeah you know I mean like now so often I just feel overcome by emotion like in a different way you know I'm like waterworks thinking about all that like depression and shit like that but these mornings I'll be driving back from the gym 6 a.m. I'm just about to get back you know to wake my son up at 6:30 and I just like like that makes me cry just like man I'm so joyful to just like how excited I am to go wake this baby up like how excited I am to like be the first face that he sees in the morning and to tell him the things that that I tell myself now to help me build up you know resilience you mean to wake him up and be like today is a blessed day you mean today is gonna be the best day ever you know I'm saying or I'll tell him like bless the past and the present and the past bless the future live fully in the now that gratitude this is really what I tell him I actually don't say those things as much but I tell him in the morning it's like gratitude is the door through which life's blessings come pouring in so I tell him every morning I'm like yo like we spend the first waking moments of our day thinking about being concerned with what we're grateful for because we invite more things to be grateful for into our life and when I reflect on those times when I was deepest in my addictions I just didn't have gratitude you know I mean like I couldn't find it I couldn't locate the gratitude although I had so many things to be grateful for yeah one thing that I mean was so fucking pivotal for me coming out of of my darkest moments in addiction was an amazing therapist and my manager at the time music manager introduced me to this therapist who had me come to meet him like first he came to meet me where I was at in Chicago and I was like on the fucking edge everybody knew it everybody was worried about me they were like man this thing might not he might not make it you know what I'm saying and this therapist came and he like took a diagnostic analysis of me that spanned days because I went out to where he lived in Canada and told him my whole fucking life story like all the shit I'm talking about now but expanded over like three days like three days worth everything I could remember of my whole life I was like this is crazy like is that a type of have you ever done a process like that where you get your client to tell you like their whole fucking life story yes that's why when people are so frustrated when it comes to therapy is if they do all that and the therapeutic relationship don't work out now you gotta start doing that whole thing again and it's cathartic and it's exhausting and it's an entire process yeah absolutely your first four sessions I'm trying to get to know who you are trying to get the whole diagnosed I gotta know who you are not just you I gotta know not just know who you are know how you are and how you became who you are what motivates you what sustains you what scares you all of those things absolutely in order for you to you know properly you don't have to be completely interject and kind of just add perspective that's that's what I love about therapy is that I believe any human being can derive great value from having an objective lens yeah on the inner workings of their mind and their life situation I agree man and I think that people come to therapy thinking I'm gonna tell them what to do or I'm a you know shame on them or make them feel bad you know I'm gonna tell them what to do or I'm gonna tell them what to do or I'm gonna tell them what to do or make them feel bad you know I'm gonna tell them what to do or make them feel bad about something that they're already experiencing a whole bunch of inner turmoil over it's like nah really I'm in a boat with you trying to help you interrogate some of your long-standing beliefs that may have worked for you back in the day but they don't work for you anymore you don't always feel it or if you're in a space where and this kind of came up when you talk about the sex and the drugs and the alcohol man when you had these systems that sustained you for so long and now you've outgrown that so what do you do you just do more of the thing that used to work and doing more of something that doesn't work doesn't help you anything too is that like eventually all these drugs just stopped working to your point and i was cycling through different drugs like first i'm uh you know first i'm just smoking but then i get this anxiety and so now smoking is not doing the same thing for me that it was i started doing mushrooms when i made my first album it was like so fucking creative off the wall psychedelic uh but eventually all i got was bad mushroom trips and so i'm just in these like deep dark holes every time i do the mushroom so i so i stopped fucking with it i started doing molly because the molly was making me feel like i was fucking you know on top of the world you know and these songs are coming like instantaneously but it was so short-lived like even the molly i only started to get the come down i only started to get what we call a suicide tuesday uh so i jumped over to snorting adderall you now it's getting weird because now i'm snorting shit you know and we know i feel like we also have a collective understanding as black people too maybe of our generation that like man we don't really we don't really snort you don't touch the nose you know saying that's not a thing we really do you know i mean but now i'm doing that and i'm like you know dropping pills on the ground and fucking picking them up off the floor and pill pieces that i've broken down if it spills on the bathroom floor i'm like still trying to snort the shit you know i mean i know i'm in a bad place now because now i'm doing shit that i just don't even want nobody to know could you feel you were in a bad place in the moment or was this more so like a reflective analysis no i could feel i was in a bad place the bathroom floor dirty as fuck he's throwing some shit off the bathroom floor man um and and these addictions they just they they roll in one after one after another it becomes a and they roll in one after one after another it becomes a cocaine it becomes this becomes that cocaine it becomes this becomes that cocaine it becomes this becomes that um when when i think it started to shift um when when i think it started to shift um when when i think it started to shift for me was when i locked in for me was when i locked in for me was when i locked in with this therapist and it took years with this therapist and it took years with this therapist and it took years until the transformation really how many until the transformation really how many until the transformation really how many years years years i think 22 is when i is when i really i think 22 is when i is when i really i think 22 is when i is when i really locked in with my therapist locked in with my therapist locked in with my therapist and i stopped using drugs to create i and i stopped using drugs to create i and i stopped using drugs to create i stopped using drugs like to make music stopped using drugs like to make music stopped using drugs like to make music i started doing music completely sober i started doing music completely sober i started doing music completely sober uh which was a big step because the drugs uh which was a big step because the drugs uh which was a big step because the drugs had been had been had been like i said a big crutch for me like i said a big crutch for me like i said a big crutch for me creatively to break through the anxiety creatively to break through the anxiety creatively to break through the anxiety and so i started to create sober i was and so i started to create sober i was and so i started to create sober i was still still still fucked up outside of that you know but fucked up outside of that you know but fucked up outside of that you know but also fucked up outside of that you know but also started to uh take an started to uh take an started to uh take an antidepressant medication that was like antidepressant medication that was like antidepressant medication that was like really helpful for me at the time really helpful for me at the time really helpful for me at the time i mean i've been on every i mean i've been on every i mean i've been on every antidepressant medication on the man antidepressant medication on the man antidepressant medication on the man from lexapro zoloft from lexapro zoloft from lexapro zoloft when i was 15 to uh well butrin and when i was 15 to uh well butrin and when i was 15 to uh well butrin and uh prozac yeah they prescribed me uh prozac yeah they prescribed me uh prozac yeah they prescribed me medications from my other medication medications from my other medication medications from my other medication yeah you know what i mean that's how did yeah you know what i mean that's how did yeah you know what i mean that's how did you see a doctor was a nurse you see a doctor was a nurse you see a doctor was a nurse practitioner or was it your therapist practitioner or was it your therapist practitioner or was it your therapist that prescribed it psychiatrist that prescribed it psychiatrist that prescribed it psychiatrist psychiatrist yeah yeah so i was on every psychiatrist yeah yeah so i was on every psychiatrist yeah yeah so i was on every medication at one point of time the only medication at one point of time the only medication at one point of time the only one that worked for me in this short one that worked for me in this short one that worked for me in this short period of time was uh was effects when i period of time was uh was effects when i period of time was uh was effects when i was locked in with this therapist really was locked in with this therapist really was locked in with this therapist really yeah yeah yeah that's not uncommon for that's not uncommon for that's not uncommon for folks to try to folks to try to folks to try to have to try different antidepressants have to try different antidepressants have to try different antidepressants because the ssri or maoy it doesn't because the ssri or maoy it doesn't because the ssri or maoy it doesn't necessarily work necessarily work necessarily work is that norepinephrine is that norepinephrine is that norepinephrine don't give me the line don't give me the line don't give me the line listen we got i work with a nurse listen we got i work with a nurse listen we got i work with a nurse practitioner and that is her ministry practitioner and that is her ministry practitioner and that is her ministry yeah no for sure i don't think people yeah no for sure i don't think people yeah no for sure i don't think people often all the way know that either that often all the way know that either that often all the way know that either that like uh like uh like uh a psychiatrist and a psychologist two a psychiatrist and a psychologist two a psychiatrist and a psychologist two different things two completely different things two completely different things two completely different things a psychiatrist a different things a psychiatrist a different things a psychiatrist a psychologist and a licensed therapist psychologist and a licensed therapist psychologist and a licensed therapist three completely three different things three completely three different things three completely three different things yeah and all may work together yeah but yeah and all may work together yeah but yeah and all may work together yeah but you know you know you know with uh you know different ministries to with uh you know different ministries to with uh you know different ministries to to your point and um to your point and um to your point and um five years i would say it was about five five years i would say it was about five five years i would say it was about five it was about five six years it was about five six years it was about five six years from the time when i first started from the time when i first started from the time when i first started taking therapy seriously until taking therapy seriously until taking therapy seriously until like like like really really really getting getting getting the addictions behind me the addictions behind me the addictions behind me in that time in that time in that time first i started to do my music sober first i started to do my music sober first i started to do my music sober and that changed a lot for me and that changed a lot for me and that changed a lot for me what did it change what did it change what did it change i stopped i stopped i stopped i stopped i stopped i stopped trying to use the drugs as a creative trying to use the drugs as a creative trying to use the drugs as a creative crutch for a time crutch for a time crutch for a time you know what i mean for a time i stopped you know what i mean for a time i stopped you know what i mean for a time i stopped using the drugs as a creative crutch using the drugs as a creative crutch using the drugs as a creative crutch which which which was at least was at least was at least changing the relationship with the drugs changing the relationship with the drugs changing the relationship with the drugs i still was with it i still was with it i still was with it i mean but for a time i was like i mean but for a time i was like i mean but for a time i was like not feeling like i needed it not feeling like i needed it not feeling like i needed it to express myself to be creative and to express myself to be creative and to express myself to be creative and um um um you know i will say though that like i you know i will say though that like i you know i will say though that like i definitely relapsed but another thing definitely relapsed but another thing definitely relapsed but another thing though that came though that came though that came a handful of years after that maybe two a handful of years after that maybe two a handful of years after that maybe two years after that was i was introduced to years after that was i was introduced to years after that was i was introduced to transcendental meditation transcendental meditation transcendental meditation i got a shout out catherine catherine i got a shout out catherine catherine i got a shout out catherine catherine put me on a lot you know i mean she put me on a lot you know i mean she put me on a lot you know i mean she introduced me to transcendental introduced me to transcendental introduced me to transcendental meditation she was my publicist but meditation she was my publicist but meditation she was my publicist but she's also like a she's also like a she's also like a just a just a just a you know spiritual advisor life coach you know spiritual advisor life coach you know spiritual advisor life coach somebody you trusted somebody i trusted somebody you trusted somebody i trusted that saw me you know what i mean and that saw me you know what i mean and that saw me you know what i mean and in that same time somebody i trusted that in that same time somebody i trusted that in that same time somebody i trusted that saw me saw me saw me uh uh uh recommended to me to recommended to me to recommended to me to go into a 12-step program called slaa go into a 12-step program called slaa go into a 12-step program called slaa which is sex and love addicts anonymous which is sex and love addicts anonymous which is sex and love addicts anonymous and and and i would be speaking to this person i'd i would be speaking to this person i'd i would be speaking to this person i'd be like always be like always be like always expressing all this frustration around expressing all this frustration around expressing all this frustration around sex and relationships and they'd be like sex and relationships and they'd be like sex and relationships and they'd be like i think you might need to i think you might need to i think you might need to go and get up in go and get up in go and get up in you know in in slob my boy because this you know in in slob my boy because this you know in in slob my boy because this seems to be a constant problem for you seems to be a constant problem for you seems to be a constant problem for you but then when i contextualize it within but then when i contextualize it within but then when i contextualize it within the history of the sexual anxiety it's the history of the sexual anxiety it's the history of the sexual anxiety it's like like like it was a real building block of it was a real building block of my addictions is trying to break through my addictions is trying to break through my addictions is trying to break through that anxiety that i experienced so much that anxiety that i experienced so much that anxiety that i experienced so much throughout life throughout life throughout life and when i went into slaw and when i went into slaw and when i went into slaw although it wasn't a program about although it wasn't a program about although it wasn't a program about substance abuse substance abuse substance abuse it forced me to radically it forced me to radically it forced me to radically evaluate evaluate evaluate everything i had been doing everything i had been doing everything i had been doing in an addictive capacity there's a in an addictive capacity there's a in an addictive capacity there's a fourth step where you make a fearless fourth step where you make a fearless fourth step where you make a fearless moral inventory of yourself moral inventory of yourself moral inventory of yourself and all of your and all of your and all of your sexual experiences in this case sexual experiences in this case sexual experiences in this case throughout life everything you can throughout life everything you can throughout life everything you can remember so you're not doing you're remember so you're not doing you're remember so you're not doing you're processing and feeling processing and feeling processing and feeling and why you did it all and why you did it all and why you did it all everything you can remember and i'm everything you can remember and i'm everything you can remember and i'm looking at my motivations for all this looking at my motivations for all this looking at my motivations for all this and it's like and it's like and it's like it was always validation seeking it was it was always validation seeking it was always escapism escapism was the always escapism escapism was the always escapism escapism was the dominant thread through all the sexual dominant thread through all the sexual dominant thread through all the sexual experiences and all those sexual experiences and all those sexual experiences and all those sexual experiences were intertwined with drugs experiences were intertwined with drugs experiences were intertwined with drugs and alcohol and it was me trying to and alcohol and it was me trying to and alcohol and it was me trying to escape from this crippling anxiety i escape from this crippling anxiety i escape from this crippling anxiety i felt my whole life felt my whole life felt my whole life and and i'm looking through this list of and and i'm looking through this list of and and i'm looking through this list of you know hundreds of of you know hundreds of of women and i'm like sitting in this uh silver lake um cafe coffee shop for 16 hours sitting there trying to remember oh like girl on tour in germany and like and it's just like not names but just every anything i could remember and it was just like it was it was filthy you know and it and it showed a mag it put a magnifying glass on my behavior for me to be like yo what you might be uh chalking up to being like rock star lifestyle you know it's like it's vapid like it is emotionally empty and along the way how many people have like you treated poorly in in the seek of of escaping from your own pain and it was like it was something i could never unsee it was like yo my my own pain should never be a catalyst for like causing others pain or the mistreatment of the demeaning of others it's just like i'm further hurting myself and hurting people in my life through trying to escape my pain and so i didn't although i didn't like completely overcome my addictions at that time like being in that program it put a real magnifying glass on it to be like oh now you actually know what you're doing perhaps that was the goal the entire time for sure you know it's i always say when people come to therapy or people undergo therapy sometimes they look at it like it's hgtv you know you know our hgtv they completely gut rental a house like they knock down all the walls and and they put crystal everywhere and there's marble floors and this all beautiful they rip that out so they can turn the cameras off and and then sometimes when people come in the therapy or they get any type of therapeutic intervention they think that the goal is to do the gut reno and that's not always true sometimes the goal is just to knock that first wall down because when you knock down that wall you realize you got a rusty pipe oh we gotta fix the rusty pipe then we fix the rusty pipe you realize that it's inside of a wall that's low bearing so oh now we gotta fix this wall and when you do that you realize the foundation is all cracked up uneven and the house is sinking so it might not have been to quote-unquote cure you of your addiction but to help you realize what was going on with you at the time because that dons on you in a way that may be a catalyst that starts knocking down the mother dominoes bro no it's crazy you say that because when i was in the 12-step program and i started to examine the sex addiction it knocked down the veneer of so many of my other addictions and just showed me that the nature of my addictive behaviors was all to escape my interiority it was all to get away from facing what i really feel what i feel about myself i mean what i what i think about myself and that kind of coupled with being introduced to transcendental meditation at the same time that set the building blocks of healing in position for me explain trans incidental transcendental transcendental what is it tm it sounds crazy but transcendental meditation is so basic it's like kind of like just the baseline meditation and it's like mantra based but uh just like a type of mantra like a like a sanskrit chant mantra and uh and you just focus your attention towards the center point with your eyes closed and focus your attention on your mantra and on on that chant and so basically it's literally just an extremely simple process of being in the present moment oh that's a great muscle to exercise being in the present moment is the best muscle to exercise because what you see is that like nothing ever happened in the past nothing ever happened in the future only thing that exists is now it's the only thing you got that's all you will ever have and all of that uh pain that your mind spins uncontrollable narratives about you thinking about from from the past like i've read a quote in the last couple days that was like there is no good or bad there's only the comparison of one state of being with another yeah like there's no good day there's no bad day there's just a comparison and comparison is the thief of joy so right now i might i might feel like uh i'm having a i'm having a great day you know um whereas a time when i was in jail i might have felt like i was having a terrible day but they only really take meaning when compared with one another because even when i was in jail i flipped the switch one of those one of those little lock-ups and i was like no i'm cool where i'm at you know i'm all right with this right now i was just meditating you know what i'm saying i'm like i i'm i'm not i'm not dying i'm i'm able to withstand this is what i'm saying like a very difficult experience brought into the hyper fixation on the present moment is most often all entirely uh survivable if you focus on the present and that's what transcendental meditation start to teach me was that like focusing on the present was a way out of the past and the pain what if we could democratize communication text now is doing just that with wireless it's a phone service delivered through an app that gives you free and unlimited talking text on nationwide 5g for zero dollars a month with no carrier locking you in if you want data on top of that they got monthly and weekly plans that you control stop getting taxed for your phone service man download text now today and start your service in minutes hank joined bj's wholesale club the day he became a father of 30. i coach football now coach hank saves up to 25 off grocery store prices 30 pounds of pasta three cases of protein bars 75 sports drinks and that's just pre-game he knows teamwork and bj's knows savings this is your home coach home of the save join for just twenty dollars at bjs.com mesquite and save ten cents per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only bj's home of the save and it's something that you can't like life doesn't always teach you that by yourself i don't know if you always get that lesson uh i remember when i was in grad school to become a therapist we would sit around we sit around the table and we talked the professor said hey y'all could talk about anything but you have to stay in the present don't talk about the past don't obsess over the future you have to stay in the present it's hard this is the hardest thing to do is stay in the present that's so dope though it is and you'll find yourself drifting and then you'll talk about you start forecasting and say no no no back into the present and what the throughline was throughout that entire semester was the constant reminders to be exactly where your feet are and then you have to reflect on that and then the reflection sometimes you get to learn the distinction between what is important and what is entertaining you get to learn what is inconvenient versus what is catastrophic and you say that early like we're not uh not your feelings you experience your feelings so then when you sit in the present you get to learn different terms you don't say i am angry you say no i feel angry you know oh man damn i'm disappointed nah i feel disappointed you could localize it then you get real nasty with it you say i feel disappointed in this moment i feel i feel deceived or betrayed in this moment and it leaves you just enough room bro for you to realize that that's not your identity it's not the story that you need to believe it's just your perception of reality it's a snapshot in time right now it will come to pass you don't have to put that joint on like a leather catsuit you know what i'm saying you can look at it in the closet i talk about this in my book you can look at it in the closet you can take that thing off the hanger you can examine it you can feel it you can hear the squeakiness of the material when you rub it up against your fingers but when you learn to really sit in the present and you learn how fleeting the pl the present is you don't have to put that suit on you don't have to always experience it you can just observe it and if you can't not even master that if you can work on that to the point where you feel comfortable in that reality throughout life i mean that's that's the whole it's the whole fucking paradigm shift i mean there's been so many things that have been instrumental in my process of healing you know through these addictions but none like the present moment you know what i'm saying and um i loki i heard you talk about um toxic positivity hate it and and like affirmations tell me tell me your perspective on that i don't know what you're talking about i don't know what i'm trying to get your perspective on that i mean i i don't have i don't know what toxic positivity is either so toxic positivity is where you try to all right let me give you imagery because this is how this is how i work best toxic positivity is like taking some food that you prepared and it's too salty you're like oh this food is too salty you know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna take a mound of sugar and i would just dump a mountain of sugar on it thinking that it'll neutralize it but over sugaring something that's overly salty doesn't make it doesn't make it good it makes it disgusting you know so it doesn't take away the saltiness you just have sugariness on top of the saltiness it's a way to kind of make a reality okay by being overly the inverse of whatever the feeling is but it's not authentic if i'm having a bad day the outer experience versus the inexperienced thing right so i'm going to smile i'm going to smile i'm going to smile all day everything okay here man everything's fine the world's burning down behind me i feel terrible on the inside but you don't you don't see the smile that's toxic positivity it's ignoring your reality and trying to manufacture one that is not authentic to what you feel in the moment so sometimes affirmations can be incredible because people use the term um what's the term people use um negative self-talk i don't say negative self-talk i use the term negative because it's not always talk it's not always a voice you hear sometimes it's just like a inclination you have or a real quick thought that just washes over your brain automatically putting a positive spin on negative self-messaging it completely takes you away from what that negative self-messaging is there to do sometimes a negative self-messaging is not indicative of you being weak or indicative of you just not being a person who's in tune with themselves sometimes it's a it's a signal that there's something in your mind that needs to be paid attention to and if you say man money comes to me freely flows easily to me but your bank account is at negative 10 and the tow man is outside taking your toyota camry away well how is that affirmation helping you see i don't know man i i i differ with you on this i give me your idea of it i love affirmations like when my bank account was on negative 50 000 it was affirmations of of wealth of of spirit that kept me on a upward trajectory i like to think of negative thoughts in my mind as sentences That I decide where the period falls. So like if I have a sentence in my mind that says like I'm so frustrated that I got to pay all these bills right now, I'll put a comma and I'll be like money is God energy and manifestation. I spend and receive it freely. Like I choose where the sentence where the sentence ends. I mean, I feel like my process of engaging with my ego daily is like a lot of like I won't say toxic positivity, but very but very intentional reframing of the messaging in my mind. And I love affirmations because. Affirmations fill the space, you know, saying like. There will be some sort of messaging happening in my mind any way it goes. I have an affirmation right now that's been like so fucking helpful for me because I've been like bless the past, bless the future, live fully in the now. Bless the past, bless the future, live fully in the now. Like even as I've been dealing with a lot of a lot of like shit online for the past, you know, maybe month, it's been piling on. But I've been just like. So intentional about being focused on the present moment in these affirmations, and I allow them to continue to populate the thoughts in my mind like I'm going to think, you know, I mean, like it's going to be words there, but I feel like I would rather that I choose at least some of the messaging is taking place then I'm at the mercy of God. mercy of my mind i don't disagree with you i think you made an important distinction though between toxic positivity and reframing there's a difference between trying to cover up something that's existing with something that you're trying to manufacture and taking the thing that's already existing and now i'm going to say manipulating it in a way that helps you continue to do the work i don't think there's anything wrong with affirmations but affirmations in and of themselves i think it could be a bit of a stress to think that they by themselves will fix your situation you also have to do the work and it sounds to me like in every everything you've said so far is indicative of a person who does the work now if the affirmations help you change your mindset they help you reframe so that you can feel the free like the freedom of consciousness to have that autonomy to put your hands attended to and drive your again absolutely but if it's just words if it's just words that aren't followed by action okay or if it's just words that don't speak to your authentic belief yeah if you don't believe that deeply that's true that's why i have a problem then no you're right though that i feel like it's the deeply held beliefs too bro the deeply held beliefs are are the the basis of of what one's experience of life is and as i started to re imagine you know my deeply held beliefs uh much of which for me does take place through like the use of affirmations but also like reading books i mean like your book which is why i'm so excited that you have written this because i don't find that there are enough people from our community that are prominent in the space in this space of literature i didn't know that until i joined this space of literature i look around i looked at my left i looked at my right and i don't see myself anyway i'm so deep in this like you were asking me earlier do i read fiction yeah and it's like right now for the past you know x amount of years i really don't and i really haven't because i spent a lot of time reading uh you know like self-help books i love self-help books i know it i know they sound like people think it's corny or something like that self-help books have helped me to completely rebuild a new sense of self that is that is like rooted in a mixture of like eastern philosophy and uh judeo-christian religion and like african uh ancestral ideas from all angles but there are not as many black and african voices in that space you know what i'm saying so a lot of times self-help books you gotta skim over a little racist part especially the old especially the old one my favorite book ever is this book called the game of life and how to play it i've given it who wrote it uh florence scobble shin okay 1920s she's a like a an american white american woman who wrote this uh book of metaphysics spiritual law called the game of life and how to play and it's just like the law of non-resistance the law of karma all these different laws uh very simple but the way she distills the information is a literal uh study guide to developing a strong sense of self and it's helped me to transform myself entirely i give it to people in the prison i gave it to my homie who was you know this guy's a cold hard killer g i gave it to him in the prison and uh he started manifesting and shit he's on him you know saying it was six months ago i couldn't take this guy to the chateau mama he gonna be talking about the block and the ops and like you know all this expanded gun on him you know at the chateau we can't do that you know but i gave him this book and i just watched how that like warrior spirit started to be wielded towards like self-development and like this this little self-help book but to to the point that i was making she got this passage in there she's like a colored student once made a most wonderful affirmation he says when i talks to the fathers i puts my foot down and i i as it says she's like she did the whole is massive like type of you know and it's like damn i love this book they've since changed that in the more recent editions but like i gotta i gotta hop skip and jump over this because uh yeah because this is also anti-black you know what i mean it's crazy how you haven't gotta close your eyes and search around in the dark in order to find the value in certain because it's so innately racist man i do that i think that would have thrown me off it was near the end of the book though so it's like you already like they buried the lead on you you already like yo my life has changed you don't say i read that book bro the book changed my life like when we were talking about what what kind of got me out of that around around that time you know 22 i start really diving into therapy maybe 24. how old are you now i can't tell i'm 33. you're 33 yeah are you still you're so young bro ages you know sliding scale you're 33 yeah okay uh but 24 i got into uh sly um the 12-step program 24 i also started practicing meditation about 25 26 things started to go bad i mean i relapsed with my addictions for sure i got worse i found my way to the holy grail you know i mean i'm cocaine now i'm like okay you know this you know this is going all the way up you know i got i got pretty high up on the ladder there's things past cocaine but cocaine is a is a is a solid benchmark for like oh yo ass do drugs yeah you know what i'm saying um i had relapsed and uh lost it all i mean around 27 but at that time maybe 26 27 i i found this book i'm getting deeper into my meditations i i i started to practice more extensive meditations i stumbled across this book maybe also from catherine catherine loki probably just saved my life now that i think about it she gave me the joe dispenser uh breaking the habit of being yourself oh my god this book right here bro it's like a book that combines self-help metaphysics tradition with quantum physics and so joe dispenser illustrates the ways that the quantum theory relates to a human being's ability to attract the life they desire desire in so many words so basically newtonian physics was very rigid it had like a nucleus it's the one we learned and that's like isaac newton yeah yeah we learned it in school with like a set nucleus and electrons and you know these things are facts of life whereas when quantum physics was introduced it showed that those electrons are actually within what's called an electron field of possibility and they only materialize into a specific point in space when we observe them it's called the observer effect so what that means on a larger level is that we as human beings have the ability to materialize matter with our observation what we think what we see we can materialize into our physical reality that coincides with this idea of self-fulfillment of prophecy man 100 yeah 100 and you know when i start to read that book um and do these extensive like hour long hour 40 minute long meditations where i'm working on my observations i'm like you know what what are you what are you uh trying to bring into your life you know because this is when i was i had i think lost it all and and i'm starting to understand the power of my thoughts that's that's what these books gave me and you know what it sounds to me like you were doing you were also practicing self-interrogation interrogating your immediate thoughts and interrogating your deeply held beliefs and i feel like one of the most obvious marks of a person who is growth capable or a person who possesses high emotional intelligence is the ability to take an idea that you have and the beliefs that come along with the idea because you know thoughts when they come along with the idea they come along with the idea that you have thoughts when they come along with the idea because you know thoughts when they come along they sit on you for too long become beliefs and beliefs are terrifying because they don't have to be true in order for you to hold them in order for you to live by them and then good luck having somebody convince you that your beliefs are off center even in the face of overwhelming evidence but if you could take all of that and you get new information and you say hold on you could put that foot in the dirt pivot that's a good sign that you're growth capable and that's a good sign that you can also apply that to other parts of your life man don't you believe everybody is growth capable is it just timing i believe everybody is growth capable it's just a matter of what's in your way yeah what's in the way between you and that right sometimes it's environment sometimes it's religion sometimes it's community sometimes it's upbringing sometimes it's your internal philosophy what you need to believe is true sometimes it's your influence sometimes it's just your age and your level of maturity that sometimes it's a beautiful multi-factorial blob of all that shit at the same time and how do you sort through it like no bullshit i mean i be telling people like um when it comes to therapy and trying to get better and trying to heal and trying to grow it's like when you go trick-or-treating i remember mcdonald's used to have them jack-o'-lantern uh plastic fucking tubs on halloween and the tub this damn thick and if you've been getting it that night you know that joint over wrong with candy and if you look at it from the top you can't really tell what's in there you can only tell what's on the top layer so how do you really tell what you had you got to flip that bucket over on the table you got to sort it out jolly ranches and skittles and the snickers and i don't really like them you throw them away and once you have everything sorted out now that you have them out and you can organize them you can put them back in the bucket and you know where everything is you can prioritize in a way that you need to get to first is in the top the things you desire the least at the bottom like it's when i think about healing and when i think about growing and when i think about having somebody like a therapist come in and assist you with that that's what they're doing they're sitting there they're organizing the on the table with you they separating it helping you put it back taking out what you don't want keeping what you do exactly i say it again man it feels good to expose these fools seeing straight through the bs they thought was gonna slide hear that wireless company because we can shave you loud text now cuts the clownery nationwide 5g instant activation and a data plan that moves how you do pay what you want or not at all show these carriers we ain't paying for stupid because we're way too smart to pay dumb shut them down is this how it is and that i think that that was the benefit that i derived from therapy that i cannot see myself having found my way out of that rut without the help of an amazing therapist and uh i actually wrote about this on my sub stack because my therapist and i uh we had a bad falling out around the time of um the dawn of the genocide in gaza um i have been to palestine and we actually started to butt heads around then but we transcended that you know wait a minute is this something that came up in session no it came up like outside of session it was like uh i went to palestine and you know in 2016 or 17 and i just like learned about what was really i saw the first hand yeah here like i'm on the rooftop in uh bethlehem and i'm looking at rationed water that the palestinians must live with it's worms swimming in the water you know saying like it's worms swimming in the water and i look across the wall and i see in israeli settlement it's rolling green pastures swimming pools and like sprinklers just like abundant water uh things i cannot unsee and as a member of uh a colony of people who are living in that area and they're living in that area and they're living in that area and they're living in that area and they're living in that area you know i mean like my uh my allegiance was was drawn clearly to humanity to human rights in that moment and my therapist however um spends a lot of time in israel and like building a lot of businesses out there i just started to kind of question that a bit after that experience but this is somebody who has questioned it outwardly like in conversation or just internally morally i think kind of internally morally got it okay and uh and maybe we had conversation about it at the time but like when i tell you i love this man like because this man has taken the the the broken pieces of my interiority and helped me to like make sense of them you know i mean it helped me to understand okay this is why i'm i'm steady falling into this addiction in that way you know this is why the the the sex and the you know family and the childhood traumas how they all interplay uh no non-judgment you mean like never judgmental just like my man you mean like unconditional positive regard this is my dog yeah when i tell you this is my dog so even though we've we had some ideological political differences i also understood in that moment i was like hey this is your this is your people and you got skin in the game in this particular situation in the in a different way and have lost family members in the midst of this uh this situation and so i understand it and honestly i just love you i love you you know what i mean like our ideological political differences aside like my love for you is much greater than those things and so uh we continue to work and like you know this this guy is just he's helped me he's helped to keep me alive you know i mean and uh when um October 7th happened which is the culmination of you know decades upon decades maybe about a century at least of like abuses against the Palestinian people and you know in my view they rebelled there was a resistance at like as i said as a member of an oppressed people resistance is is uh is something that that must happen um but i think i posted like a little meme of uh like uh a little girl with like a rock you know and a broken wall and my therapist hit me and he was like you know you're saying that all Jews should be killed right and i was like no like he saw your social media and he made a comment yeah based on okay not supposed to do that by the way yeah reached out to me you know and uh and then kind of like proceeded to um he proceeded to justify what would become like a really grave uh humanitarian human rights violation reaching the point of genocide you know in that like you know he was like man calling for Gaza to be raised and you know saying he understood why people would say that and he was like just you know uh and I was like I was floored by this you know and I was like man um I see where this is going you know and then within some months it becomes like a um 50 000 people killed 100 000 people killed to the point where now it may be millions of people killed but I say all that to say that like the relationship didn't really survive that and I I felt like really I felt hurt about it you know because I was like man I love this man you know but his his uh his allegiance to something that feels counter to the love that he's showed me is just some something far beyond my cognition you know and you know but i you know that could phrase so many relationships man uh and you know we see it online all the time where political differences and just beyond political just ideological differences draw they create a chasm that goes from i disagree with you to you're wrong on what you think feel and believe to your bad person and i don't know if a lot of relationships can survive that jump we know people who i know people maybe you do too whose parents have a difference in like yeah for sure like these ideological differences you like hey guess what i'm not coming to thanksgiving this year how do you do you think just i know that's your therapist but in your everyday life homies people you love deeply do you feel like you can overcome that because i i watch your content man and i know how passionate you are about these things and i think that's just a part of who you are is that something that you can not overlook but overcome in your other relationships or that's a good question and it's a question i ask myself a lot you know i think that um i i refrain from like the idea of a good and a bad person you know saying like i don't think it's my place to judge who is a good or a bad person but i do distance myself from people who seem actively committed to causing harm you know what i mean like not just from people who have caused harm in life i mean that's a part of being a human being but like if you are committed maybe it's a political ideology or something to something that is like in uh that that is in opposition to my or my loved one's right to live uh which is also it's all it's all a matter of perspective for sure um but like i have friends who were trumpers you know what i mean and it was like you have or had had okay or maybe i have and maybe they were trumpers i don't know i'd be kind of over here with it you know what i mean because i'd be like yo you know i mean you are you rocking with some that aims to kill me you know what i mean like that that's that's built on a on a on a on a racial fury that's like uh in that in that case aimed at myself and many of my loved ones look at a like chud the builder type you know i mean all of these are part of this this ecosystem that's like virulently violently anti-black you know i mean until it culminates in like yeah you shoot a you know i mean um do i do i find the ways to like overcome those things i think i seek them i seek them really sometimes i mean like when i talked about uh you know the therapist situation or the homie like i i didn't just like oh you differ from me politically off top don't want to talk to you you know but if it's like yeah and i think that uh this whole city should be nuked then i'm like yeah like it's a little too far for me in a different territory you know but i think also man like i was having this conversation with the homie the other day like becoming a father to me is what has has like rooted has stamped a lot of this uh transformation and growth for me you know whereas when i first got introduced to therapy and then got introduced to uh meditation and some medication that worked for me the 12-step program and then i had another thing and it's like you know a nose dive and found that rock bottom there was that car crash i talked about at the beginning of this conversation uh was introduced to therapy and then i got introduced to meditation and then i got introduced to islam which has been a beautiful flower that has grown in my life and grown much discipline in my life you know that that brought my son into the mix and brought my girl into the mix like having a family being a father and having a family it's like it's necessitated the growth you know saying because being a father necessitates growth in that anything you don't know about yourself you best believe you're passing that right on to your children in some ways in many inadvertent ways sometimes it's not always obvious it may not be you know i mean it might be so subtle something that you are subconsciously feeling your deeply held beliefs like not working on your deeply held beliefs as a parent it's it will be transferred many of them will be transferred and you also won't be able to like be the health be a man in a healthy relationship you know with your woman you know what i'm saying or with your partner in the way that is required of you to show the kid to show the kid something that they can grow into positive that is and it's funny because people think that i always equate it to like weather versus climate people think that these messages and these lessons are weathered it's the the sit down on my knee son let me tell you about life let me tell you about love you know these these individual things that happen you know they day to day when really it's these things that happen over larger portions of your life over a longer period of time you know my daughters i grew up in the house my mom it was just me and her and i never saw her date before never saw her go on a date never saw her be loved never saw her love my grandmother had five kids she didn't marry any of the of the fathers on her that was just her reality never married never got married i never seen her loved or be loved on so that never was a song in the background of my life and now to be married and everything and be married with two kids it's such an odd experience that i feel like i'm building from the ground up and my kids get to see me hug my wife they get to see me love on her they get to see me joke with her all of that that's the climate piece man it's so much a part vic it's so much a part of their lives that they don't i don't think they see it like my nine-year-old she came to a realization the other day she's like wait everybody's mom and dad aren't together it's like no baby everybody doesn't live with their dad no everybody's mommy and daddy don't get along nah but that plays in the background of her life in a way that i hope is more of an example than the expectation word yeah i mean you know what i'm saying no i do man i i was in the gym this morning i was thinking about the ways that um you know i seek transformation you know ultimately to uh show my son what i would hope that um he can improve upon how old is he he's two you have a two-year-old son yeah a little little little baby and i was like riding to the gym this morning i'm listening to uh uh i was listening to andrew huberman talking about david goggins and he was saying that um the ability to learn to wield states of difficulty and frustration and uh the the parasympathetic nervous system spike for the creation of things that you desire you know i mean be it like performance like athletic performance in a person in the uh the situation of a david goggins or um you know just a transcendent like mental state that it comes from uh low-key kind of getting like addicted to difficulty i kind of think about the things i do now it's like my part of my discipline is finding almost like an obsession with uh feeling difficult things and like transforming them being able to transcend them that's why i love being in the gym you know what i'm saying because it's like that resistance and and that like that spike of adrenaline that someone else may be like that's exactly why i don't want to go to the gym you know uh or in previous times i'd be like man i need to i need to go smoke in order for me to feel okay now i'll be like i need to go man i need to go smoke in order for me to feel okay now i'll be like i need to go meditate whereas at another time i might have thought meditating was like man it's too difficult i mean this is too hard to sit with my own thoughts um but like being able to reframe those things and use them it's like a big part of my fatherhood too i feel like because when i wake the baby up and he's in a wild tantrum and he's like overcome by fucking emotion and all this shit that's two years tend to be you know i mean like run in the room Slam the door, be mad because the door is closed now. I've even started to take those moments and think about how it's an opportunity for me. It's an opportunity for me to exercise patience. That's that reframing you were talking about earlier. It's all about the reframe. I'm like, yo, this tantrum is an opportunity for me to exercise emotional regulation and nervous system regulation within myself. I'm not stressed about this because I've trained for this. Yeah, bro. That's important. Mine is a little different. Mine is, and I talk about this in the book too, man. Mine isn't, this is an opportunity to learn it or exercise it. This is an opportunity for me to practice it. This is an opportunity. Exactly. And I practice a lot of things. One of the things I mentioned in that joint is saying no and how people all the time. Saying no is so hard. I ain't even going to pretend like it's easy. But it's something you got to practice. And I start, I talked about starting in inconsequential moments. So when you're in the mall and someone's like, hey, my man, your shoes look fresh, man. You know how in the mall they got to do is to clean the shoes. If you don't really want to, say no. You don't have to do it nicely. You don't have to do it in a way that's condescending or dehumanizing. Now, don't explain yourself. Don't over explain anything. Practice saying no. Nah, I'm good. Hey, my man, you want to try this new cologne? Nah. People knock on the door. Hey, I'm selling solar today. No. But I want to know I'm not interested. I'm closing the door now, man. You have a blessed day, bro. Click. If you could practice saying no in moments where the stakes are low. Yeah, you're right. You get the repetition so that when the stakes are higher, you can feel more comfortable in that. No. Or you don't feel like you got to overdo it to prove something. So you're saying no when you shouldn't. You can properly analyze what the situation is and how you should react to it. Saying no in and of itself is great. If you got the inner emotional architecture to do it and be firm in it, that's fine. But setting boundaries is one thing. It's so difficult, bro. Maintaining them boundaries is a completely different animal. It's so difficult for me saying no, bro. Why? I don't know, man. It's like I have this people-pleasing fucking parasite of some shit. It's funny because on one hand, I think that I have reveled in conflict in my life. I've always been a fighter. I trained in martial arts, boxing. And I would be quick to outside. If somebody would kind of test me or something, I'd be so fast to fight. But amongst people that I love or people I care for, I think I'm averse to conflict or something like that. And so I often say yes to shit that I need to not. I need to just say no to because it's like it ain't feeding my family. In the way of my real goals. Or I just don't really want to. I don't even want to do the shit. I don't want to do it. But I say yes. I say yes a lot. And I know I need to work on that shit. Even the little shit like my girl, she like, yeah, he come to you when he want the little pouches. The pouch is the little like sugary, you know, fucking. He want the little like banana, strawberry. Banana pouch. You know, he bring it over to me because she's like, you go when you crack a nigga. Yeah, she said he come to you. And I'm like, damn, because I'm the one I'm all strict about food. You know, I'm all like I'm like vegan and, you know, don't eat fried this. And but like I'm giving him shit that I don't even fucking think he should have because I guess I have work to do and saying no. Well, that's just not the no. In those situations, my question is always what's what else is within that? No. What do you think that no says about you? Or this is the kicker, man, with parenthood, because a lot of times we parent from a place of what we don't want to be or what we don't want to represent or we don't want to disappoint our kids. What do you think happens if you say no? And if it's my kid? It's going to be upset or my kid is going to be uncomfortable or dissatisfied. Why is that so difficult for you? Why is it so challenging for your kid to be dissatisfied? It's like I'm confused about it, honestly, because I have no problem with this nigga throwing a tantrum. I'm like, I don't give a fuck. I mean, like he throw tantrums all the time. I just sit there. I'd be like. It's going to be OK. You know. Oh, man, brother, you better man. You're all right. Like. I just chill, you know, but clearly he has learned, though, that in certain ways that he's more likely to get a yes out of me than than his mom, even though I don't care about tantrums. I don't trip like doesn't really bother me. But when it comes to them pouches, I'm going to say yes. I don't know. I don't even feel like I have the psyche. I don't feel like he had the psychological evaluation of why I'm even doing it. You're a man with a two year old, bro. Like, honestly, it might not even be something you need to think deeply about. He likes the pouches. I like when he's happy. If it's not killing anybody. I don't try to let him get too many, but he has learned, though. And I notice about myself, though, in a larger sense, though, is that like I do. I do have trouble saying no. And I think overall, like. In. In my growth out of. Addiction, what they say, just say no, you know, I mean, I don't know, I don't know, I mean, like, because a lot of time, you know, it'd be like, yeah, one more shot, you know, you're saying like, it's always one more. Like, come on, man, you know, let's one more pill, one more this, you know, and. Oftentimes I wouldn't need it, you know, I mean, I would never need it, I mean, but. I would kind of just go along with it a lot of time. And I think maybe part of that in that sense would come from like a like a deep seated sense of dissatisfaction. Self-dissatisfaction. With with the addiction, I do think, yeah, that it's like I was dissatisfied with myself. Yeah. With with my my experience. And so I was like, if that had been my default mode, as it was for so long, then anything that. Altered that state felt like a good look, you know, because I was like, man, I'm generally dissatisfied with like being alive. So one more shot, one more, you know, that feels like a net positive, you know. Can I ask you a question since you're talking about addiction again? Is there anything that the addiction took away from you that you feel like you can't get back? Yeah, I can't get back, man. I like to believe that he will restore the years the locusts have eaten. That's one from that little book from that Game of Life book. But I think it's from the Bible. I don't think about the things I lost that can't be regained often, you know, because I have chosen to contextualize everything that has happened. And I think that's one of the things that I've learned in my life's journey as being for my benefit in that it taught me a lesson I had to learn. It shaped or inspired growth in some way. It brought me to this point. And I know that all I have is this point. So I don't know if this falls into like toxic positivity ever. But like I really just choose. To believe that all that shit was for the better. Even if sometimes I don't all the way believe myself, it's my decision has been that like I choose now. And so anything that happened before has clearly led to me being now. And, you know, whatever, whatever tours, whatever opportunities, whatever commercial success, whatever did not. Materialize or disintegrated at the time as a result of those decisions and those addictions, et cetera, wasn't for me at that time. I mean, and I believe that that I do know that like. Man, what would what God has planned for me? I don't think anybody can stand in the way of, you know, I'm trying not I'm trying to not be the one in the way of it. I'm probably the only. Only one that could stand in the way. Uh huh. And that part. Yeah, for sure. That doesn't feel like toxic positivity to me. That feels like. reframing to me. It feels like regaining control of a narrative that spun out of control at one point. It feels like kind of materializing joy out of broken pieces sometimes. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. This is like, what would you rather be? Dejected or joyful? What if you could choose one? Would you not choose joyful? If you have the ability in your mind and your heart to do that. Would you call it growth capable? Yeah, I would. That word that you introduced earlier, growth capable. I feel like if you've set up your psychological condition and as well as your physiological, studying books like this, those that I spoke about, meditation, maybe it's sobriety, maybe it's exercise, like different pillars of behavior. That's what I'm getting at, different pillars of behavior that can support an intentional psychological state. Then you just may be. Growth capable enough to choose joy. Yeah. You could choose this shit. You could choose this shit every goddamn day. Now, if you all up in the drugs, like the shit, when I was deep in that, I couldn't choose it. That would have been toxic positivity for me to be like, man, my dopamine is fried because I've been on Molly for the last month. But like, life's great. You got compromised neurochemistry at that time. That's what I'm saying. If your neurochemistry is mad compromise, uh, I will say from personal experience, you were not, I could not just choose joy, but I am at a place now that even if, you know, my phone is blowing up because the whole internet is like, uh, on me and you know, it's a big crisis or some shit like that. I'm in a place where I'm capable of choosing joy. I actually don't have to, allow any of those things to steal my joy because I have enough structures erected around my mind and enough, uh, like behavioral consistency that like I can choose joy even while people think I should be upset. And that also speaks to diversifying your portfolio, man, and having your joy live in different pockets so that. And if one of those pillars is eliminated, the whole building doesn't go down with it. And that speaks to self-awareness. Wait, give me that game again. If, if the pillars never remember what I say after I said, you said, if your pillars are eliminated, diversifying your diversifying it so that everything isn't just leaning on one pillar. So if everything is too heavily, like with men, a lot of times, all of our pillars, all of our joy is usually centered around family. It makes us feel valuable. It makes us see, feel seen. It makes us feel worth it. Yeah. It makes us feel worthy. It's like being in the gym, being in the gym is different than going to therapy because you can't always see yourself improving in therapy. You can, you can feel when them arms a little snug in that t-shirt, you know what I'm saying? You could, you could feel when them quads popping out from the, from the above, above the knee shorts. You could feel it. You could see that you can get compliments on that. You can don't always see when you respond to something differently, not always better, but differently than you would have six months ago, even though that's growth, you don't see it that way. Yeah. It's when you, with all of your, your joy is centered on a pillar of fatherhood. And then your wife comes in, it's like, Hey, yo, this ain't working. Me and the kids about to move to Michigan. And you can't do that. Now that pillar gets knocked down and you do not have joy. You have to reconstruct it out of nothing. You got to build a building, not a rubble. However, if you diversify it, I get some of my joy from fatherhood. I get my joy from being a good friend. I get my joy from being a good person. I get my joy from being, uh, the emotional thermostat in my community. I get joy from, uh, participating in things to help other people grow and nourishing the things around me. Then if one pillar gets knocked down, the whole building doesn't go with it. Got to diversify that portfolio. Yeah. A lot of, a lot of people struggle with it, but a lot of men struggle with that specific. No, for sure. Black men specifically, specifically. I think if we, you know, round it out, like talking about how we heal, because that was what I intended, you know, for the nature of this conversation to be, I do think it's, it's standing up a diversified structure of healthy behaviors. Like if I know that what prior to five years ago kept me in this constant state of like, uh, rise and fall, you know what I mean? And like build and destroy. I mean, from the unhealthy, uh, sex addiction to the molly and the cocaine and the alcohol and, uh, the violence and like a strong start in five of unhealthy behaviors. The thing that continues to help me to heal that has me at such a different place today, five years ago, it was a very, very, later is is is an equally powerful or more powerful um starting five a diversified portfolio of healthy behaviors like meditation being a foundational unshakable block like i need that in order to do what i do today exercise being another one sobriety you know saying being another one study of uh related literature and like uh mental reframing processes like those that one might find in uh this book or the books that i've mentioned like these are all part and parcel of me healing and so i wanted to i want to close us out to see if you could just like introduce the book for us and um maybe just tell us a handful of things that readers can walk away with i mean how they can use the book way to land the plane by the way i uh man first i appreciate you trusting me with that dog you you said a lot today i don't know if you feel i don't know if you feel it though but you said a lot i feel a little eek but that's good because that means that you allow vulnerability to lead and vulnerability is terrifying yeah because it can either be the thing that deconstructs you or it could be a super highway to connectivity and you never know which way it's gonna go i think that um the things that you shared today about your experience will set a lot of people free bro because you didn't say anything today that i've never heard before but the thing is when people tell me these things it's just me and them in a room they never told anybody else it's things sometimes ideas that i have to they've never said it out loud before only in their mind and they hear themselves say it out loud and process it that way for the first time in session but you said in front of all of these people who are able to hear it internalize it and then think about their experiences just like you read the books much like mine much like the one that changed your life bro you just getting different spices you can make more ingredients with different materials bro you know you don't got to eat spaghetti every night you know so i appreciate you i appreciate you bro for trusting me with that that's not small i'm super proud of you for five years bro thank you man that's tremendous i hope you're proud of yourself yeah yeah and guess what the next five years after this gonna feel even better fire in the next five years after that and after that and after that i can't wait when people tell me that they've been like sober for 27 years or something i'd be like yo you're somebody who heard you say five and was like yo you're five is somebody's 27. you see what i'm saying um with the book i mean even to break this joint down bro it's a name so the original title of this book was do yourself a favor figure that out publicist ain't like that too much neither the publisher trying to put curse words in their titles yeah the best way to go like you gotta take it out uh so the title of the book now is it all starts when you do and that's because you know nothing nothing just happens in the in the perfect moment it doesn't start when you're ready it doesn't start when you feel like it it starts when you do which is something i don't have to tell you so this is like with all my content bro tens of millions of people reaching out bro you're doing therapy bro you're taking clients you're taking clients i can't take everybody it's impossible yeah for sure but i take everything everything that's helped people heal and all the years i've been doing therapy and i put it in the one place and i put it at eye level and distill it in a way that makes sense because it's like it's like you're in a place where you don't have to worry about anything it's like you don't have to worry about anything it's like you don't have to worry about anything bruh and you know if i'm sitting here like well your access to diagnosis with the comorbidity of the uh no one cares people just want to feel better so chapter one is self-honesty this is the continuum i take people on self-honesty do you accept the uncomfortable truth of life chapter two self-awareness are you putting on a show chapter three self-alignment do your actions match your intentions before i let you go we've all had a moment where we needed a new number my number got leaked online my homegirl needed one because she got blocked and she needed to let him know that was the wrong decision text now handles that and a lot more their phone service delivered through an app that gives you free and unlimited talking text on nationwide 5g covered by ads so you can save money data plans available when you need them no commitments no carrier locking you in download the text now app today and take control of your service chapter four self-improvement are you truly ready for change chapter five self-esteem you how much do you like you chapter six self-acceptance what if this is always you chapter seven self-love which i got a problem with the way we learn self-love can you love yourself entirely chapter eight self-importance can you stop accepting second best chapter nine self-protection how are your emotional self-defense skills and in chapter 10 self-healing can you find peace one of the most important things that we can help people do in therapy sessions is safely interrogate their initial thoughts and like we said they're deeply held beliefs away from guilt and away from shame and if you can do that you can have your mind open to being changed and if you can do that you can experience for yourself internal transformative change in your life and change ain't always like this big explosive difference where everything is obviously far altered than it was before sometimes it's not like it's not like it's not like it's not change is just these little incremental steps up from what things were and i swear to god if you can if you can appreciate the little steps that means you can see little steps that means you can feel the change you can embrace it but we don't always get to learn how and that's what you walk away from this book with i swear to god like being five years sober it's like it's been the culmination of so many little steps you know what i mean and they were they were little until they became big that's how i go i think one one or two last things is um what does it mean to be a black male therapist how much of the industry is is black people and black men there in therapy i could be wrong but when this publishes i'm sure somebody will point out the numbers i think it's two percent but there are there's a very small percentage of black people black people of therapists i think so i could be wrong i've had amazing black black women therapists but i've never had a black male therapist but even the black woman therapist i had to seek this so like my therapist is not a black woman um my first couple of therapists weren't black actually yeah and i mean that's a whole nother thing i still had amazing experiences with them but black people are a small percentage black men are even smaller percentage and black men like me you never find yeah you you'll never find man which i feel is unfortunate a lot of us don't see ourselves in the healing capacity when in all actuality bro we have them we have an amazing capability to be healers and you know our natural gifts with language i mean and how much of therapy is communication i mean of course it's like an empathetic communication that extends beyond language but the ways that we transfer it the way you've transferred it here i mean the way we've transferred it in this conversation it's conversation it's language yeah it's like boy we nice with language you know what i'm saying like this is this is something that our people do you know what i mean language and storytelling language and storytelling are in our dna like we come from cultures where our histories were passed down through language i loki want to ask you what problem do you have with the ways that we learn self-love i have a fundamental issue with the idea that if there is something about yourself that you're deeply dissatisfied with kind of along the same guys as uh toxic positivity there's something you deeply self-test you're dissatisfied with you have to look in the mirror and hug yourself and tell yourself it'll be okay because what if it won't the problem with that type of messaging is then what what if i look at my face and all i can see is how much i don't resemble my mother then what what does that mean for my self-love what if i'm not just one thing what if i'm comprised of a million different pieces and the part that i don't love is the most important piece to me then what what if i don't love the nose on my face what if i don't love the brain that's in my skull and the way that it thinks and the things that it gravitates toward then what it's the same principle man just because something is really salty you pour a pound of sugar on it doesn't remedy the problem it just makes the middle part of my face feel like it's not enough it doesn't it just makes the meal more disgusting i think that self-love is a deeply personal concept and we we overvalue looking past it and we undervalue a sense of neutrality where you don't necessarily love what's going on you don't necessarily hate what's going on no that's the game but you can see it without deeply negatively experiencing it neutral thinking actually is i believe is a an advancement from positive thinking i mean the the it can't be the book yeah it can be you know and even in like the tradition of self-help books though like the power of positive thinking norman vincent peele's first one i read and it's like the first one that was written in this american space a book that i mentioned to you off camera uh i think it's called it takes what it takes which is a brilliant one from a sports mental coach he had learned from his father the power of positive thinking and devised a different theory of of neutral thinking which is like very similar to stoic philosophy which is another thing i would say has been a huge help for me in this process uh has been marcus aurelius meditations yeah and stoic philosophy and to not be uh particularly swayed negatively or positively i mean if you receive great criticism don't allow that to knock you off your pivot if you receive great uh praise don't allow that to aggrandize you beyond what's happening right now i mean like neutrality i think neutrality honestly is is is the the now i think neutrality is low-key more transformative even than like a a reckless commitment to a positivity because neutrality just means like yo i'm really here right now yeah i'm not attaching myself to any particular gravitation i'm not saying that it's the best thing ever because it's in comparison to some up past or a up future i'm not saying it's the worst because i'm comparing it to the when i got this 10 million dollar home i'm like yo right now you mean i'm like i'm water to it like what bruce lacy bruce lee said to be like like water and you know neutrality i talk about a lot in the book neutrality oh yeah absolutely that's that's a lot of that's hard i get what you mean now i see why you anti-toxic positivity yeah because you like yo be all right with this moment like what's happening right now i don't always have to have a strong feeling one way or another some things are just neutral i nothing it i don't love it or i don't hate it i just allow it to exist i experience it and it just is what it is i completely i i'm glad i asked you this question because now i get i get where you coming from entirely and i think that it's actually that that is that that's the evolved way i believe yeah i mean i know that like the relentless positivity it helps me a lot you know what i mean and i think i mix it with a neutrality but i also recognize that like the real north star of a lot of the teachings that i've studied that have resonated with me the most are within not allowing oneself to be overtaken by the positive or the negative. You live by the chair, you die by the booze. Because low key, this was something I learned in a book called Thrilled to Death, I think. Or maybe it was a neuroscience podcast. That boy be reading. Do you understand me? You got to, man. That man is a reader. Hey, look, you have to, but every positive spike in dopamine and serotonin is accompanied by a dip. That's the way that the brain chemistry is structured. So when you find yourself in a situation like drug abuse or sex addiction, those things that spike your neurochemicals, or whatever, they spike it so up, man, that's why you experience such deep lows afterwards. And when you think about that, it's like, actually, the goal must be to maintain more of a state of equilibrium. To be more like a sound wave. I mean, to maintain more of that state. Because if you're seeking a constant, like, serious elation, you're going to deal with the accompanying dips. Man, I'm excited to read this, man. Yeah, man. I'm excited for you to get your hands on it. I've been working on it for a really long time. And I did not want to write this book. You're changing the game with this book, though, bro. I did not want to write this book. But, you know, the biggest thing to me is, for everybody to realize, I said this on Threads the other day, man. It's like, hey, don't put me on the pedestal. I'm going to disappoint you any time. I'm 1,000% okay with that. You know, this is not me shouting things at you from an ivory tower. This is not me telling you what to do. It's giving you something to think about. It's giving you something to think about, some more material for you to reframe your thought, for you to take a step back from your lived experience and examine it from another perspective. I think we all would be very excited to read this, though, because what we love about. Your perspective is that it's uniquely yours. Like, you say a lot of things that I just haven't heard anybody say before. Thank you, bro. And it's clear that you're just expressing your worldview. And I feel like what you do on social media is already the building blocks for a book, as clearly did the publishers. Because it's like it's so well orchestrated. And clearly you've done the work to arrive at, like, profound conclusions, which is that's kind of all writing is, right? Yeah, still doing the work. That you do the work, you know what I mean, on a daily basis to explore, you know, your interiority and your exteriority to arrive at, like, meaningful conclusions that people can take. You've said interiority a few times. I'm going to let you know something. I'm still in that. That was good. The first time I stood. I'm going to mention you. Okay, okay. The second time I stood, I'm going to say somebody said it. The third time, I'm going to say God gave it to me, bro. Like, that's just how he go and do it. I appreciate you, brother. My brother, man. Yo, thank you so much, man, for coming through, man. This is so dope, man. Absolutely, anytime. And you gave me my flower or my oranges. Oranges come from flowers, man. Them motherfuckers have flowers on them at a point in time. See, I didn't know that. I didn't know that either. Are you serious? Yeah, they got, like, flowers on the orange tree. And the bees come and they pollinate. That's the intro to our show, actually. It's, like, the bees coming and pollinating the shit. That is some metaphorical shit for your ass. Go talk. Love that. Here we go. Salacious solar salutations, my slime. Listen. Yo, how you just gonna steal my whole day? Let me get this off. I've been wanting to do this for a long time. Let me get this off. You traumatizing me. You supposed to be a therapist. Nah, nah, I'm not your therapist, dog. You ain't paying me. It's gonna be all right. Listen, if yesterday is the tomorrow that never came and already left and the present is a gift, then every day should be the day that you rejoice in. And if you don't know what I'm talking about. Neither do I. Neither do I. What the fuck am I talking about? I be making sense, though. Hey, nah. You be making sense. I be making sense, but it's something about this WNBA regulation basketball-sized orange. Tell them it's a real orange I just took from the tree. It's a real orange. So, he has a tool. Hold on. I thought it was a lacrosse stick. What is that? Still gotta keep a tool on me. Still got the tool. You can take the boy out of Southside, but you can't take the Southside out of that boy. You trying to say I'm amazing? You just sell oranges, bro. You heard it from them first. Bring me in as a partner. Come on, you. See how they knew you? Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. 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