Hey Friends & Kin!
Let me start out by saying there is a LOT of profanity in this episode. If you don’t think you can handle that – SKIP THIS ONE! But PLEASE, don’t skip it because it is absolutely AMAZING…
This episode is a little lengthy, but I can guarantee it won't feel like it because the conversation flows like water. This is a BEAUTIFULLY RAW CONVERSATION with my actual therapist! Yes, the therapist I talk about almost EVERY single episode. We end up discussing so many things - from navigating unhealthy relationships, Cardi B. & Lil’ Kim’s mental health issues, Pussy Power, WAP (I showed her the music video for the first time), different ways of parenting without violence & I have a breakthrough in the midst of it all. I can promise you that it is worth every single second of your ear time. So, if you want to hear a conversation between a girl and her therapist that is thought provoking and may shift how you process some of your ways of navigating through life - PRESS PLAY!!!
_______
I would absolutely LOVE if you would please submit questions for the, "Straight Facts" segment, as well as photos of, stories, memories & quotes about your auntie to: hello@handmemypurse.com - using #STRAIGHTFACTS as the subject line. Or DM me on INSTAGRAM (see below).
Listen. Subscribe. Follow. Rate. Review. :
Apple Podcasts.
Stitcher.
Spotify.
Google Podcasts.
Tune In.
Deezer.
I appreciate you so much for listening!
And as always, "Thank you for your support..."
(said just like the 80s Bartles and Jaymes commer
I love you guys so much & I’m honored to share my time & energy with you – ESPECIALLY IF YOU KEEP COMING BACK! I can’t wait until we get to do this again!
And as always, "Thank you for your support..."
(said exactly like the 80s Bartles and Jaymes commercials)
xoxo
MeMe
*****************
J O I N * T H E * S Q U A D
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HAND ME MY PURSE. SPOTIFY PLAYLIST
*********************
Music:
to Hand Me my Purse the Podcast. I am Mimi Walker,
and I will be here forever host each and every
single time you tune into this podcast. So go ahead
and get comfortable. Get yourself a glass of your favorite beverage,
(00:39):
whether that's alkaline water, red kool aid, a high cup
of tea with honey, a glass of Cabernet, Sauvignon or Hennessy,
and light yourself a candle, some incense, or burn some
sage and just get ready to chill out and have
a good time. What's up, friends and ken, It is
(01:08):
none other than Mimi Resident Auntie Supreme here at Hand
Me my Purse the Podcast, and today I'm sipping on
some just regular ass filtered water. That's it, the end,
nothing fancy. I've been trying to get in at least
a gallon of water for a day, excuse me, a
gallon of water a day for at least three to
(01:28):
four days a week. So that's what I have going on.
I'm not gonna waste a whole lot of time doing
no explanations about the water. I'm trying to drink some water,
trying to flush out some toxins. I'm trying to lose
some weight, still waiting on that to happen, but you know,
I'm hopeful. I believe in God, and I believe that
I believe in me. I believe that I'm going to
do the work that is necessary. Anyway, moving on, I
(01:49):
want to go ahead and just let y'all know on
the front end that this episode is jam packed, and
it is jam packed just in general, but also jam
packed with adult content. My guest today is my therapist,
and we have such a beautifully raw conversation about some
really really hot topics. So if you can't handle some profanity,
some grown up talk, and the word pussy, I suggest
(02:12):
you leave now You've been warned. I love you, That's
why i'm telling you on the front end. I don't
want you guys clutching your pearls the whole episode. So
I'm telling you, however, if you want to hear a
conversation between a girl and her therapist that she loves
that is thought provoking and it will quite possibly shift
how you process some of your own ways of navigating
(02:33):
through life, press pause, go grab a drink, and set
yourself down, or if you're in your car, buckle up, Buttercup,
because it's gonna be one hell of a ride. Now,
don't get me wrong, it's not like the episode is
not like out of control. But I just want you
to know on the front end that there's going to
be a little bit of cursing. Okay, So let's just
(02:54):
go ahead and get into this gym so we can
move on to this conversation. So, friends and ken. The
jam for today's episode is by one of my favorite
alternative rock artists. Her name is Alanis Morriset. If you
(03:16):
are of Generation X, and particularly if you are between
the ages of I would say forty to fifty, you
know Alanis Morset. In the nineties, she was a hot
commodity in these music streets. And if you have an
(03:36):
eclectic taste in music, then you will know who she is.
If you are not really open minded when it comes
to music, then you won't know who she is. But
allow me to introduce you to a different genre of
music if you will. This song is from her inaugural,
which is my new favorite word. This song is from
her very first album and it is called Jagged Little
(03:58):
Pill and Jagged Little Pill is like a staple. Okay,
it's the It's one of those albums for me that
I can listen to from the very start until the
very end. I listened to the hidden songs, I listened
to the extra songs, the bonuses, the acoustics, all of that.
And this song is called you Learn. And I chose
(04:19):
this song because my conversation with my therapist is very
much so about learning, living and learning and like growth
and not just my own personal growth, but just growth
in general, just just just growth, Okay. And so one
of my favorite lyrics of this song is the Chorse,
(04:41):
and the chorse says, you live, you learn, you love,
you learn, you cry, you learn, you lose, you learn,
you bleed, you learn, you scream, you learn. And then
at the end, the additional chorse says, you grieve, you learn,
you choke, you learn, you laugh, you learn, you choose
as you learn, you pray, you learn, you ask, you learn,
(05:03):
you live, you learn. And essentially, friends and ken, that's
what life is about. It's about living, learning, experiencing life,
walking through life, failing, not always getting it right, epic wins,
big time losses, and just learning from them, because if
(05:26):
you're not learning, from all of these experiences, like what
are you really doing? You know, my cousin Randall, who
I love dearly, he's like my brother. We're really close.
But my cousin Randall said to me, he's like really
an old man. He has these great one liners or
these great like quotes all the time. He used to
always say anything not growing is dead if you're not growing,
(05:47):
Like what are you really doing? Like in real life,
like what's really? What's really hood? So I want you
to listen to this now, I will say I always
have a story about finding these covers. Okay. I always
try to make sure that my cover is first, like
I said, a black person, and then if I can
find a black person, I'll find another person of color.
I found some black people singing this song, okay. The
(06:10):
way they destroyed this classic this woman's song Atlantis Morris
said is from Canada. The way they desecrated this beautiful
Canadian queen's song It's beyond me and one of them,
I was going to pick this brother who was singing
it acoustick. It was great, but I said, it's so bad.
(06:32):
Maybe I could just play it and it could be
like funny. And then I said I'm not doing it,
says a black man. No, I'm not. I'm not here
for that. But I found a young lady who I
believe that she is of Asian descent. I'm not going
to speculate on where she's from in Asia because I'm not,
but I assume that she is of Asian descent. Her
(06:53):
name is Abigail Lebios. And you know i'd be saying
names wrong, but I believe it's Abigail Lebio. She does
an amazing job. Her voice is beautiful, she plays the
guitar really well, you know. And I just wanted to
hit y'all with something something good. I don't want y'all
listening to no bad singing, you know, so I wanted
y'all to hear somebody singing the song well, especially since
(07:14):
you know it's an alternative rock song. I'm not hitting
y'all with no R and B this time. So sit back,
listen to the song, and let's go ahead and get
this party started. Swow down a juggon little It feel
too good? You you cry, you sleep? I can anyone
(08:17):
sticking y'all foot y'all mouth a feel for me. Now,
let's get into the show. So, friends and ken, this
is a monumental situation that we have here because I
(08:40):
am sitting here with none other than my special little
And I keep saying little because she is small and stature,
my angel, my therapy angel, my therapist. I'm not gonna
say her name. She can introduce herself, but she is
here with me today and we are going to have
a very candid conversation about a whole lot of things.
(09:04):
So I want you to be excited because I'm excited
to be with here with her, and I want her
to introduce herself. Hello, I am doctor Damassey, and I
am here with one of my favorite people, not just
client or patient, but one of my favorite people. Yeah.
I don't want to be called a patient because that
(09:24):
makes me feel like, you know, like I wear a
straight jacket. I don't like using a term patient either. Okay,
so that's fair, perfect, And I want you guys to
understand that she is not lying. I am one of
her favorite people, and that is why I talk about
her so much. Not because I'm her favorite person, but
because she makes me feel like I'm her favorite person.
(09:45):
Even if I'm not. I'm gonna ride with it because
that is what I believe. I believe that to be true.
It is the truth, right, it is told of the truth.
That we is thegether, we see, we is together, is
that she is She is my eight Somebody said to me,
you talk about your therapist like she's your best friend.
(10:05):
I said, she is my best friend. She doesn't know it,
but she is my best friend in the whole wide world.
I want to start off the conversation by asking her
what I ask everybody, which is, tell me what your
favorite thing to drink is. My favorite drink is tequila.
I sip it, though I don't toss a bag. You don't,
(10:26):
so she doesn't. You don't do shots. I could be
convinced to do a shot, but it's not typical. I
obviously order two or three shot size tequila's and I
drink them slowly. Do you like them chilled? No? Okay,
So my aunt is a big time tequilla drinker. Her
she gets a double shot of tequila. She's listening because
she listens to every episode the day it comes out,
(10:48):
within hours that it's released. But correct me if I'm wrong,
my aunt, churil you drink a double shot of tequila chilled?
Does she have a line with it. I don't even
think she does that. She just drinks it chilled, and
it is a lot to drink. I am a shot taker.
I like shots of tequila, and that could be why
(11:10):
we're connected to because I like tequila. But you should
look into that, like she just tells them a double shot,
and I mean, if you don't need it chilled and
you don't have to have a chill, but I think
it probably tastes better chill because it's it's not the
alcohol just isn't the most pleasant thing to consume, period.
But if you're drinking straight tequila, she gets a chilled
and then it's just cold in the glass. There's no
(11:31):
ice in the glass, and she just drinks it and
she sits on it like that too. I like it
room temperature, you do, that's gangster's. I mean shots are
always room temperature, of course, but that's gangster to just
sip on tequila room temperature. Do you like brown liquor? Um?
Not typically. I think I've learned in my older age
(11:52):
that it's not you know, I when whiskey got really big,
I was like, oh I'm gonna drink whiskey. Yeah, it's
not it doesn't work with my acid reflux. It does,
it's not good. I always end up with a headache.
So tequila works deep. Eddy Lemon vodka works very specific.
And that's about And Frose it's my new favorite thing.
(12:16):
I don't even know what that is. Oh, frose is
like rose, and I think they mix it with vodka
and they make a blended drink out of it. Oh,
it's very good. It's very good. They drink it at
it And I love champagne like I can drink champagne
all day, every day, and I've always liked it, and
I think I like it because I m When I
(12:38):
was little, I used to watch Lifestyles of the Rich
and Famous with Robin Leitch and I was like, I'm
gonna be on this show one day. Um, it's not
on anymore, but in my mind, I'm still gonna be
on it. But I wanted to be fancy like the
people who drank champagne, champagne wishes and caviar dreams. That
was me, and so I always wanted to drink it,
but I never really drank it too much. And then
(13:00):
a couple of years ago, I was dating this guy
and he really, really liked Champagne, and I love him
two pieces. He doesn't know it, but oh he probably
does know it. But anyway, he really loved Champagne. So
we drank Champagne quite a bit when we were together
and ever since then. I think it was like my
Champagne fiend was awakened, and I want to drink it
(13:21):
all the time. So I like Champagne, I like frose,
I like red wine. I don't like white wine too much,
but I will drink rose. I do not drink muscato.
I think moscato is not for me. I don't like muscatto. Yeah,
I feel like I feel like it's like kool aid. Yeah,
I don't know. I think people who don't like wine
they might like moscato. Yeah there's a dessert wine. Yes,
(13:46):
they are, and you should have them either with or
in lieu of dessert. Yeah. I don't want anything that's sweet. No,
I don't think, especially not with alcohol. Um, please drink
mascatto if you like it. I just don't like it. Anyway.
We're here today and we're going to talk about things.
The last episode was about Toxic. It was about p Valley,
(14:08):
but we talked a lot about toxic relationships between mothers
and daughters, and how in our community it's not really
discussed because you have to honor your mother and your father,
but really your mother, because you only get one mama.
What if your mom is trash? Like, what if she's
is trash? It's not necessarily true that you only get
one mom. Okay, let's talk about this. There are people
(14:30):
in our communities who will adopt us. So I have
a lot of moms, yeah, and so good moms. Even
surround you with other people who can be your mom
aunties yeah, and god moms yeah, and so all of them,
I put them all in the same they're all aunties. There.
They are people who love you, who protect you, who
(14:52):
will provide for you if you need to, if they
need to, right, or my guests and I we talked
about on the show pe Valley. We talked. We touched
on how like we related to in different ways. The
one of the main characters, she and her mother have
a very tumultuous relationship and so on. P Valley is interesting.
(15:15):
There is this I don't know what I would call
Uncle Clifford, because he dresses like a woman, He wears makeup,
he wears wigs, you know, until he doesn't and then
he takes him off, and like when he's around his house,
he doesn't. But when he kind of like RuPaul, Like
when RuPaul is working, RuPaul is working like working, right,
(15:38):
But if you see RuPaul on a regular day, he
just has on a suit and a hat. Right, Yeah,
with Uncle Clifford. No, Uncle Clifford would dress like a
woman even when he wasn't working. But the thing about
it is that when he wasn't working, he was still working, Okay, Right.
The only time I ever saw him outside of the club,
which is called the Pank, is when he went to
(16:01):
the bank. And when he went to the bank, he
was dressed as a man. But that could just be
the politics behind the county or the town that they
lived in. He probably, you know, wanted them to respect
him or see him in a different way, so he
couldn't be his full Uncle Clifford self. But what I
was saying was that it's interesting that in this show.
(16:22):
The creator of the show, her name is Katori Hall,
and I'm going to give her a shout out because
she responded to some of my Instagram posts and I
was so excited and so did Uncle Clifford, and so
did Mercedes. I died and went to pe Valley Heaven
when that happened. But Uncle Clifford in a way was
like a mother to her because I mean to her
(16:43):
and too, like all the girls like, because he runs
the club, the strip club, and like he mothers them definitely.
And it's interesting to see a man mothering because he
is mothering, because there's very different energy between the energy
that you from a dad or an uncle versus an
aunt or a mother. But he definitely gave them like
(17:06):
mother aunt energy, and he gave them that. And another
thing we talked about was my guests talked about this
concept or this theory that she birth called the displaced
Ocean theory, and she talked about how basically there's this
(17:26):
ideal of like the sacred mother, I mean, the divine
mother and the sacred whore, but they're always separate and
never it's like they can never like merge or they
can never be one entity or one being, of course
because the patriarchy, but really there are people who are
both a divine mother and a sacred whore like CARDI
(17:47):
By Okay, what do you think about that? I don't
know enough about Cardi Ba Okay, little Kim, now that
she has a daughter again, I couldn't speak to the
first thing that comes in mind with all these ladies
are other mental health issues. Okay, yes, now now we
(18:11):
are cooking with grease, talk about it. Other mental health
issues like what, Um, I think Cardie B has an
issue with boundaries? Okay um. And that's very much in
my face when I come across her name. And then, um,
did you say little Kim? I did um for her.
(18:34):
There's like a whole self acceptance type thing. Okay, um
that comes to me. Okay. Millie Jackson, Yeah, I think
she was making music like when we were born or
like as we were like infants. So if like our
parents didn't really listen to her, we wouldn't really know.
And yes, my therapist is close to age. She is
(18:55):
a young lady. Um. And my mother was very young.
My mother was only fifteen when she had me, so
she wasn't listening to listening to Millie Jackson. But when
I got older, I found out about who Millie Jackson was.
So she was a singer. She was a little crass.
She sang about crass things and sex and you know,
my kind of lady and like just not unafraid to
(19:19):
just be right, not so much as in your face
as the artists of today are, I guess because like
certain things it's okay, certain things just I guess weren't
as accepted back then, like walking around and being on
Instagram with your breasts out. But she definitely sang about
(19:39):
some stuff. Right, Um, let's talk about a little Kim
and her acceptance, the issues around her acceptance. What what
do you what do you think that's about? I mean,
I definitely you know, I don't follow her closely, but
back in the day when I was following her story
more closely, I just felt like she had an issue
(20:00):
with defining what black womanhood looks like and what in
terms of like how it looks actually visually and how
it looks like in terms of lifestyle. It just seems
like she struggled with that at different times in her career. Okay,
(20:22):
And so did you listen to her music? I did? Okay,
So you listen to hardcore? I mean it was very empowering.
And I think that's kind of the thing that all
of the ladies you talked about have in common. It's
like there's pussy power there. Yeah, she said the P word. Yes,
(20:42):
I agree. So what is before we get into like
what pussy power is for me? Like, I'm a very
sexual person. I don't have a problem talking about sex
with strangers. I don't. I don't care, right, because it's
just sex for me. There were three women who I
am not connected to other than that we are all
(21:03):
women that really helped me to like unlock that right,
and that was Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Little Kim. And
I remember seeing Madonna in the what album was it?
I think it was the album where she was like
(21:27):
doing like the whole black thing with the corn rolls,
appropriating her ass off with like the corn rolls, but
then the latex and like the BDSM situation. Something about
that was really empowering to me. And because you don't
see women doing that, and it was almost like she
was like, fuck y'all, I'm gonna do what I want
to do. I like that And who would have known
(21:50):
that I would be so influenced by that kind of thing.
And then I can't remember it's a song. It might
be Madonna's song. It's called human Nature. And then yeah,
I think it is human Nature because I think that's
the video where the background is like it's like a
(22:10):
light blue and she has she has this jet black
these jet black corn rows and like a black latex
suit and pulling on her and the song though some
of the lyrics say I'm not sorry, it's human nature,
and like she talks about people like this is so
telling about who I am. I never thought about it.
She talks about people like frowning upon her being sexually
(22:35):
free and doing what she wants to do and sexually liberated.
Then it was Janet Jackson, No no, no no. Then
it was Little Kim in hardcore. I was actually still
a virgin when that came out. I was in high school.
I was somewhat of a late bloomer. I didn't start
having sex until I was a freshman in college. And
but that album, like I had to sneak and listen
(22:57):
to it because god, my parents would have died. But
I was listening to it, and I was like, this
lady is saying some things, right, And I was like yes,
And I was singing it and I felt good about
singing it, and I didn't really I hadn't done any
other things she was talking about, but I was looking
forward to doing them because I felt like I want
to feel like proud to say that I did these
(23:20):
things right. Yeah. And then it was Janet Jackson's Red
Velvet Rope album. Oh that was it back because when
that came out, I was having sex by then. Oh yeah,
and that that sealed the deal for me. I was like,
it is totally okay to talk about sex. It's okay
to do the things you want to do sexually, and
(23:42):
and it's like, it is okay even though society tells
you it's not okay. And society still tells me today
that it's not okay. And I'm forty one. Yeah, because
I just had a birthday. I'm forty one. Happy birthday
to me. Yes, I just had a birthday last week.
Yeah I did. It was a week about a week ago. Um.
Even at forty one, people still will say things to
(24:04):
me like it's not lady like for you to say
things like this, or it's I hate. I hate. I
hate when people say things like that, and I really
hate when men tell me that it's not ladylike. Right,
what do you mean? I have a whole vagina and
two very large breasts. I am a woman, hear me, roar.
(24:25):
There's nothing unwoman about me. I am a whole woman.
I have ovaries, I believe every month. What is being
a lady anyway? Exactly? Who created that? A man? Probably
a man probably, and probably a white man. Yeah, yeah,
probably because to me, that's all wrapped up in like
(24:46):
the whole southern belle culture, right, Yeah, it was definitely
a white man then, and then what ends up happening
is no black woman could ever be lady like? No speak?
Come on now, now, do you see why she's my therapist? No?
We because I will never be a Confederate Southern bell
now nor I don't personally aspire to be. I want
(25:06):
to always disrupt all of those systems. So if I
know that me talking about sex or cursing or spitting
not in the not in the building, but like outside
makes you uncomfortable and makes you say, oh, she's she's
not a lady? Good? I want to do that, okay,
(25:28):
because you don't get to define what being a lady is.
That's very true, That's very true. I think for my
girls twenty two and eighteen, Megan the Stallion is was
the equivalent of our little little chimp. Yeah. I love
Meg the Stallion. Yeah, because my kids are singing wop
all over the house, my boys too. Oh you should
(25:48):
spank them. No, I'm I'm proud, you know, Yeah I am,
especially when I hear my sons, you know, say wop. Yeah,
when they sing it, sing it out and stuff like that.
When they do they say like wet ass pussy. I
can't believe I just said that. Oh my god, are
they saying for those of you? Okay? So because sometimes
(26:08):
I have to dial it back because everybody is not
as you know, not hit, but like aware culturally aware.
So Cardi, Bing Meg thea Stallion have a song called Whop.
If you don't know it. If you don't know about
this song, I don't know what rock you could possibly
be living under. But they have a song. It's called
whop and um whop WAP stands for wet ass pussy.
(26:32):
The song is all about what she does with her
whop and how great her whop is, and people when
it came out were appalled by it. The minute I
heard it, I was in love because I was like,
that's right, be proud of it. Yeah, because everybody doesn't
have a whop and and being a pussy is not
(26:54):
a bad thing. Pussy is not a bad thing, and
saying the word pussy is not a bad thing. It's not. No,
but we are taught that it is. Yeah, it is.
We toldally taught that the vagina represents a bunch of
negative things when it actually birth, it gives birth. Let's
usher's life into this realm. Yeah. Yeah, people are weird.
(27:16):
But so you're okay with your son saying that they
whisper like they said, They're saying all the lyrics and
then when it comes to the you know, lower there,
they're whisper it, or they might skip over the exact part. Okay, Um,
but yeah, I'm here like big black truck and making
choke all the other stuff they say. They say that,
(27:39):
and I'm you know, I'm dancing along. Okay, So you
like it? I mean I like that we are lifting
up the woman's body and we're not demonizing it or
singing about it being nasty or stinky or dirty or
or a woman's needs being inappropriate in any way at all.
So right, it's just another song about like hardcore pussy
(28:04):
power and validating womanhood and and needs and you know
stuff like that. What is pussy power? I think it's um,
it's our own appreciation for our sexual power, Okay. And
so it's enjoying um, it's enjoying your vagina, you know.
(28:27):
And it's sharing your vagina, and it's and there's nothing
with your vagina. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with it. And
and there's there's nothing bad about a pussy. There's nothing
bad about it. If you don't like the word pussy,
you should stop listening now in this moment. The word
pussy is not for you. It's not I mean, if
(28:48):
it's not for you, then this is not going to
be your episode, because clearly we said it eight thousand times.
As a matter of fact, I may put a disclaimer
at the at the beginning of the show that every
time you hear the word that you should drink. Like
Andy Cohen on Bravo, on his shows, he does this
thing where he puts a word at the top of
the TV and every time you hear that word, take
(29:10):
a shot. If so, you guys are going to be
drunk within the first half an hour of the show.
Why do you think people or not people? And I
don't want this to be like a male bashing show,
because that's not I don't do that, but like, why
do you think, what do you think that's about? Like,
when you come across like women who are very anti
(29:32):
pussy power, you guys don't see me making my bunny
rabbit fingers. But when you come across women who are
very anti that, I think that on society teaches us
as women to follow social norms around our vaginas self.
Society says pussy is dirty and it's nasty, and it
(29:55):
means weakness. And so if you want to if you
want to fit in with society, then you need to
take on those beliefs, and you also need to teach
your daughters and your sons to kind of maintain that
social norm and not bad she men at all. But
if you look at the history around, like mythology and religion, Uh,
(30:17):
the woman is the most terrifying villain in a story.
If you look at Eve, if you look at Um,
if you look at the Sirens, if you look at Um.
I mean, if you just look through history at all
of these scary stories. Just look at Disney stories and
how the Stepmother, Matt, Maleficent. Yes, they're just my favorite
(30:42):
Disney villain is Um the snow White Queen. I thought
she was really pretty. She's beautiful until she turned into
the Witch. Then she's not. And Ursula was so horrible.
I love her. Ursula was a badass. She was a
boss late, but she was a villain, and she was
a terrifying villain. I was, legit as a child, afraid
(31:05):
of her. She was the only one. But something about
her scared me. She actually turned the king into like
a weed in her garden. Yeah, I was. I was scared.
So you guys don't know that. Doctor demas saying, we
talk about Disney films. We like Disney films. I am
a big time Disney fan period, Disneyland, Disney World, all
(31:25):
of the Disney Mini Mickey, It's my thing. Yes, I
know Walt Disney was a racist. Okay, he was a
white man who lived in the twenties, thirties, forties. What
else could he be but a racist? I'm not even
you know. I like Disney and I don't really give
a shit what you think because I go every time
I get a chance, I go to Disney World. Actually,
I just came back from disney World Animal Kingdom, and
(31:46):
I collect many mouse ears. So if you want to
send me something nice, send me so many mouse ears.
But anyway, I digress. Ursula did scare me. She did.
I wonder if it was because she was big. No,
she was scary, she was scary, snow white. Um, the
queen was scary. Beauty and the beast the Queen was scary,
(32:11):
Medusa terrifying. I don't remember the villain and Beauty and
the Beast. Oh yeah, I'm sorry. I meant sleeping Beauty,
sleeping beauty. Who was the villain Maleficent and Beauty and
the Beast. No, and in in uh Sleeping Beauty Maleficent,
they did a whole like movie, maybe even two about
her and Angelina Jolie. I thought did a really good job.
(32:33):
I agree, she did a great job. She did. Um,
I can't remember be our guests by our guess Garson Gueston.
There was not a female villa. There was not was
there a villain at all? Guest On, guest On. We
learned early on that women are and it's for sure
(32:54):
fertility like at a time before people understood fertility and
how women had bade bees. Women were seeing as more
powerful and so also scary because we could make a
life come out of our bodies. Yeah, oh that is
pretty freaky, and there were so many myths around how
pregnancy happens, where you had to please the woman, you
(33:15):
had to well, child, let me tell you something. I
don't have any kids, and maybe that's why I'm just
I'm just joking. That wasn't nice to say, because if
any of my lover's past or current are listening, I
am pleased, thank you very much. Well, now that everyone
understands fertility, women have lost there, They've lost their power
(33:39):
in some ways and people, I mean, that's when ideas
around like women being low and weak and things that
are womanly being weak and unclean. That's kind of like
a menstrual cycle, yeah, okay, or just regular a regular
vagina is not necessarily considered to be clean, even if
(34:01):
it is okay. And you know, the epithet calling somebody
a pussy means you're weak. You're weak, you know. And
so society is full of examples of how women are
viewed and women's body parts are viewed, like boobs are
considered dumb. You're a boob, you know? Yeah, yeah right,
And so they don't say that when the lights go out, though, No,
(34:23):
they say they want to be fed, yes they do.
I never thought about that at all. But that's true,
and that's what makes pussy powers so bold. It's because
you're not you're no longer fouling that rule where you're
(34:44):
thinking about pussies as dirty or weak or bad in
anywhere at all. You're kind of singing about the good stuff. Yeah,
Whop Whop. But when the song came out like it,
like I remember, there was this like white news journalist
and he was reading the lyrics and like reading in
(35:05):
them verbatim in his very white journalistic way, and I'm like,
this is all over everywhere. But I think it's good.
I think it's good, and I agree with you. I
think that it is good for young women. Maybe not
for little girls because they don't really get it. My
best friend and I had a conversation about like the visuals,
(35:25):
like did you ever see the video? Now? Okay, well,
I am actually going to pause this so that you
can watch it. Hold please. So we took a small
chronic break, as Snoop Dogg would say, we did not
take a chronic break. We are not smoking weed at all.
But we took a little intermission to watch the Whop video?
(35:46):
And what did you think? I thought it was very
sexy and tasteful and just a bunch of beautiful women
singing about they're whopps. Yeah, I love it. Okay, that
is good. Here do you see? This might have the
best therapist on the planet. You said it was tasteful.
A lot of people would disagree with that. I think
(36:08):
people who felt threatened by the female form might not
like it. What about people who say it's just too much?
I would say, what does that mean? Too much of what?
Too much ass? That actually wasn't that much ass And
it wasn't Actually it was a lot of boob because
(36:29):
Cardie being that one outfit with the boobs out it
reminds me of something that Miss Piggy wore wants I
think you know what I'm talking about. No, I think
I saw Miss Piggy in a costume like that. I've
seen her in course It's yeah, Miss Piggy does a
lot of courses. Yeah, Miss Piggie is sexy. I love
Miss Piggie. She is sexy. Yeah, I think Miss Piggie
is black too. Miss Piggy could be black. I definitely
(36:54):
think Miss Piggie is black. First of all, not to
say that this is a black woman's thing, but I mean,
let's just call us a duck. A duck. Look how
she treats started I was thinking that to myself. She
treats poor Kermit. Yeah, she's very bossy. She smacks on
them in public and not saying of course disclaimer. Black
(37:15):
women don't all smack on their men in public, and
they don't boss their men around. Miss Piggie is a sister.
I don't care what anybody says. And I know she wears,
and people are like, oh, she's pink, Well piggs are pink,
like they weren't gonna make her a black pig. That's true. Yeah,
well she has blonde hair. Yeah, well she has blonde hair. Well,
so it does Mary J. Blige yeah, and Little Kim yeah,
(37:37):
and me in the summertime. So like, okay, I love
Miss Piggy. So shout out to Miss Piggy and Jim
Henson for creating Miss Piggie. But there were a lot
of breasts in there. I thought that the video was fine.
I was not offended. The worst thing about the video
to me was the snakes. I don't like snakes. I'm
definitely afraid of snakes, but they're just bodies and they
(37:57):
weren't naked. I've seen more sexual videos. I mean I've
seen videos where strippers are literally stripping. Well, yeah, like
on those Do you remember Betu Cut? Oh? Yeah, Oh
that was that was. I used to love bet and Cut.
There was a song on there called white Girl. It
(38:18):
was the best. It was the best. Remember it was
the best. Google it. The guy was white Girls something
something something going through my mind. It was to the
song of um, what's what's the original song? Huh? I
(38:39):
can't think of it. Yeah, I can't either, but it
was to that and it was funny. And my cousin
Randall and I Hi Randall. My cousin Randall, and I
thought that was the funniest thing ever. Okay, so I
want to talk to you about toxic. Now that we've
gotten all the fun stuff out of the way, I
want to talk about something that we talked about in
the last episode, where we talked about Mercees and her mother,
(39:01):
the evil Patrice Woodbine on pe Valley, and about like
relationships like toxic relationships with your mother. You said you
don't like the word toxic. I think it's overused. I agree,
and I think that it means so many different things.
When people are using it, and so I think that
in the interest of kind of trying to address a problem,
(39:23):
is helpful to be like more specific when you're using
a term to describe a state and unhealthy relationship, Okay,
so let's just say unhealthy relationships. Okay, so let's talk
about unhealthy relationships between mothers and daughters. That is something
that I understand on different levels, right, and I think
(39:46):
it's something that we don't discuss a lot in our
community because I feel like, especially in our community, like
mothers are, which is a good thing, because mothers should
be upheld to the highest standards. But I think that
we don't talk about when mothers are not at their
(40:07):
best and they don't do the best they can't. Well,
let me retract that, because if you go to therapy,
everybody knows that parents do the best they can with
what they have rightly exactly, and sometimes people I was
one of those people who didn't really want to believe that.
(40:27):
But when you really really start to look at who
your parents are, something I realize is that one, you
don't really know them first and foremost because you were
not around until you were born, and you didn't really
know them until you were at least five, because you
aren't old enough to really understand. And also parents also
(40:48):
keep so much from us, Like you could have a
parent who has been raped multiple times by an uncle
that died before you were born and never know it
because she never talked about it and nobody in the
family ever talked about it, or maybe she never told anybody,
you know, and so maybe that's why she acts a
certain way, you know what I mean. So it took
(41:10):
for me to really start to break down who my
parents are for me to get to a place where
I understand that my parents literally and my quote unquote
stepparents included, they did the best that they could with
what they were working with. And when you really understood
(41:31):
and when you pay attention to who they are as adults,
when you really start to study their behaviors and their patterns,
you're like, yeah, they don't have it to give me.
They don't have the capacity. Yeah. Now, let me tell
you something. That is the magic word between doctor demos
say and I capacity that if I can say that
I have learned, that is the one thing that I
(41:52):
have learned the most in the When did I start
seeing you in January or February. In the to ten
months that we have been working together. That is the
one thing I think that has helped me to grow
the most. Understanding people's capacity and understanding my expectation. We
(42:14):
always talk about expectation versus capacity, and I think that
when you look at relationships with parents, that is a
big thing to look at, Like you know what I mean.
And people can say, oh, no, they have the capacity
because they do X, Y and Z. But I promise
you when you really start to look at your parents
and look at their parents, and look at the interactions
between them and their parents and their interactions with you
(42:37):
and maybe other kids and maybe people they date or
their spouses, when you really start to break down who
you're not. I don't want to say breakdown because that
sounds negative, But when you really start to peel away
the layers of who your parents are, you realize that
some stuff that they just are not capable of producing
for you, right, and that's just who they are. They
(42:58):
can't be anything more than they are. Yeah, And it's
okay to bring your a game whatever it looks like,
because everybody's a game is not the same, right, Like
I think about it, like sports like Lebron James a
game and I don't want to talk about anybody, well,
you know what I can. And this doesn't mean that
(43:19):
they are not as good as a player. But look,
even Lebron James's a game and Michael Jordan's a game,
it's very different, yes, very different. They have very different capacities. Right,
They're both winners, they both win championships, they're both great
basketball players, but their a game situation is very different.
(43:39):
That was a good analogy. Hold on, why I pat
myself on the back. That was a good one, and
I literally patted myself on the back. But why do
you think we You know, it's something that you know,
we don't really talk about in our community. We don't
like to talk about things that don't fit a certain
set of standards. Okay, we don't talk about them at all.
And so it's much easier to blame a person for
(44:01):
not wanting to. We're not caring as opposed of you
and a person as not being able to. It's much
easier because of what it does is it allows us
to take on that victim role as opposed to looking
at a person's capacity and yourself. It's easier to say, oh,
they're doing this because of me, because of who I am,
(44:23):
or because of something I said or did. There was
holding something I deserve intentionally because we all want to
feel like we have control and others have control. To
the idea that people are moving around in a way
that they're not necessarily fully able to do everything that
they want to do, it means that we're not either.
(44:46):
We're not fully able to do everything that we want
to do because we have different capacities, and so kind
of accepting yourself as someone who who has who does
things say that they didn't intend to do, who contributes
to unintended outcomes, and others, it gets to be uncomfortable
(45:06):
to think about. And we don't like to think that
the people that we look to as our parents could
ever be human in that way. Well, you could have
just stopped a human because I know, for me, for
a long time, I did not see my parents as
regular human beings. I saw them as mother and father.
(45:27):
I looked at my mother and my father like they
are supposed to be like my grandmother and my grandfather
were as the way I saw them as parents right,
or the way the type of godmother that my godmother
was to me. I expected that all mothers should be
that way to their daughters. Right. So we have these
images or these concepts of what we believe mothers and
(45:50):
fathers should be. But the truth of the matter is
that it doesn't always work that way, and some people
have those kind of moms, right those Felicia in the
black community and the white community is uh Cleaver, Jim Cleaver.
Right in the black community, it's Philly. It's a Claire Hustable. Yes,
everybody wanted her to be there, mama. I know, I did.
(46:10):
I did. I wanted her to be my mama. She
was sassy, she was smart, she was a lawyer. She
was pretty, She wore nice outfits, her makeup was nice,
her hair was amazing, even when it was messy, it
was amazing. She cooked sometimes, you know, she was fun.
I was like, Yes, she wasn't warm enough for me, okay, okay.
Wanted more hugs and kisses. Okay, I get that. And
(46:31):
maybe I didn't want that because I got a lot
of hugs and kisses. Okay, I did. I got a
lot of hugs and kisses, but I wanted like, and
maybe that's why I wanted a Claire hugstable mother because
she was sassy. My mother was not very sassy. My
mother was quiet. She was smart. She was a lawyer.
My mother was not a lawyer. Right. My mother was smart,
put in her own way, and not in a like
(46:53):
she was special needs way, but like she was. She's
clearly a very I'm gonna say this without divulging too
much information about my mother. She's smart. She didn't pull
off a lot of things that your normal human being
can't pull off, right, Okaya, she was sassy. You know,
she went to work every day. My mother didn't go
to work every day. So I think that's what I wanted.
(47:15):
But it's interesting you say I wasn't into that because
she wasn't huggy, lovey dovey enough. So who would you want?
Florida Evans? Oh you know what? Yes, Florida Evans was
like the perpetual self Florida Evans gets on my nerves.
But she was like the quintessential self righteous black mama. Yeah,
(47:39):
with the Jesus on the wall, the white Jesus too, No,
remember JJ took it down and put the black Jesus up.
Who was actually ned the wino? But it works right
because why can't ned the Wino be exalted as Jesus.
Jesus lives through him, right right, Yes, however you want
to take that. But you like Florida, I guess I
(48:00):
don't remember her well. I just remember her looking huggable
like that. Well, she hugged her kids a lot, I remember. Look,
I remember taking her kids to task sometimes, but also
validating their truths. Yeah, and also you know what, yes, yes,
and holding her husband accountable but also being supportive. Yes.
(48:21):
So that's kind of how I remember her. Yeah, Okay,
she fussed him out sometimes and she lift him up sometimes.
I just watched the episode of Good Times the other
day the other night, and she was so James got
a new job, right, and so neither one of them
had finished high school, and they were they had James
had just got a new job at a factory, because
(48:43):
God knows that brother stayed at the factory. And she
had found out from somebody about getting the ged and
she had signed up for GED classes and she was
so excited, and James was not excited for her, and
she was excited, and then he was like, nah, Florida,
you ain't but he didn't tell or no, he just
was like, I ain't with this. I'm not with it
at all. And she was like, well, fine, I won't
(49:05):
do it, you know, because it's making my husband uncomfortable.
And you know, I don't want to disrupt my family life.
My family is more important. I can just read and
take the classes. I mean, I can just read the books.
I'll keep the books, read the books. I don't have
to get the g ED. But in the end, he said,
you know, he came around. Good times was really a
(49:27):
good show. He came around and he said, you know what, Florida,
I was being foolish to say that you shouldn't get
your g ED. I want you to get your G
and D ED. And guess what, I signed up to
get mine too, so we can take the classes together.
That is black. Look, that is the real black yet
is It's messy but loving, and it's forgiving, and it's apologizing,
(49:51):
and it's accountability, being accountable and doing things together when
you can, like the song making a way when you can. Yeah,
but I know what, I'd never even thought about that,
Like that is black love. But you know, another thing
another now we're veering off. You know, I'm the queen
of digressing. But whenever I talk about black love, I
(50:11):
always think about Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston. I know,
God bless their hearts, But like that was a you know,
crackhead love. I'm sorry, I must say it because I
know Crackhead's right. That's a different kind of love. I
remember there's an episode where she was constipated and he
(50:34):
went in and got pulled, like moved it with his
finger so that she could get it out. That's a
different kind of love. I don't know about that kind
of love, and I don't know if I ever would
like to know about that kind of love. But that's love.
I've seen people who are not married to each other,
who are both using jugs together help each other in
(50:54):
that way. Yeah, oh, you've seen it like in person,
like I've heard it had. Okay, okay, my play a
bit like where you were two people in the bathroom
won't help any other person. Pooh. Yeah. And I think that.
I think that addicts they do love. They do the
loving part towards each other. I won't say it's because
(51:14):
of um, it's because of like relationship, like man, it's
not because they're married or not anything. But they hate
to see each other sick. Yeah, they you know, they
risk a lot to kind of help each other stay well.
And yeah, they do help unconstipate each other. They Does
crack make you constipated? Yeahs d opious? Look she's smart,
(51:38):
look at it. I don't even know. I bet your
therapists don't know that crack and constipate you. Okay, it
constipates you. Your therapist knows that. Please make sure your
therapist knows that. And if she doesn't tell her, yes, yeah, yeah, um,
I didn't know that. Okay, wow, because you know what else?
(52:01):
I know? This is totally digressing. But I don't think
that crackheads hot or like drug addicts probably don't hydrate
appropriately either. No, they don't, So of course they're going
to be constipated because they're not drinking enough water. Because
I'm not on drugs. And when I don't drink enough water,
SIS has a hard time, and I gotta drink. I
gotta go get to the juice bar and get certain juices.
(52:22):
And if that doesn't work, I gotta go get some
side rate magnesium. Listen, it gets rough when if you
just drink water. I'm sitting here with a gallon and
a big gallon of water like you drink it, you
don't have those problems. But they don't hydrate and they're
not necessarily eating their vedge. They don't. They don't have
the best diets if they eat, yeah, because they don't
(52:44):
eat a lot. It depends, okay, on what tell me
on where the free food is. Okay, you get money,
then of course you're not going to use it to
buy food. But there are plenty of places where you
can get free food, okay, And it depends on what
they're serving there. Most places serve food of trying to
serve like a low budget version of a healthy meal. Okay, okay, okay.
(53:05):
Back to this mother thing. So in our community, we
don't talk about like bad mothers. And if you talk
about your mother being bad or something like, people will
shun you or and sometimes you know, I will say
it seems like in our community, in the black community,
addressing and bringing to light the unhealthy aspects of your
(53:31):
relationship with your mother is frowned upon. But talk about
your daddy being ain't shit. It is welcomed. Yeah, we
love to talk about it. Ain't sient daddy. I think
I think women are it's easier for women to talk
about the ancient daddy than men are, and it's easier
for women to talk about the ancient mama than men are.
(53:55):
I think women are usually the ones kind of like leading,
the leading, the char what ain't shit anybody? Yes, men
tend to be a little bit more close on that,
not necessarily going to disrespect their mind by talking bad
about her even though she was horrible, And they're not
necessarily caring enough or or they don't want to appear
that they carry enough to talk about ain't shit dads,
(54:18):
They don't really talk that much. But women would talk
badly about anybody. I don't care who you are. You
catching this work? Sometimes I don't know. I think that
guys will talk about their dad's not being. You know,
my father wasn't there for me. He wasn't shit. He
ain't teach me how to be a father. I had
to learn from the streets. My uncle or the drug
dealers down the street taught me how to be a man.
(54:39):
Like that happens. I actually don't meet real men, like
adult men who do that. I mean, I've heard music, yeah,
but like like Tupac Yeah, But honestly, if I saw
a man say something like that. I would think, like, Dad,
you upset, he got a lot on you. To hear
a man do it or two men do it, I
just don't see it often enough for it to feel normal, okay, okay,
(55:02):
And so I would I just don't think it's it's
something a lot of men do. That's all because I
was gonna say, I think that's another thing that in
our community happens a lot, is that we don't allow
men the space to emote because like, what if you know,
the daddy ain't shit, Like he shouldn't be able to
(55:23):
like he should be free to say that. No, I
think he should be free, but you still feel the
way you want to feel, which is totally okay. No, No,
my feeling isn't that he shouldn't express or she shouldn't okay.
But I definitely think that there's a time and a place, okay.
And I think that, and I think that women don't
necessarily acknowledge that there's an appropriate time and place. I
(55:46):
don't think that women do. And I think for men,
maybe because of society, there is no time and place.
But I definitely think that there should be a time
and a place always for both genders to talk about
ain't shit whoever? And when is that time in therapy, therapy,
on the phone, at home with your best buddies or
(56:09):
your sisters or your cousins, Not on the bus stop,
not on the bus stop, not in them all, not
you know, why is that bad? I just think that
I don't know. I guess it's definitely worth exploring whether
or not there should be a proper time and it
should be a proper place, or if every time is
(56:30):
the right time and every place is a right place
or any time or any place or any place like
Janna Jackson, I guess my concern would be as a
therapist that not everyone is going to be able to
hear your truth and be a good a good receptor
(56:52):
and and to give you something that you can use
after you share it, a supportive receptor exactly exactly. And
so because okay, I get what you're saying. Because if
you're on the bus stop and you're doing this well,
I think anywhere this could happen. You have people who
will perpetuate your bs. And not to say that your
(57:15):
feelings are bs, because you know, I think it boils
down to what is your truth? Like in my mind,
and I mean, I have kind of experienced this, Like,
you know, my truth about some of my parents, and
when I say some of my parents is because I
have biological parents, and you know, both of my parents
married other people, so I had step parents for me.
(57:38):
Like I have truths about my parents, all four of them.
I have beliefs about them that are my truths. Other
people may not agree with my truth, particularly them, you know,
so they may not agree with what I feel or
what I deem as my truth. There may be other
family members who may not agree with what I say
(58:00):
is my truth. But when you know, why is it not?
Look at me pushing back on my therapist, why is
it not? Why? Why? I think I don't believe that
there is never a good time to speak your truth,
other than I do believe that they're inappropriate time. It's
a time and place for everything. But like if I
(58:23):
want to do it on the bus stop, like why
I feel like I should be able to express because
that may relieve me of something. If you feel like
it's going to be good for you, I certainly wouldn't
tell someone not to do it. But I think that
in the moment, we don't realize what will come back
to us after we put it out there, how will
(58:48):
people treat you based on the information that they've given you.
Because for some of us, when we talk our truth,
what we've done is we've exposed our vulnerabilities. Yes, and
then those vulnerabilities can be exploited, honey, Yes, And not
just that, we also expose the vulnerability of the person
we're talking about, right. And again, like if you tell
(59:12):
someone on a bus who happens to know who your
mom is and you're saying you ain't s then they
can go back to say, look, your own door doesn't
even think you, as she told the whole bus stop,
you know, and that can cause problems. It can cause
problems like bringing negative attention to people instead of support. Right,
when you expose something like that, ideally you're going to
(59:35):
get a circle of love response from the people you're
sharing it with where you don't become unsafe because you've
exposed it, and the person you're talking about also doesn't
become unsafe because you've said it, right, Okay, And so
you're not necessarily ensuring your safety or the safety of
people you're talking about when you do it on a
(59:55):
bus stop, right. And I think that when you are
speaking specifically about like our culture not to be you know,
but like shit can get real when you talk about
stuff like that, right, And so I think that, like
I understand what you're saying now, and also it can
cause so much strained in an already strained relationship. So okay,
(01:00:20):
so all right, she wins ding ding thing. I agree
with that. And as you were talking and I'm thinking
about my own experiences, I fully understand what you're saying
because I have experienced that where that it just doesn't
make the situation better, like, if anything, it makes it
so much worse. And then if you already are in
(01:00:42):
a situation where you have a strained relationship with someone
or with a parent, where since we're talking about parents
and this, it doesn't even have to be like on
the bus stop. It could be at the cookout. It
could be at your big mama's house and you know,
one of your aunts or your uncles or cousins, what
a big mouth is there And they go back and say,
do you know that your daughter was there and she
(01:01:04):
was saying that you wasn't shit and that you ain't
even send her a birthday car and she needed to
shut up and stop talking, telling your business and she
said that you was at the welfare office. Like, that's
just gonna cause more stress, and that's gonna drive even
an even larger wedge between you and said parents instead
of it bringing you closer together. Absolutely, and it takes
control away from you too, because now you can relationship
(01:01:29):
depends on other people too, and you've kind of cast
the net out. What does that mean? So? I mean like, um,
if I'm fishing, I hold my net and I fish
with my net only me. But if I throw my
net out, everybody can grab my net and fish with
my net and sometimes benefit from like my net, which
(01:01:50):
I'm gonna say, is my pain or my extreme a
strange relationship with my parents, Because let's just be real.
Some people are just messy and some people are trash. Yes,
I'm gonna tell you how why I fell in love
with my therapist. I'm not never mind the Some people
are just trashy, right, And some people feed off of
(01:02:12):
your negative interactions with your parents, And some people will
use that as they will get in that car and
they will drive that car. Yes, right, definitely, I do
believe that sometimes some people do it and they don't
they're not being malicious. I do believe that sometimes people
(01:02:32):
are doing it and it's not a malicious thing. But
there are some people who do it intentionally, absolutely, and
they take it and they run with it. And sometimes
the groundwork or the foundation of that is jealousy of
the relationship that you have with the parents, their inadequacies
or their insecurities of the relationships that they have with
(01:02:54):
their parents. Yes, and so it's like, if I got
a fucked up relationship with my daddy, well you should
have fucked up relationship with your daddy too. Let's just
be fucked up together, you know what I mean. And
for others, it's that killer instinct where they sense blood
in the water and then they have to just attack.
They take information and then use it to destroy. Yeah,
and that's just their that's their instinct, that's their nature.
(01:03:17):
That's trashy, you know what I'm talking about. It's trashy, right,
it's trashy. But they learn that it's a learned behavior.
When you understand that everyone in your life is acting
according to their capacity, even if they really are trashy,
you're kind of like it's okay, yeah, And you know,
and so what I will say since she has said
(01:03:38):
that that is what therapy has taught me. Because if
you and if we would have had this conversation in
October of twenty nineteen, it would have come my response
would have been real different, right, But I don't um.
I think when you surrender to the concept of like
(01:03:59):
expectation and versus capacity, like you just see people in
a different way. And I mean not just your parents,
just everybody, you know what, I and yourself too. Oh no,
this is trouble. Yeah, we see ourselves with respect and
warm regard because we realize that we're only doing the
best we can do. Yeah, and it's okay. And I
think that another reason that that is really healing. And
(01:04:24):
I don't think that it's only healing for me. I
think that if people would put their their pride down
and put their ego down and like be like raw
and naked with that idea that even the people that
you don't want to forgive, like you can't help it,
that's c true. Yeah, I'm about to cry a little bit.
(01:04:44):
I'm not gonna cry. I do this thing where I
say I'm about to cry, and then I don't cry
because I don't really want to cry. But I think
that it is when you just see people as like
everybody is just a human being walking around around trying
to figure life out. And some of us work a
little harder to figure it out, some of us pretend
(01:05:06):
that they don't need to figure it out, and some
of us just are totally against trying to figure it out.
And I think that when we really get into that,
everybody's just walking around like we all just struggling, right
aside from the fact that the world is pretty jacked
up right now, just even if it was ten years ago,
(01:05:28):
Like the world's jacked up ten years ago too, but
like even if like whenever, it is like everybody's just
walking around with shit, yes, right. And I think that
when it comes because I'm talking specifically about parents, when
it comes to talking about and thinking about your parents,
you have to really understand that, like they just got
(01:05:49):
their own shit, right, And when you want people to
accept you, you know, because I'm coming to the table
with some shit. I'm coming I'm sitting down with a
hot bag. I'm coming to the table with a lot
of stuff all right side everybody is if I want
people to be accepting of my stuff and to honor
(01:06:11):
and respect me in spite of the fact that I
come with a lot of stuff, and to love me
in spite of the fact that I have a lot
of stuff, and to still like me, because it's a difference. Right,
You can love somebody and I really like them, um,
and to like me in spite of all of my stuff,
and to choose you. WHOA, she's trying. Don't do that,
(01:06:35):
choose me. Don't do that, said, I'm not crying. To
choose me in spite of my hot, heaping bag of
boo boo. To accept me, yeah, because to acknowledge me.
And you can acknowledge my booboo too though, right, so
you can acknowledge my hot bag of boop. Yes, But
(01:06:56):
to acknowledge and listen, acknowledge, acceptance, choosing, and respect like
you don't even love me, like okay if you don't,
but like those like basic funds. If you can do that,
then I have to be willing and able to do
that for other people. Come on, listen, I'm finnas to
(01:07:17):
have a praise breaking here because I'm I'm working through
I'm working through some stuff just because for me, I'm
probably gonna be in therapy for the rest of my
life and it'll be you. So don't even think that.
Like I said, we is the gather We is the gatherl.
Me and my doctor is the gatherl. But that is it.
Like how I'm about to read myself and I wish
(01:07:40):
that my parents could listen to this. They're not because
hashtag I'm not gonna say why, but like I wish
they could hear this, because like, how dare I not
be accepting of them and their stuff but still want
them to be accepting of me and my stuff? That's
not how it works. That's looking at me like a
(01:08:02):
proud mama. She's looking at me like she's proud of me.
Look at me having like breakthroughs on the show. God,
next time I see one of my parents, I'm a
kiss film. Okay, yeah, I'll let you know how to
psy psych your mind make your booty. Fine, that's definitely
not gonna happen. But I mean, like, I think that
(01:08:25):
that just made me. Now. I don't know how I
feel next week, because somebody might do something to me
and I might feel a different way, but I think
that that is a breakthrough for me that I literally
just had, Like how dare I not be accepting of
somebody else's shit, but want other people to be accepting
of my shit even But I think the tricky part
(01:08:48):
is though that like a lot of times, people don't
know what your shit is, right Yeah, yeah, so I
guess some people and some people will use that as
an excuse. Well, how am I supposed to know? I
didn't know that you felt like this or I didn't
know you went through this because I didn't tell you.
But whatever, it is, like, why can't you just be
accepting of me and what I'm bringing to the table? Right?
(01:09:09):
But how do you do that? Even Like when people
aren't being kind to you or being nice, you can't
force someone to be ready to be that healthy person
who can be accepting and tolerant and forgiving. It's each
person's journey to get to that place, and some people
don't get there ever. Ever I'm sad. I'm sad for them. Ideally, though,
(01:09:32):
you learn that from your parents, well I am here,
yeah yeah, and in spite of that, you learn it anyway. Yeah,
I mean, if you want to be better, that knowledge
is available. That is. I feel like I learned so
many things from my parents, some things that I will
never use in life, kind of like when you're in
(01:09:53):
school and you're like, I'm never gonna freaking use geometry
ever in life. Right, But I also believe that sometimes
tis them not teaching us things. UM teaches us that, absolutely,
you know what I mean? Yes, so me not maybe
not getting that from my parents or me not getting um,
(01:10:13):
you know, the push the whole, be the best version
of your and I got nobody ever had those damn
conversations with me. Be the best version of yourself. Like, no,
but I think I think you did have people in
your life who took you and your booboo and told
you it was cute and it smelled good. Well, so no,
let me be very clear, I'm slowly speaking about my parents.
(01:10:36):
There's an army of people around me outside of the
parental units that made me feel and reinforced and accepted
and acknowledged and loved and liked and honored and respected
and cherished all of me, including my boo boo, And
they still do and shout out to my village who
(01:10:57):
has done that that those who are here and those
who are not here. Right. Um, So maybe I didn't
learn it from my parents, but maybe I learned it
somewhere else is what you're saying. You learned it, and
your parents facilitated that learning by allowing you to be
in the space with those with those people. Okay, because
wait a minute, she listen, she will turn it around. Now,
(01:11:20):
you're right. You're right. Some parents refused to allow that
children to be around positive people. You're right, And I
was around them, my god, I wouldn't like my godmother.
My mother was young when she had me. She was fifteen,
and there was a lady that lived up the street
for me. Her name was Sadie Bradley. She was my angel.
(01:11:41):
I'm gonna actually start talking to her, I think. And
people are like, what, she's dead. Yeah, you should try
talking to dead people. Sometimes you learn something. Um, she
was my godmother. My mother was fifteen. I had like
five thousand godmothers. Right. Imagine being a fifteen year old
girl and getting pregnant. Oh, you're gonna you could be
my baby's guy, mama, and you can't be her, but
gape godmother too, and you and my godmother Mercedes, she
(01:12:05):
was much older. She was old enough to be my
mother's mother, right, And she was my babysitter. And I
think I started going to seeing her when or she
started watching me when I was two, and like she
just became like my bonus mama. And I mean like
I went on family vacations with her to South Carolina.
(01:12:27):
Her sons were like my big brothers, and I wish
that I could find them now. Yeah, Like I really
wish that I could. She passed away and oh nine,
I think, And I was in California when she died.
And no, and I think she died the day before
I left. And my god brother didn't tell me until
a few days because he was scared to tell me,
(01:12:48):
and so like I could have gone to the hospital
to see her, but he didn't tell me. That happens
a lot to me. But anyway, and I was distraught.
But she was one of those people who, like my dude,
who smelled like roses to her. Yeah, and I think
that God puts people in your life, like where there's
a deficit, he will give you increase in other areas
(01:13:11):
some other ways. Because she was she thought that I
was the cutest little fat brown thing ever in life.
She put butter on me like that was weird. I
talked about that in the episode two, like she would
like grease me up, almost like she was gonna cook me,
(01:13:31):
but like she made sure I was shiny. You know,
in a black community, you gotta be shiny. Like being
shiny is very important to us. What is that about.
It's just caring for self care skin. Yeah, that's probably
why our skin is much better than other people's because
we grease it up. Yeah, we do. We moisturize. We
believe in moisturization now. But she would put butter on
(01:13:52):
me if she didn't have any more vasoline or lotion.
She would put butter on my face, on my face, okay,
because she I was You're not gonna be dull in
her presence or with her when we go to church,
You're gonna be shiny like a brand new car, right.
And I thank God for people like her, My cousin Julia,
my aunt Chryl, my grandmother, my grandfather, my cousins, even
(01:14:16):
some of my younger cousins. They think my little brothers,
my little brothers, shout out to my little brothers, Aja
and Isaiah. They literally think that I am baby Jesus.
I'm not really sure why. I'm not really sure what
that's about, but they literally believe that my booboo, don't sink.
(01:14:38):
My cousin Darryl, my cousin Lindsay, like so many of
my family members. My best friend Crystal, my best friend
from high school, Natalie, she believes that I'm one of
the smartest people on the planet. She's like, why don't
you just go back to school, because like, you got
all this smarts and until this moment, I mean, like
I appreciate these people in different moments, but like when
(01:15:03):
you really sit in and I mean, everybody doesn't have this,
I'm sure, but for me, I got it. Yes, I
got a Literally, I have a whole I have an
army or a navy. I want to call it a navy,
right because they were a better outfit. So I told you, like,
I have a whole navy of like people who just
exalt me and make me feel good about myself. And
(01:15:23):
for so long I focused on the deficit or what
I didn't get or what I didn't have, and it
kept me at a low play. It kept me low,
like real low. But when you stop and you think about,
like you know, like I didn't have this, I didn't
have this or this or this or this, but I
got this, this, this, this this, this, this, and the
(01:15:45):
this just keeps on going, like it kind of makes
you feel like a boss. You should feel like a boss,
like a peacock. Oh yeah, it does. It's it's a
good feeling. And I mean I say that to say
to people who are listening who because I'm like in
some self care groups on Facebook for black women, and
(01:16:08):
sometimes I'm in them just to like get a pulse
on like like what people are thinking and like because
I like to study like human behavior and like it's
a lot of hurt ask people yes, yeah, like and hurt.
Like they one of the groups I'm in, somebody posed
a question about, like what's your relationship like with your mother? Right?
(01:16:31):
And I think I posted like a meme of somebody
like looking around, like who you're talking to me? But
like so many of the women were like she ain't
shit and she never loved me and she never And
I just wanted to be like, do you have a therapist?
Like you need to talk to somebody because that can
(01:16:53):
eat you up. And then those women have kids, and
then they pass their heaping hot bag of shit onto
their children, and so now the child has to carry
your heaping hot bag and their own heaping hot bag. Yeah,
you know, and I think that we got to clear
that up. It's very important because when you're if you're
(01:17:16):
not careful, by accident, you become your ain't shit mother. Yeah.
If you're not real clear about who's bag of shit
you're dealing with and what you're doing with it, you
inadvertently pass it on and so you recreate an unhealthy
dynamic between you and your child without knowing about it.
(01:17:38):
So if you know what you're doing, you can be
more intentional, and you can you have a greater capacity
when you're self aware. Yes, and so that's like my
girl Scout badge for myself. I feel like I'm extremely
self aware. I want to know like to and even
before I really got heavy into therapy, like I would
(01:17:58):
ask other people do you think about me such and
such such, and part of it might have been like
a validation thing for me, but also like I want
to know how I'm viewed. Yes, right, I think it's
important to know how your viewed. That doesn't define me,
but it's important to know what people see because what
I'm giving in my intention on what and how I'm
(01:18:19):
giving it, it may not be received that way. Absolutely,
and if everybody, if five people out of six are
receiving it one way and the other one person is
receiving it the way that I intended, then I need
to do some readjusting. I agree with that, yeah, right,
And kids can't necessarily tell you what they've gotten from you,
but you'll see it. And so that's that can be
(01:18:40):
troublesome when you see girls who who are very young
and who have active mothers but somehow have issues with women.
Sometimes that comes from the moms, the mom's relationship with
her mother, her own mother, how her dynamic around women,
and your child fears being actually your fears without having
(01:19:02):
your story. And that's what I'm talking about, right, like
not really knowing what the deal is with your parents,
you know what I mean? Because even like with our fathers,
like you know, we see our parents and our grandparents
in a certain way, right, but we don't really know
what it's like to be a child of the grandparents. Right.
We know what it's like to be a grand baby
(01:19:23):
to the grandparents, right, we don't know what it's like
to be their child, to have their heap and hot
bag put on you and for you to go out
into the world with their bag, right, but as the child,
as the child and the grandchild, we're gonna get all
the bags, right. And I think that that is something
that I pay attention to when I think about my
(01:19:47):
own parents, and when I think about my grandparents, like
you know, you think, you know, well, where did they
learn this from? Because the grandparents are so great, But
you don't know what it's like to be a child
to that to those grandparents, right, And also you just
don't know. I think that a big thing for me
is you don't know your parents' story. You don't. And
(01:20:08):
when I started to think about my mother in that way,
like and I just started to think about like my friends,
and like my friends who are mothers, I know some
of their stories because they're my girlfriends right there, my girls,
they're my homegirls. And I know about my friends who
have been sexually assaulted, or who are survivors of domestic violence,
(01:20:31):
or who may have been bullied by a family member.
Like I know their stories, so I understand how they parents, right,
But I don't know my mama's story, So I don't
understand why she parents the way she does. Well I
kind of do, thanks to a friend of mine, but
that's a whole other story. So we don't really know.
(01:20:52):
You know, I don't really know why my father navigates
the way he does, right, I don't know because I
don't know his story. I don't know. And aside from
just their experiences, we don't know about our parents' mental health.
Come on from Jesus, come on in the room, Jesus, Like,
we don't know. Yeah, we have no idea, but we
(01:21:15):
can tell a little. Well, then there's that because once
you're aware of like different mental health conditions, you can
identify some things. Yes, you see the little symptoms. You're
just like a little indicators. Okay, that looks like this,
or some things that just not lining up. Yeah, the
check the check marks are lining up on the other side.
(01:21:40):
But I mean, but we have to be understanding of that.
We do, and I think that when we are able
to see our parents as human and be more understanding
of them, Like I feel like, just in this conversation,
I feel a little more free. I do. That's good. Yes,
that's what's happ Yeah, that's what's up. That's what's op girl.
(01:22:02):
That is I mean, that's success. When you feel more free.
That's what I mean when I say, that's well, I
think we know what you mean by that's what's up. No,
So what I mean by that is that you know
that is a good thing. It's a good thing that
you feel that way. It's beneficial to your mental health,
your state of mental health. That's what I mean by
that's what's up. Thank you. That was good. That was good.
(01:22:24):
We just had. I just had like a whole mental
health session on this show. It's good. But you guys
can't have her though, Hi, Hi, find your own therapist, okay,
And don't be calling her trying to get her on
her books, because I don't play that there's a perfect
therapist for every person. Yes, there's what They're not the
(01:22:44):
perfect therapist for everyone. I agree. So I'm gonna say
that because she and I do have a very raw,
candid relationship, and I can promise you that it would
not work for some people. And some people may listen
to this and be like, I wouldn't go to this lady.
That's fine. She can keep getting my insurance money happily.
Happily in one of our breaks, because I had to
(01:23:06):
take a break because I literally had like a breakthrough
on this show, which is quite interesting. We talked a
little bit about something that I used to struggle with
a lot, even before I started seeing you, like years back,
like my first therapist or my second therapist, like and
I think this is something that I have observed that
(01:23:28):
most people do, whatever the issue is, they make it
about themselves. Absolutely, it always comes back to them. And
in the beginning I didn't understand how not to do
that because I am the one who is This was
my thought process. If I'm the one who was being
affected by whatever it is that I take ut that
(01:23:49):
I have qualms with, or that I take issue with,
how do I not make it about me? Because it's
happening to me, it's not happening to someone else. Explain
that whole breaking down, that whole process. Why don't you
start me? Yeah you're the doctor. Yeah, okay. So for me,
(01:24:10):
the way that I look at it now is that
things things happen to everybody, right, but the keyword is
too right. Things are happening. Um, things are just happening right,
not necessarily to me, They're just happening. I just happen
(01:24:30):
to be there, Yes, And I'm the I'm a part
of this play. Right. If you look at it like this,
I'm a part of this Broadway musical and today I
am here, and these things are happening, right, And even
I don't know how. I don't think I have the
verbiged or the words to say what I'm trying to say,
(01:24:52):
But like they're happening, and I'm a player in the
in the or I'm an actor in the play, or
I'm a I'm a part of the team. But they
are not happening to me because of me, right, right,
They're happening to me because they might be happening to
me because of someone else. Usually it's not about you.
(01:25:14):
It's really about the other person, right, and about their
heaping hot bag, right, and they're carrying that Think about it,
like I just thought about I hate Like I think
that dogs are cute, right, and it's nice, and I
hate cats. But lately I've been paying attention to the
(01:25:34):
fact that dogs are really dirty and disgusting. And that's
no shade to anybody that has a dog, but like
it's gross. Like they go outside, they walk in the
grass with nothing on their feet. They're walking around other
dogs are pooping and peeing around. Then they bring that
in the house. They're walking around the house. When you
walk them, if you are a good steward of pet ownership,
(01:25:56):
when they poop, you pick it up. You got that
nasty ass bag, you put it around your hand, you
pick it up. That hot, heaping honka poop is in
your hand. You tie the bag and then you're walking
around the dudoo is swinging like a pendulum in your
in your hand, in the thing. Right, if you're a
good pet owner, right, you don't have to do that
with cats. Right. And I hate cats. I do not
(01:26:17):
like them at all. But like I get cat people now,
I get it. Like they're low maintenance, Yeah they are. Yeah,
I don't like them though, they don't need training of anything.
They're also evil though, I really believe that cats are
humans that did not make it to Heaven or something,
because they are very not nice. A lot of times
they really mean. But I digress. Okay, So you're carrying
(01:26:39):
this hot dudo bag around, right, and so is everybody else.
Everybody's got their own dudy bag. Right. Yeah, don't open
your duty bag and put your dudo on me. But
sometimes that's what people do, yeah, right, yeah, And not
because I am not worthy or I am not a
good person, or I'm not loving or I am not.
(01:26:59):
It has nothing to do with I am not. It
has more to do with what they are or sometimes
what they are not. Yes, absolutely right, Yes, and so
I think that when we take ourselves out of situations
and looking at it like, oh like being a victim,
like I hate this right and I hate that I
did it right? Oh so and so did this to me?
(01:27:23):
Why did they do this to me? Why were they
mean to me? And some people are malicious though, so
how do we How does that work though? Because some
people are mean. But even when they're mean, it's not
but it's not me because if I didn't do anything,
it's not mean. They're being mean. It's the whole concept
of hurt people. Hurt people. Yes, they are treating They
are hurting you because they are hurting. Yes, So it
(01:27:45):
has nothing to do with you and how you show
up in the world. It's more about how they are
showing up in the world with their hot bag. Yes,
some things are about you, but a lot of things,
I mean, for example, if you do something mean, yeah,
they do something mean back. But a lot of the
(01:28:05):
times when you find yourself confused about why this person
is treating me this way, it's not it's not about you,
and um, the concept of displacement, it's like it's a
mental health term that talks about what the what the
dynamic is. So the example is you go to work
and you have a bad day, but you can't fuss
(01:28:27):
at your boss, so you come home and you fuss
at your kid. And then so your argument with your
kid is not really about the kid. You're in a
bad mood and the kid gets it because of it,
then the kid cannot argue with you. They go and
kick the dog. Yeah, and so the dog could be like, oh,
or the little brother, and so it's kind of like
(01:28:50):
passing down the pain, not intentionally, but that's that's kind
of the dynamic that happens. Where the dog got kicked
not because the dog did something wrong, but because a
child had had feelings that didn't have a safe place
to go, and so they gave it to the dog.
Same thing with the person who has a bad dad work.
(01:29:12):
They can't give their boss the finger, and so they
bring the anchor home to the kid, to the kid, right,
And that's that's called displacement. Okay, Okay, that makes sense,
and that's what happens to a lot of us. A
lot of the time, we've been displaced onto because of
(01:29:33):
something that happened somewhere else. They had nothing to do
with us. This is That's part of the reason why
as I got older, I said I didn't want to
spank my kids because I think, and you know, this
is a hot topic in the black community. Yes, because
black parents are like, whoop that ass. Yes, And I've
(01:29:53):
gotten into like debates with like friends of mine who
are like, no, I don't know. But the truth of
the matter is, and you are whooping a kid or
spanking them, what is your motivation? It's that's a good
question to ask yourself before I do it, Like what
am I really and what is my endgame? Like what
is the goal in spanking this child? What do I
(01:30:16):
want to get out of it? Because the truth of
the matter, I don't even have kids. But the truth
of the matter is, and I think I hit my
little brother one time. I felt so damn bad after
I did it. I went and I gave him all
of the snacks. That's probably why we fat, because people
just give us snacks. I went and gave him all
the truths that I could because I felt really bad.
And I didn't hit him with a belt or anything.
I think I popped him with my hand and he cried,
(01:30:38):
and I just felt so bad, you know, because the
truth of the matter is, like, what am I trying
to achieve with this pop? You know? I think some
people want to see their kids cry and whoa and
you know, because for some people it makes it confirms
that the child learned a lesson, and it confirms that
(01:30:59):
they're in control and that they have control over the child. Yeah. Yeah,
And I went through my own face where I never
had to hit my kids, but I certainly wanted to
see them suffer a little bit feel uncomfortable about the
decisions that they made. And what I did was I
explored ways that didn't require violence, because how can I
(01:31:21):
talk to my kids about not being violent and then
use violence to teach them something? Yeah, that does didn't
make sense. Another thing with spanking kids, I was very
much this kind of child. You can whoop me until
I bleed, and I'm still gonna do what I want
to do. I think that's just a part of my spirit,
(01:31:41):
Like I want to do what I want to do.
Now I may stop and think about it the next
time and try to find another route to go to
get what I want or to get the outcome that
I want. Or I may be sneaky this time, or
I may try to lie, or I may but I
am very much the kind of person that I do
(01:32:04):
what I want when I want, and I think that
there's nothing wrong with that thanks to the tutelage of
Dye and say. And actually, you know who else is
like that? My best friend is like that. She is
And it's funny, you guys are the same exact sign.
You guys are three days apart. Actually, wow, you both
are advocates of do what you want to do and
(01:32:26):
don't do what you don't want to do. And I
am just getting into a space where I am okay
with that because because I was a child that got
her ass whooped, you know, I'm programmed to think that
it's not okay. But I think in my spirit, I
am very much a believer of doing what I want
(01:32:47):
to do. And I'm glad that you were able to
hold onto that inspite of the fact that you someone
tried to beat it out of you. Yeah. I think
kids when when they want things that they don't innately
want something bad. They want attention, yeah and so, or
sometimes an experience, an experience, and so you can teach
a child how to safely get what they want as
(01:33:09):
opposed to beating them for wanting something, yeah, like beating
and for wanting attention, or beating them for wanting an experience,
or beating in for wanting candy. You can teach them
there are appropriate times and ways to get what you
want that are safe and and that's that's a much
better lesson than no, no, no, you can't have this.
(01:33:32):
And the more you want it, the more I'm going
to hit you for wanting it. Because I think that
is the thing that people don't realize that spanking or
what's it called capital punishment, corporal punishment whatever, that's the
white people whooping ass. I think they don't pay attention
to how unsafe it makes a child feel. It makes
(01:33:55):
as it makes you feel unsafe, It makes you feel unprotected,
It causes fear. And you know, some parents, especially or
you know in our community, like I want my child
to be scared to me. They need to be scared
to me. You don't, as as from personal experience, you
don't want your child to be afraid of you, because
(01:34:18):
scared people are scary and the things that scared people
think about are scary. You don't want your child to
be afraid of you. Also, why would you want your
child to be to fear you. Not that they're on
your level, because they're not like you are the parent
or the grandparent or the aunt or the uncle or
the grandmother or whoever the big sister. But like even
(01:34:41):
with my little brothers, I don't want them to be
afraid of me. I want them to respect me. And
I say that, and you know, I talk about my
little brothers. I have a lot of siblings, but my
little brothers lived in the house with me, and like
they were with me every day. Right, they were like
my little kids, right, especially the little one because I
around since he was born. But I want them to
(01:35:04):
respect me. I want them to honor me as their
big sister. And we are twelve and sixteen years apart,
so it's not like we five years apart. I want
them to honor and respect me as their big sister.
But I don't want them to be afraid of me.
But they do. They do need to know that if
they get outline of my bang them in their mouth.
Now I'm okay, you know then I will knock you out.
(01:35:25):
But no, like, I don't. I don't. I don't think
that you should be a like. I don't want to
be afraid of anybody. I think that parenting children who
are not afraid of anything is very hard to do.
It's the harder parenting path to take, because you can
beat your child and get immediate results, or you can
(01:35:47):
negotiate and lecture and compromise and educate repeatedly and get
the same result. But it takes takes most work, and
I think in the long run it's better because you
have a you have a better relationship with your child.
Not only does your child a better relationship with you,
but your child is prepared to function as an adult
(01:36:07):
in society, not where they're saying, oh no, my mama
would never let me. But also when you said that,
that makes sense because also it lets your child know
that there are more than nine ways to skin a
cat or one whatever it says. I don't know nine
lives on it, but there's more than one way to
skin a cat, right, So it teaches your child that
you can go out in the world and get the
(01:36:28):
things that you want without violence, because realistically, especially if
you look like we look, if you go out in
the world and you are violent, that ass is gonna
get you're gonna catch it back, especially if you're dealing
with people that well, not even whoever you're dealing with,
starting with school, right, you're gonna catch it back. But
in addition to that, you might end up in jail.
And we got enough targets on our back and knees
(01:36:50):
on our neck where we don't even need to be
like that shouldn't be how we navigate through life. That
shouldn't be our only option. We need to know peaceful
ways to be ourselves and to move about with an
understanding of how to achieve our goals openly and authentically
(01:37:10):
without feeling afraid to do it or feeling like there's
an authority figure that needs to be in charge of
our making good decisions or bad decisions. And that's what
it's about. It's really about like that control and that
authoritative mindset that there I don't have kids, like I said,
(01:37:31):
but there has to be a way too parent without
being an authoritarian, Like there has to be a healthy
way to teach your children how to function and be
functioning citizens of the world. Be kind, be loving, be strong,
not be weak, whatever that means. But you know, um,
(01:37:53):
be honest, be brave, be courageous without teaching them by
way of violence. I just don't see where violence gives
you immediate results, but in the long run doesn't really
help your child. And of course you're gonna have a
whole slew of black folks hand. Well, I got I
got my asso, but I turned out fine. Whenever people
say that, I look at them, and in my mind
(01:38:15):
I'm saying, but did you, like, did you really? Because
you got a lot of stuff happening, you know what
I mean that you don't speak about or that you
don't because I used to be one of those people,
and as somebody who clearly has my own hot heap
and swinging pendulum bag of poop, you know, like, I
got stuff, you know, and getting beat didn't help, you
(01:38:38):
know what I mean. It did not make me a
better person, no at all. Well, I mean, some parents
will argue getting beat saved their lives, saved that child's life,
But I guess my argument is that there are other
ways to save a life. They are better ways, they're
more safe ways, they're safer ways. There are ways that
work for on a long haul, not just when you present,
(01:39:01):
but ways of discipline to work when you're absent, like
parenting a child's heart thing, you know that's not you
can't do that through hitting. No, Actually you break a
child's heard by hitting. It does. Yeah, it breaks, it breaks,
It can break a child, and it can. It breaks.
It breaks that basic trust between child, child and the
(01:39:24):
mom or child, dad or child and whoever. The disciplinarian
is where they are in a space where they need
to hide certain things from you as opposed to coming
to you for guidance or protection. They need to protect
themselves by holding on to certain truths that they shouldn't
hold on to. And then you're in. And then it
(01:39:44):
also makes it can I can't speak for everybody, it makes.
It can make a child feel like they're constantly in
survivor mode when I'm a kid like I shouldn't be
in survivor mode as a kid like I shouldn't be there.
Another thing is it doesn't work for some kids. So
explain that to me, right, I mean, every everything's not
gonna work for every kid, right. But the reason that
(01:40:10):
when I if I was disciplined by way of a
spanking or whooping or whatever. I ain't getting no spankings.
That wasn't a spanking that I got, But whatever it
is that I got, if you got a beat, and
that's what I grew up calling it, right, if you
got a beating, the reason that you may not do
whatever the thing is the next time is just because, like,
I don't want to be hit anymore, Right, I didn't
(01:40:31):
learn the lesson of why it's bad. I just know
that if I do it, I'm gonna get hit. I
don't feel like getting hit this week. I'm not gonna
do it. But for some kids, they don't care about
the beating. No, they don't know because after a certain
period of time, you kind of get numb to it. Right,
I mean, that's not the only reason some people, some
kids because they don't know anything Differently, they can only
(01:40:53):
be who they are. And sometimes kids are getting beatings
just for being who they are, for being curious, or
for being a kid creative, or for being playful. Now,
I did get a beating for a paint. Actually I'm lying.
When I did not get a beating when I was
a little girl, I should have known that I was
going to be a creative. I used to draw on
(01:41:16):
the walls with pencil. At least I used pencil, though
I used pencil. I would draw on the walls and
write on the walls. But then my sassy ass elevated
up to nail polish and I used to paint on
the walls and nail polish. And you know that my mother,
my biological mother, did not beat me. Oh good, yeah,
God bless her heart. Thanks Mama. One of my proudest mamas.
(01:41:39):
When was when I let my kids they decorated their
dresser drawers by drawing pictures on it with sharpie. Oh sharpie,
not even a washable mark. No, they actually drew all
kinds of things, little quotes and statements, and it ended
up being very beautiful. They were young, and it was
messy a little bit, but they would draw things like
(01:42:00):
bowls and they would say stay positive. They will also
draw like butt cheeks farting, which is horrible, but it
was actually something really beautiful to look at them then
being creative with their own thing and not being judged
for it. But also when you were talking, they made
(01:42:21):
me think like there's a there's a sense of freedom
in that I'm always talking about freedom because freedom is
important to me. But and what is freedom for everybody?
Looks different for everybody, but there's freedom and like being
able to just be you. And when you said that
some kids are just getting beatings or spankings or whoopings
or whatever for just being themselves, WHOA, that's a nerve
(01:42:45):
you struck. Yeah, yeah, because kids, some kids are just different. Yeah,
and a little weird because I was probably a little weird. Yeah,
a little different. But also what I thought about this
is what I've had a brain fart. And then I
just remember when you talked about how when you spank
a kid, it makes them want to like hide things
(01:43:06):
from you. That creates um like an energy of like lying, right,
because I'm definitely not gonna tell you the truth because
if I tell you the truth, you're gonna WoT my ass.
If I lie, you gonna with my ask. But it's
a small percentage of a chance that I might get
away with this. Yes, I'm gonna go with the lie.
Sis the lie for five hundred please asks when if
(01:43:28):
you would have not cultivated that energy from the jump,
and you would have cultivated an energy between you and
your child where the child can come to you and
be honest, like, look, my look, dad, I did this,
like all right, I drank some of your patron I did,
Like all right, well, you had no business doing that.
(01:43:50):
You are like punishments make sense, Like I will say
that in high school, my parents did this thing where
I had to wear punishment clothes. And while part of
me thought it was barbaric and evil, as an adult
it's genius. It's genius. And I tell parents of students
at my school about it. And I mean, the kids
(01:44:11):
at my school were uniforms, but like, why do they
have fresh Jordan's when they have fs? That doesn't make sense.
You get her hair. She gets her hair done more
than I get my hair cut and done. Okay, and
I'm a working woman and I get my hair done
every two weeks, but she gets her hair done every week.
And she was caught in stairwell kissing a boy and
(01:44:31):
came home late. No, you gotta find the thing that
makes their heartbeat and then you take it away. Yeah
if you disagree, right, yes, And you don't have to
hurt them or break them because they'll be mad. Teenagers
are dramatic anyway. They're gonna be broken if you look
at them for five minutes. But I just think that
violence is just not wise. There are too many other
(01:44:53):
ways to achieve better goals, better outcomes, and long You
make a good point when you talk about long term,
because the beating or the whooping or the spanking, it
gives you immediate satisfaction or gratification. But when we talk
long term. And so, I always said that if I
had a kid, when the child was maybe like two
(01:45:16):
to three, like I might pop their hand, like if
they're reaching for the stove. No, don't do that, but
not like a pop, but just like a tap, like no, no, no,
But I'm not. I'm not whooping no kid when they five.
But that's the could be why I don't have no kids,
because I don't know if I have the restraint to
not with my kids, because all I know is beat
(01:45:38):
your kids. Yeah yeah, like that that's in my hot bag.
Whooping kids asses in my hot bag. I'm gonna tell you,
I had no idea that you could raise a child
without beating them for real. I had to go to
college to find that out. Figure that some people, and
they still don't know. I still struck. I mean I
still struggled because even though I saw all the research
(01:45:59):
or that, it was still hard to believe. It's you're
back your dad getting that buying from me. It took
some time and some practice, but I had to try
anyway because it was worth trying, and it was so
much easier. I mean, it's so much easier to not
take them to get their hair cut when you save
money them and following them around and call them names
and all that weird stuff like I can be a
(01:46:21):
graceful and loving parent and still punish you, yeah, without
hurting you yeah physically physically yeah, or I mean I
don't have to hurt you at all. I mean you
might feel hurt because you can't get your hair done
or you don't get your way. You're you're safe, and
our relationship is still one where you trust that you're
you're safe around me. You know. Well, I want to
(01:46:44):
personally thank my therapist Angel doctor Demons say. This is
as close as you guys will get to her. I
will probably have her on the show. Would you come back?
I would love to come back. She will be back
season two. Also, you guys should know that this is
the last show before the season one finale, the inaugural
(01:47:10):
season finale. Yes, inaugural. That makes me feel like important
when I say that this is my inaugural season of
my podcast. The season finale will be on November fifteenth.
I'm very excited for that. That's going to be pretty dope.
I have something really cool in the works. But I
really want to thank her for stopping not stopping by,
(01:47:34):
I stopped by. Actually, I had my therapy session today
and then we recorded. I had to actually because I
definitely had a breakthrough on the show. But this is
why I talk about therapy and why it's so important
to me, because I have absolutely changed, like the way
that I process information just by having somebody to work
(01:47:57):
through those things with. But that just goes to show
that but if if you don't do the work, it's
not going to happen. Because some people think that therapy
is just coming and just talking to you and you're
just talking. No, your therapist needs to push back sometimes
when you're thinking. And that doesn't mean that they berage
you or you know, make you or judge you, or
make you feel stupid or make you feel bad for
feeling those things, but they also opened your eyes to
(01:48:21):
other ways of processing those things. So yes, maybe sometimes
life wasn't always that great, but it was not that
life wasn't great because I was a bad person, or
because I was this, or because I was that. Sometimes,
like shit happens. I've said shit a lot today. We
started out with pussy and then we ended out with shit.
(01:48:41):
It's not good. That is not good. But like I
think that if I just wish that there was a
federal mandate for all humans to get therapy, I do.
I think that the world will be a better place.
I do. Everyone needs someone, yeah, everybody, and everybody needs
a champion, and I feel like you are my champions.
(01:49:04):
And I think that is why I love her so much,
because I feel but don't ever get it twisted. She
holds me accountable, and sometimes I don't like her when
she does, but after I get out of my feelings,
I appreciate it because the goal is for me to
be the best Mimi that I can be, So she
holds me accountable. And people need those kind of people
(01:49:25):
in your life. But it's also very good to have
a trained clinician in your life, okay, who has a degree,
who understands all of the things you know, because you
can have a girlfriend like me because I'm a good
I'm a good homegirl therapist. I am, but I don't
really know about diagnosis, although I do be diagnosing people
all the time. Oh no, that's histrionic behaviors. I'm not
(01:49:46):
even gonna get into who I know that has them.
I'm just glad that I was able to sit down
and talk to her, and I'm glad that I was
able to share her with you, guys, because this is
the only way that you will have access to her
through hand me my purse, because I will not allow
you to get on her roster of amazing not patience.
I do want to ask you one question, or I
want you to tell me one thing about or tell
(01:50:08):
me about a memory about one of your aunts. My aunt,
I thought, I mean, I knew she was kind of
very sassy lady, okay, but probably when I was in
my early teen she showed me her cupcake photos. What stop? Please? Yeah?
First of all, what's her name? Her name's Aunt Darlene,
(01:50:29):
Aunt Darlene, And what is a cupcake photo? It's a
photos as a sexy photo of her, like a boudoir photo. Yeah,
not nude, okay, sexy okay, okay, and I was like,
oh my god, how old were you? I was in
my early teens okay, yeah, maybe thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and
I didn't know like adults did that I was bad
(01:50:51):
doing it to myself, posing in my room. But my
aunt actually she kind of let me see her her
sexy photos of herself, and I was like, oh my gosh,
Aunt Joline is so naughty and it's so sexy. But
that is that was our pussy power. Yeah, it was.
That's the buzzword pussy power. M Yes. So the aunt, Darlin,
did you learn anything from that? I learned. Did that
(01:51:14):
let you know that it's okay to be learned? Yes,
that that it's okay to be sexy and to know
that and to kind of value that part of yourself
and to not be ashamed of it. Okay. Do you
think some people are walking around with fake sexy? I do.
(01:51:35):
I think that looking sexy and feeling and being sexy
are not the same thing, and so, especially the way
social media is right now, the appearance of sexy matters
more than the feeling and the knowledge and the awareness
of being sexy. Um, and so I think that's kind
of one of the negative sides to the whole Instagram
(01:51:56):
snapchat thing where we are kind of trading real experiences
with images. You know, Okay, what can you leave the
people with? What is feeling sexy? Like? Like? What does that?
What does that look like? What does that mean? I think, um,
I would probably define sexiness is like real self awareness
(01:52:18):
and self appreciation and self acceptance, self acceptance, but more
than acceptance, like appreciating like not just I accept myself,
but oh I love I love all of this right here. Yeah,
and then just and just walking with it. Yeah, walking
with that. I know what I am and I accept
(01:52:39):
it and I love it, and I do it for
me and not for other people. Exactly. Okay, this is
my loving myself. Now you loving me or you approving
of me? This is me? This is me, and that
is it. So friends and ken. Today's straight Facts comes
(01:53:06):
from Dion of Columbus, Ohio, and Dion says, first of all, Dion,
thank you for your question. But Dion says, I have
to wear so many hats in my daily life, like
being a dad, a husband, making sure I'm effective and
efficient at work, not to mention, making sure I find
time for myself. It seems like a complicated juggling act
(01:53:29):
to make sure all of those things get the attention
that is needed. How do I find time or give
time to everything and avoid neglecting one or more of them?
While Dion, I'm gonna go ahead and say that I
might not be the best person to answer this question,
mainly because me and time management are not best friends.
(01:53:51):
I am really good at creating organizational structure and you know,
creating systems, but when it comes to implementing them consistently,
SYS is not the best of that. But since I
am good at creating systems, let's see, is there a
way you said that your husband right? Work? It's not
(01:54:14):
you know work, It's just all about going in. It
depends on what kind of work you do. It's about
going in, doing your job, getting off, and leaving right,
assuming that you have the kind of job where you
can leave when it's time to leave, because sometimes that's
not possible. But it's really just about doing your job right.
When it comes to being a dad, I don't have kids,
(01:54:36):
but you know, I'm an oldest sibling and I've said
that many times before, and you know I coach, I
work with kids with kids It's also kind of hard
because they don't really care about what else you have
going on. They want what they want, and they need
what they need when they need it, and for the
most part, you kind of got to show up for
them when it comes to being a husband. I would
(01:54:57):
think that maybe you could just talk to your wife
about how you know it can be overwhelming sometimes and like,
how can you guys work together, because isn't that what
marriage is all about? Like what is the point of
being married if I can't come to you and have
a conversation with you about an area where I'm struggling,
But I want to make sure that I'm successful or
that I'm doing a good job and women like that.
(01:55:20):
I want you to come to me and talk to
me about how we can work together and be helpmates
for one another for success so that we can be successful,
successful parents, successful people in a marriage or in a relationship.
And please be successful at work, because homie, these bills
gotta get paid, these kids gotta eat right. So I
(01:55:42):
would just say, maybe start with talking to your wife
about like how things can be a little more balanced.
One thing I am definitely going to say, though it's
always makes sure that you find time for yourself, even
if it means that you take an hour out of
the day once your kids are asleep to go for
(01:56:05):
a walk, or just to sit in silence, or go
in your backyard or sit in your car, like sometimes
I just go sit in my car in the quiet
and just be still. So you know, you just got
to make sure you find that time for your own
piece because if not, all the other London bridges will
(01:56:27):
come tumbling down. Why for we got to do better today?
I pulled a quote from the book The Four Agreements
and the Four Agreements so many people have read it.
I always started and not finish it. One day. I'm
going to finish it, just not today. But The Four
(01:56:48):
Agreements is a practical guide to personal freedom. It is
a toll tech wisdom book by Don Miguel Ruise, and
it says all of humanity is searching for true justice
and beauty. We are on an eternal search for the
truth because we only believe in the lies we have
stored in our mind. We are searching for justice because
(01:57:11):
in the belief system we have, there is no justice.
We search for beauty because it doesn't matter how beautiful
a person is we don't believe that person has beauty.
We keep searching and searching when everything is already within us.
There is no truth to find. Wherever we turn our heads,
all we see is the truth. But with the agreements
(01:57:32):
and beliefs we have stored in our mind, we have
no eyes for this truth. Friends and ken, The first
thing I want to do is thank God, because that
is what I do here hand me my purse because
God is also worthy and I am so blessed. I
want to thank my family, my friends, my supporters, and
of course all of you out there listening, because without you, guys,
(01:57:54):
I would have any listeners. I appreciate you guys so
much and I can't wait until the next time we
to do this again. Now hold on for a second
before you exit out of whatever streaming service you are
using to listen to this, I want you to stop,
go click subscribe or follow if it's possible, And then
I want you to get on over to Instagram and
follow me at hand Me my Purse Underscore podcast and
(01:58:18):
on Twitter at HMMP Underscore podcast. And if you're listening
on Apple Podcasts or any other medium that allows you
to do so, please take two minutes to rate and
review the show. I love you for it. Show notes
are available at hand Me My Purse dot buzzsprout dot
com and also the opening enclosed music is provided by
(01:58:40):
Gloomy Tunes. I would appreciate it if you would submit
your questions for the straight fact segment and photos, stories
and quotes from your aunties to Hello at hand Me
my Purse dot com or send me a DM on Instagram.
You can expect a brand new episode of hand Me
My Purse to podcast on the first and fifteenth of
every single month, so the same way you expected those
(01:59:01):
checks on the first and the fifteenth early in the morning.
You already know your girl is gonna have you covered
on those days again the first and fifteenth of every
month on your podcast streaming services such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher.
These are for my international friends and ken and anywhere
(01:59:21):
else you may even think that you can find it,
or you can just go straight to my bus Sproute
website and find it there. I look forward to you
looking forward to listening, and I'm out this bitch