November 6, 2024 • 56 mins
It's the season finale of the R Spot, and Iyanla is talking with Kier Gaines, licensed therapist and speaker. They discuss how men can grow into good men and fathers without having that example in childhood. They talk about how men can permit themselves to be vulnerable and why holding their fellow men accountable is so important.
Follow Kier on Instagram and TikTok @kiergaines
Do you want to be on the podcast? Follow Iyanla on social media for the latest call-in information!
Instagram & X: @IyanlaVanzant
Facebook: @DrIyanlaVanzant
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I am Yamla.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I've been very open about the fact that I was
not always good at making my relationships work. I have
been divorced three times, twice from the same person. In
other words, I have seen a lot and failed a
lot in my relationships. So I am here to share
with you what I learned along the way, because I
(00:24):
did take copious notes. Welcome to the R Spot, a
production of shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome,
(00:48):
Welcome to the R Spot. I Ami Yamla, your facilitator, support,
your sister, woman, your friend, your guide posts as we
del deeper into these conversations about relationships, all kinds of
relationships as the universal classroom for becoming.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
More of the truth of who we are.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Oh my goodness, relationships, relationships, relationships. I don't think there's
any more important than those parental relationships.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
And I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
About you, but mine was not what I would have
created had I gone into the room with the pot
to make it. And mine wasn't either with my father,
who was emotionally unavailable, or my mother.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Who was deceased.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Unfortunately, nobody bothered to tell me that my mother was dead,
so I grew up thinking one woman was my mother,
who wasn't thanks to my father.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
That's the story. The outcome is what you have before you.
So it's all good, Ah, everything the way it needs
to be. That was all my docket. That was my
curriculum and nothing. That's what I lived through. I guess
it was also on my docutent in my curriculum. To
marry the same man twice. I didn't get enough the
(02:08):
first time. I had to go back and get it again.
But I learned something, you know. I left him the
first time, and he left me the second time.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
And one of my.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Teachers told me, you never really heal a thing until
you experience it from both sides. Until what you think
someone has done to you you do it to them.
That's when the fullness of your healing is unfolding. So
I am healed of the need to marry the same
person twice, and I also understand why I did it,
(02:40):
But it was a function of my parental relationship. He
was my father, and I was trying to accomplish with
him everything that I had never accomplished with my father.
And once I got that, we were both free. Your
parental relationships.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It's important.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
That's why today, for this very important conversation, I have
a guess. You know I do love a guest. My
guest today is Ker Gains.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
You know, he's a.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Young and I love him. I saw him when I
went to the White House. It was so exciting. I
love you young people who are out here doing the
work because the more work you do, the less I
have to do. I'm tired, I'm old. I want y'all
to get on it and get it done. Okay, But
(03:29):
he is a licensed therapist, a black man, young black man,
licensed therapist. That also tells me that at some point
in his life he was absolutely crazy, but we're not
going to have that conversation. He's also a mental health advocate.
That means he really supports and is doing it on
(03:50):
the social media. I don't know if it's the Tiki
Taki Hill or whoever you know me and the social media,
but he's putting it out there and he's an accomplished speaker.
He does his things on TikTok.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
It's got a.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Huge following because people love his realness as his authenticity,
and you young ands like to relate to each other,
so he's not like me all with you know, dyed
gray hair.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
He is out there, he's.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Young and he knows. He probably knows who's number one
on the chot. I don't know none of that.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Oh, you give me too much credit, now, I too
much credit. Now.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
He's a dad and he's a husband, and he's still
doing his work in the world.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
You can have it all, beloved.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
You can take care of you, you can grow in you,
and you can serve others caregames.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
What an intro, good gracious. I need you to follow
me everywhere I go and just say that to people
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I will, I'll record it for you.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
He comes from Southeast DC for me as a Brooklyn Knight.
That's Brownsville, right on the border of East New York
Southeast d C.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
And that's where he learned.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And developed his commitment to support his community, to support
his brothers and his sisters.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
But he didn't stay there.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
He been to the White House, he been to Nasau Nasa.
He's done some stuff with an Amazon movie, and he
knows my good girlfriends Miss o Oprah Winfrey and Ms
v Viola Davis and people are lifting acknowledging him for
his authentic approach. We're gonna talk today, Kiir Gaines and
(05:35):
I here on the R spot. Welcome, Welcome, Kiir. So
glad to have you.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
As I could have just sat and listened to that
all day. That was such a beautiful introduction. I've watched
you on my TV screen for so long that this
don't even feel real right now. They don't feel real,
But I am glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
You know what, I want to ask you this question
straight up because a lot of my listeners are women,
and you, regardless of the age, I know what you're
going to say. Well, I don't know what you're going
to say, and if I did know, I probably forgot.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
But in your.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Heart when I was reading your bio and listening to
some of your things, because you've talked about it, you
were raised by a single mom in Southeast DC. So
here's my inquiry. I want to make this inquiry. I
don't ask questions anymore. I inquire how does a fatherless
son learn how to be a good dad? I mean,
(06:37):
what's the model that you follow? What are the tools
that you need? How did you learn that? I want
to know your story?
Speaker 3 (06:46):
You know, I just I lean into what feels good.
I think one intrinsic part of masculinity that I've grown
to resent is this narrow definition of how you're supposed
to operate. Like I even talked to my friends, I'm
a member of the fraternity, your all time shout out
on Megasife five fraternity route to the brus my brothers,
but those are those are excellent men. They deserve that
(07:08):
shout out. But even in that community and men, they
are excellent fathers. But without here sometimes is this belief
of I gotta be hard on my sons and I
have to roll out this benevolent carpet of princess treatment
for my daughters. And I'm like, well, wait a minute,
what if you reverse the roles and you laid out
(07:29):
that benevolent, warm love to your sons and you can
see the brain kind of dysfunctioning and saying, wait a minute,
that's not in my scheme of how manhood is supposed
to work. And it's but that's how you develop a strong, healthy, secure,
conscientious man. And I think my mom did a really
good job of that. So I leaning on what feels good.
(07:51):
I trust my instincts, I trust my heart. I believe
that men can be warm and still not to be
played with. I believe that men could be soft and
he will be very strong. I believe that men can
defer to the genius of the people around them and
still be a strong leader. So that's that's kind of
what I shift into. I don't I don't think that.
(08:11):
You know, there are a lot of men that were
raised by their fathers and raised in the wrong direction.
Doesn't necessarily teach them how to be good dads. You
take your experience into account, you take who you are
into account. You listen, and you try to be the
best that you can be with the bandwidth that you
have in the moments that are in front of you.
That's it.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
You you talked about going to therapy. What led you
in that direction. It's so funny.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I was in the store the other day and I
met a brother and he was so excited to see me,
and he said.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Miss miss Yamla I started therapy.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
That said, who won great?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
You know, he recognized the need.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
And he It reminds me of I had to guess
Tony Porter.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Love Tony Porter. That's my mad mad box. Yeah, shout
out to Sony.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
So my question to you, my inquiry that I'd like
to make of you is what was.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
The impetus for you as a man going into therapy?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Ironically, it was fatherhood. The woman that I am now
married to and I called my wife, she wasn't always
my wife, and she was not my wife when we
found out we were going to have our first child,
she was my girlfriend. And much like you, I lost
my mom when I was young, so I realized that
there was some touch points that I was missing. I
realized there was some connective tissue that wasn't quite there.
(09:39):
And my biggest fear was.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
That that wait a minute, I don't want to slip
past that. How did you realize that there were touch
points and connective tissue?
Speaker 1 (09:47):
How did you realize it?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Just in some of my thought processes, I've always been
good at compartmentalizing. So I can compartmentalize the way that
I see the world, and I can tell where my
biases are, Like I think that because I grew up
black and poor, or uh, I think that because I
only have the experience of being a man. So sometimes
my experience is dealing with women. When I was dating,
(10:10):
dealing with work, culture, everything, I could see these gaps
in what I wanted to do or what I wanted
to say, or how I wanted to think, versus what
actually came out. Wow, And I could feel the disconnect,
but I couldn't tell you where it came from or
while I was there. And I operate under the assumption
that if you've been trying to do something for a
long time by yourself, and after a long time you
(10:32):
still not better at doing it or figuring it out
or solving it, that's indicative of you having the inability
to not be able to do it by yourself, and
perhaps you need to get some help.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
One of the things Tony talked about is how challenging
it is for men to admit they need help, to
ask for help, and to receive help even when it
shows up.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
He talked about that, So it was.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
You becoming a father, recognizing some gaps in your own
cognitive of ability. And I'm repeating this because I think
what you're talking about women experience as men is they
don't care, or they're this or did that or the
other thing, And it may just be a level of unawareness.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Where did you go to school, did you get did
you do Howard?
Speaker 3 (11:16):
No, No, I didn't do Howard. So I got my
undergrad and my master's degree from the University the District
of Columbia only public college in DC HBCU. Yeah, yeah,
that's why I got my education.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Okay, good for you, Good for you.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
I was reading something and listening to something you wrote,
and when I saw you on Holda and uh, what's
her name?
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Hold On Jenna?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, hold In Jenna.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
But you had this very wonderful thing that you wrote.
Oh no, it was your podcast where you say eight
things you should never say to or do to your partner.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, let's talk about them, because that's
gonna touch everybody.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
The men, the women, the flute, the nuts and the berries.
What do you say, I'm old.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
On?
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Are the eight things. Let's talk about them one at
a time because people people do it all the time.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yeah, they do, they do. Let's see if I can
remember that was like a million articles ago. I can
tell you the spirit of the things that you shouldn't
do or say, and I know a lot of them
were around blaming and accusatory language. I think that's the
hardest thing when I see couples, you know, resentment builds
in a relationship so fast and The scariest thing about
(12:40):
resentment is it allows you to have car blanche to
say behavior things yeah, and behave in a way that
isn't conducive to you get in the results that you
so desperately need. So now you think you're helping yourself
and you think you're being communicative, but the way that
you're presenting with you have to say to the person
(13:01):
they can't even hear you for real, and that it
happens frequently. So the blaming and accusatory language was one thing.
Another thing was the pathologizing and vilifying everything your partner does.
It's you know, when you get to a point when
you're tired of somebody, or you're getting tired of somebody,
it's like that person that work that you don't like.
(13:23):
You don't like Carol. You know, you don't like Carol.
You don't like what she brings to the pop. Look,
you don't like her stupid haircut. You don't like Carol.
Carol can come in and be the perfect person, but
you have already decided that you don't like Carol. So
when Carol sneeze you, why you gotta sneeze that way? Carol?
You're so damn annoying. You've already vilified her, and you
(13:44):
pathologize everything that she does.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
She can't do right, anologize explain that because women do
this the men all the time.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
But I want to come from you to.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
You just say that I can't. Yeah, So a good
example of pathologizing women do not care he me. This
is not an indictment, it's an invitation to.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Me to our conversation.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
So a good example of pathologizing sometimes that I see
is what's the term that's really popular now, I'm weaponized
in competence. Okay, so the guy in the relationship forgot
to do something, and he, to be fair, he has
a history of forgetting to do things, but it'll automatically
(14:27):
get labeled as weaponized in competence and its symptomatic of
a larger psychological social issue that he has. When in
all actuality, there's a big chance that he forgot because
it isn't quite as important to him as it is
to you, or he doesn't have the touch points on indicator,
there's no calendar that he can go back and reference,
(14:50):
or maybe it's not on his calendar, maybe he has
other things on his mind. All of these things that's
an example of pathologizing something.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Let me give you an example, because I hear this
all the time. You used the wind.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
He said, you asked him to, I don't know, fix
the garage door, fix the window, and you asked him once,
you asked him twice, you asked him three times. He
didn't do it, and he told you he forgot. And
then something comes along on the spot of the of
the on the spot that he forgot to do. And
(15:21):
the woman's response to that is, see, you never do
what you say you're gonna do. Every time I asked
you to do something, you forget. I asked you to
fix the closet door.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
You forgot.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
I asked you and something you know you only want
to do what you is that It is that how
they do it well.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
The multiple things happen just now, because then you start
dog piling, and once you dog pile, the issues become
so stacked and layered that there's no real place to
know how to start. It's like those old telephone calls
back in the day. And see that now I'm old
in the conversation. But the ones that swirl up and
they get tangled up together, five or six of them
(15:59):
get singled up together. You don't know where the beginning
or the end is, and that's what dog piling does,
because now you're reaching back from stuff unresolved, issues from
early in the relationship that probably could have been much
easier to hash out and talk about had they been
resolved closer to the time of it happening. But now
it's five six years later. You're digging in that bag
(16:20):
and it's stacking and stacking and stacking, and now it's
more so about expression frustration and it's not about problem solving.
There's a space for expression frustration and it's valid, but
in terms of problem solving it isn't always helpful, especially
when you consider the tone that you're expressing those frustrations through.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Boy, I'm so glad to hear that come out of
your mouth, because I say the women all of the time.
A woman's mouth is connected to the valves and the
chords and the strings of a man's heart, because the
first thing he heard when the little ears were forming
on his body was his mother's heartbeat. That was the
(16:58):
first thing he heardman's voice and her tone, her tenor
you can destroy a man's heart that way. What you're
talking about too, is what I call historyonics. Women are
history majors.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
It could be twenty twenty four. We'll go back and
dig up something you did in twenty nineteen. You don't
even remember you did it, you know, and the impact
of that and how that is emasculating. Here's another thing
I'd like you to talk about from a professional experience.
And I don't know what you call this, but it
(17:32):
would be among my eight things that you don't do
to your partner where nothing they ever do is good enough.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Oh yeah, ooh, that goes deep too.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Wait a minute, Wait a minute, hold that answer, hold
that answer. Let's do that. After the break, we'll be
right back.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Welcome back to the R Spot. My guest today is
care Gains. He's a licensed therapist, a mental health advocate,
and an accomplished speaker on the subject of relationships. So
I have so many things whenever I have a man
on the show, I just have so many things I
want to get a masculine opinion about, because I know
y'all get tired of hearing me talk about my stuff.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
You know what I figured out what I found working
with women that oftentimes in a marriage a heterosexual relationship
is what we're talking about. Oftentimes, in those relationships, if
a woman demonstrates that behavior nine times out of ten,
I hate those type of terms, but let's just go
with it. Nine times out of ten, she's modeling what
was given to her as a child. Because I think
(18:44):
women's relationships with their mothers is something that we're just
now kind of publicly talking about, and there's a lot
of problematic tension in those relationships. Quite often. Immy wounds,
oh and they run, they run very deep. And just
like a number of those things, the shame of being
a female slob, the shame of being a woman, at
a young girl at rest Sunday, you better get up
(19:06):
and clean the house. All of these things, the permanent
dissatisfaction with your performance. No matter what you do, it's
not good enough for mom or it's not good enough
for dad. You begin to model those same behaviors in
your relationship. The shame of being a female slob. Well,
girls should never be dirty. They don't have the room
to be that. And you see those dynamics play out
(19:27):
in marriage all the time. When there may be a
compulsion to clean or anxiety around cleaning that urges everybody
in the house to be on that same page, and
it becomes a sense of dysfunction. And it's hard to
see it because cleaning is productive and people don't see
dysfunction as something that can also be productive or something
that can also help you. So yeah, that happens very often.
(19:52):
Usually it's a byproduct of a parental relationship that was
very much so molded under those same guys.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I said, some of us grew up in such dysfunctional
for mental relationships. I want to talk to you about
this because a lot of men, men finally trust me
after all of these years.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Congratulations. That's hard.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
I know it is as a public person. But they'll
tell me anything, some things I really don't even want.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
To know, but are you in there?
Speaker 2 (20:20):
But they trust me because I honor them and their dignity.
Women trust me too, but they have I want to
talk to you about this because I hear this today
from so many men, and maybe if you can address
it and support the women who are listening. And that
is the aggressive experienced, that disrespectful manner in which women
(20:47):
have become accustomed to addressing men today.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Can you give me an example, jumping up in their
face pointing their finger at.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Him, calling them names, you know, the big word, you
know in please, who you talking to?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Who you think?
Speaker 2 (21:05):
It's just very, very aggressive, And sometime in that aggression
is also put down. And I know the way women
will dismiss it is they'll say, but what about the
way he talks to me, he calls me out my neck? Well,
we're not talking about that right now. We're talking about
the seemingly acceptable behavior of women. I've seen it, jumping
(21:29):
up in a man's face and with the finger and
rolling of the head.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, I so I've seen it before. I will say this,
that's not a part of my personal data and experience.
As soon as you start to exhibit uncontrollable anger, misplaced anger,
uncontrollable rage. Whether you're physically smaller than me or not,
doesn't matter how much you can can or can't hurt me.
(21:55):
It matters to me what your intent is. So as
soon as you start to display those behaviors, my boundary
game is fantastic. I have nothing for that. I didn't
grow up in a house with that. I never was
interested in women who display those behaviors. My wife ain't
nothing like that, My female friends ain't nothing like that.
That's never anything that I've ever let anybody be comfortable
(22:16):
displaying in front of me twice, so I don't have
any experiential history with that at all. I do see that,
and I don't know where that comes from. That's probably
a better question for a sociologist, but I will say this.
I think that it's this unwritten rule because I used
to work in education and students would do a similar
thing where physically, boy, I will mop this floor with you,
(22:40):
what is you talking about. I will put your head
through that concrete wall. I'm gonna call my father. I'll
put his head through that concrete wall to stop playing
with me. It's the students know that you have a duty.
It is against your social role, it is against your
social script to hit them back, so them a different
(23:00):
it emboldens them in a different way. I think there
may be some of that where we know boys don't
get taught many things consistently, but one thing boys get
taught consistently is you're not supposed to put your hands
on women. And I think that that's a bit of
a safeguard.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
I think they're taught that. I don't think they taught that.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I think they're taught that. How many of them absorb
and demonstrate that learning is a completely different thing. But
I think they're taught that. And I'll say we I
hate when men talk about other men and say they
don't exclude yourself from the shit like I'm sorry you
say it.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I love it. You're bilingual. You're bilingual. That was a
sentence and answer.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
But yeah, it's when it comes to men in violence
and things like that. On one hand, you have to
flash light on the fact that black women have the
highest rate of intimate partner violence, like it's an epidemic,
it's really really bad. And also in the same breath,
it could be very problematic to say that black men
(24:06):
are inherently violent, because not all black men commit those acts,
So it's hard to shine light on one in a
public eye without taking away from the other. But to
wrap it all up, I think it's a little bit
of that you're not supposed to hit me, You're not
supposed to do this, And I think it emboldus folks
to lean in a little bit more. We were at
(24:28):
a fair last year and this big guy cut in
front of this woman and I saw it happen. He
didn't see her. He didn't see her, and I mean,
she got livid and she it continued to escalate and
continue to escalat and the next thing I know, she's
in his face, point in her finger, and I told
my wife, I'm like, yo, she needs to chill because
(24:51):
you could see him trying to move on, and she
follows him and she continues to antagonize him, and that
dude was big. If he would have swung, it would
have been an issue. And you know, I'm like, hey, y'all,
everybody relaxed. Everybody relaxed. Trying to de escalate. That didn't work.
She was very angry. And I think sometimes because of
the gender scripts that we have in society, like men
(25:14):
can't really see themselves in a way that's different from
what society says they are, like emotionally complex, men have
a hard time grasping their own emotional complexity. And because
in society, women don't always have a lot of power,
and women aren't always framed as angry or violent, I don't.
I think a lot of women have a hard time
seeing sometimes when they have issues around anger and controlling
(25:37):
their anger on what that looks like. So I think
it could be a mix of all that.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Nice girls don't get angry, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
And one of the things that I'm really glad about
is all of these false notions and misnomas and the
ridiculosity and crazy men, that it's being busted up.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
I mean, we see it out of the world. I
love it.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I love it that we're being forced to make inquiry.
Let's talk about marriages relationships today. Let's bring it right
here home to the twenty first century. Because I'm looking
out in the world, I see and you know, I
could be very wrong about this.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
I see this presidential.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Election as a function of the deterioration between.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Men and women.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Oh please any more.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Well, I just see how the world is responding to
a woman candidate, particularly a woman of color who's a candidate.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
I have to say this.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
You know, her opponent, the Republican candidate. I've been very
aware of the things that he has said about her
and the silence I've heard from black men about it.
It's been very disturbing to me. And I'm wondering if
(27:01):
it's because she's got a white husband. I'm wondering if
I just I want to get to the day where
because I love black men and I mean, I've got
some powerful black men in my life and you better
not mess with me. I make two phone calls and
you done. Okay, Yeah, I don't understand. I wanted to
(27:24):
know why has there not been a public outcry about
the way these people have been speaking about her, denigrating her.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I wanted my brothers to stand up and say no, no, no, no,
not yet. I don't care. They can say everything else
on tw it. I don't care if you're voting.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
For her or not.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Why has that been allowed to go on? And I
think it's the same way that in today's society, I
don't hear black men's voice speaking out about the like
you said, black women are the number one victims, or
(28:08):
the experience in home violence, relational violence with any other
I don't hear enough black men speaking about that.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I don't either. And in my mind,
I always wonder where will those conversations live and what
do they look like? Because I do see black men
speaking about it, but they don't have a large share
of voice. And I'll even go as far as to
say it's hard to find intelligent male perspective online that
(28:39):
isn't of overtly sexist, that isn't overtly propagandists, or isn't
talking about finances or securing external resources.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
How about brothers, keep your hands off your wife.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
You out of order, and I think that does well.
I'll say this in my mind. It happens in interpersonal conversations. Okay, yeah,
I think so to what magnitude, clearly not enough. To
what magnitude, I don't know. But I also know that
men get very defeated when it comes to changing the
(29:15):
attitudes of other men. I've seen this a lot. Whereas,
like I've told him two three times, he's going to
do him, and at some point, men who are doing
what they're supposed to do they do a thing that
I'm not sure is hopeful. And I've been guilty of
this myself. We disassociate from those men, okay, and those
men are no longer connected to a community of men
(29:36):
that have a difference of opinion, that have a difference
in philosophy, and who can correct you. When those men
know that they're doing the wrong thing, they don't come
back and tell us. I always say, in my circle,
I don't have any dead be dads in my circle.
I thought that. I thought that until I continue to
do some investigation, and time did what time does, and
(29:57):
it started revealing things. But those men don't come I'm
back and say, yeah, man, I hit my wife the
other night, and then continue on with the conversation. You'll
think he gonna come and tell me that and then
have to hear my mouth continuously and feel my judgment continuously,
and feel my constant correction. And then he has to
look at the way my life goes and constantly compare
myself to him. I don't he won't say that, he'll
(30:20):
be quiet, He'll be silent around us. So I think
that's more of a complex phenomenon than I need brothers
to speak out loud, because man, it's you speak. If
I go on Twitter and I say something positive, if
I refresh the screen, you can't even see what I
said anymore. The information moves so quickly. So it's my
(30:42):
personal philosophy is, you know, I'm not gonna just call
you out, but I'm gonna also call you in. And
it starts with the inner circles. How to do it
from a larger perspective, I'm working on that. I don't
think that's going to be a one shot killed. But
I think it starts in in our immediate circles, in
our immediate communities, And I'm afraid that's something that we
(31:04):
can't track or really see in a place where we
can get like a like a catch off you point out.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I hear that, and I believe that, and I'm on
that step with you. But when I look and I
see the thousands and thousands of comments from black men
about Diddy they got something to say about that, I
want to know, why can't we have that same voice,
(31:33):
you know, brothers, if you're in breakdown with your wife
and you feel come here, come there. I know that's
the work that Tony Porter does. I just you know,
I want to see a stronger presence of black men
in the world standing up for black women because and
(31:54):
now let me just say this, they also did it
to Hillary.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
They tow her.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Down when she ran, but that won't that was white
men stand up for her. You know, I don't think
I want to see brothers standing up, you know, for
a sister, because the things that they're saying are just disgraceful.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
But anyway, yeah, and and just to just to wrap
this thing up, I do too that's something I want
to see, and that's one of the things that influenced
me and inspire me to do the content that I
do because with men, reaching men is hard. We were
talking about that before we hopped on the pod.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Well, I'm not going to say that, cancel, cancel. Reaching
men is a challenge, it's not all Okay.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
I accept that. Yes, okay, let's let's use that frame.
I love that. Actually reaching men is a challenge. And
one thing we didn't we haven't been doing a great
job of, is meeting men at eye level, like meeting
men exactly where they are, and also telling men is
one thing, but sometimes men need to see it. And
then my content, I don't just tell you this is
(32:57):
what I do, this is how you should do it,
how to model it, This is what my version of
that thing looks like. Your version might be very different,
but take my version. Keep what's nutritious, discard what isn't,
and try and try and try. This masculine ideology isn't
real big on experimentation, It isn't real big on flexibility.
(33:19):
It ain't oh man, it's so heavily self reliant to
a fault. So I try to demonstrate that in my
everyday life, so I can definitely call me in on that.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Oh, I'm so glad to have you here. Today is
my guest care.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
We're going to have more and more to talk about
when we come back. Welcome back to the R spot.
I mean, I'm my guest Today is care games and
we're just talking about all sorts of goodness as it
(33:57):
relates to men and women and relationships. And I want
to ask here some stuff about that so I can
get another opinion.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Help me with this. And this is for the ladies
listening to.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
If I do a workshop on the weekend, women will
show up, They get the babysitter, they'll do what they
have to do, blah blah blah. If I'm doing something online,
women will show up. Most men who show up come
because the woman brought him. Yeah, here's helped me understand
(34:28):
the thinking here. If a man has to pay the mortgage,
the childcare, the car note, and I'm doing a weekend workshop,
does he have the freedom to spend that money to
take that time to come.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
And do it.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Can't one? Why wouldn't he?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Because will she support him in it? Or will she
say you ain't you got to do this. You can't,
you know, I'm just asking. I'm not making any accusation.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I hear you. I hear you. I don't. I have
a tough time to generalize on women like that. My
experience with women has been largely either either it has
been positive or it's been human right, It's been one
of those two things. And I think that relationships are very, very,
very complicated. And I think that when it comes to
(35:22):
men seeking help, uh, it's it's so far outside of
the schema of of men what we always thought about men.
Put it like this, I honestly believe in my heart
that in terms of the way that we look at
gender identity and gender scripts, I think that women are
becoming more liberal with the way that they see those things,
(35:45):
and not politically. I'm just talking about personal ideology, becoming
more liberal in terms of the way they see womanhood
and femininity. And men are either as conservative as we've
always been, or we're becoming more conservative. And that in
that concern, rovatism does a thing where it sticks to
an old philosophy that don't really apply anymore. Like you,
(36:06):
the protector provider that was that was that was the
ship in the sixties and in the seventies. Yeah, you
know what I'm saying. That was, but now you have
to be more. And I think the conservative piece of
masking the ideology that's really self reliant and really big
(36:28):
on masking vulnerability. I understand why it exists. It had
to fulf very for a very long time. But the
human brain doesn't always do a good job of knowing
when it's time for change. And societally, man, we're a
big ship and the Titanic king Bucker you like before
that scort, you know, it takes a long time for
that thing to turn around and change course. So I
(36:50):
think we're dealing with a lot of different things at
one time. And with men, I think the buying is
going to be them seeing themselves in the work. I
think when most men think of a workshop, they think
of something that's for women, where you sit around and
you get affirmed and y'all might be clapping a snap
in the yes, live your best life, walk in your truth,
(37:12):
and that's fantastic. But that's how my wife talks. That's
not how I talk.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
They need to come to one of mind. I don't
talk like that either.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
I love that, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm
glad that women vibe with that. Women deserve those spaces
and languages and language that feels like them, you know.
But if we're going to reach men and have it
be less arduous to do so, I think we have
to change the service delivery approach.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
I think that they don't know well in terms of
my other question, the weekend workshop, I don't think they don't.
Either they don't know how, or they haven't given themselves
permission to take that time for themselves.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Because we're so glad you said that they don't.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Give themselves permission to take that time.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
That's one thing, you know, we did when Courtney be
Advanced Dvance released his book The Invisible Ache. We did
like workshop online and I had probably five hundred and
something men sign up and forty something show up.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Five hundred signed up and forty showed up. Yeah was
it free?
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Okay, yeah it was anutrition would the free stuff be crazy?
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Rayest competitor, My greatest competitor is free. I just was
slapping down she everywhere giving herself away. She's a howl.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Oh my god, free as a howl. I mean, she
just gives herself to everybody. But yeah, four five hundred
signed up and only forty showed up. And you know,
I really had to take that into prayer and see
and one of the things that I said, I want
to talk to you about these two things before you
get out of here. Number one, my father said it,
(39:06):
and I've seen it and I raised my son.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
I've seen it in my husband's I've seen it in
my friends.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
A man who is not accountable to anyone is a
danger to himself and everybody else.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely absolutely, And in there anyone, yourself needs
to be included. You need to be accountable to self. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
How do men learn that if they haven't seen it?
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Which goes back to my original question, how does a
fatherless son become a good father? How do men learn
accountability when they haven't seen it or experienced it? How
do they learn it?
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (39:48):
You bought that thing all the way back around there?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
I'm good like that, Yeah you are.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
I think how do men bring themselves to a point
of self on ability when it has not been modeled
for them.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
And when nobody's holding them accountable.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
To do it, and when no one's holding you accountable
to do it? I think the only way something has
to institute change. Something has to bring about a desire
for change. Either it's something that's going to be self motivated,
like I'm tired of being this way. I'm tired. I
(40:26):
don't like the way I feel when I'm drunk anymore.
I feel like I'm running from my problems. I don't
want to do this anymore. I gotta change or do
something different. Either it's going to be that or when
he loses everything and he's rock bottom, does it mean
that he'll do the things that are necessary, because you
still have to take the steps. But I think the
light switch that turns on that says I have to
(40:48):
do something, have to be self accountable is when you
have a very strong and deep desire for changing your
own life, and you're at the point, you're at the
point at the stages of cha's not pre contemplation, not contemplation,
You're at the point where you're ready to make a
step forward. And I think what supercharge is that is
if you're one of those men that could say, hey,
(41:09):
I know I'm self reliant, I'm independent, I can provide
for myself and do all of those things, but I
really need some help right now. Seeking behaviors yeah, the
help seeking behaviors. And with men, what I find what
we do oftentimes is we jump to the extreme of
something in order to fix it. Like, oh, my cars
(41:30):
making noise. Time to change the engine. Yo, wait a minute,
might be the fuel pump. Bro, you know you might
have a valve in that engine. That's a little bit off.
Let's check the easy to fix things. I've had men
come in my office, like y'all need to take this
cold plunge in this twenty degree tub. Like, yo, you
know you could just take a shower and if it's hot,
like turn it on cold for the first two minutes.
(41:53):
Baby steps matter. It's so hard to get through the
men sometimes, I'll say, so challenging to use your framing
to get through the mess. Sometimes the baby steps matter,
the little touch points matter, and it's okay, bro, it's okay.
It's okay. If you need somebody to hold your hand
through this, it's all right.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
But do they know they can trust?
Speaker 2 (42:12):
What I find with men is if you burn them
one time, if you violate them one time. One of
the ways that women do that is he has a
vulnerable moment. He tells you something sacred or secret and
you use it to beat him up later.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
If you do that, he's done.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
So I don't know, or you tell me, how does
a woman let a man know you're safe with me?
Speaker 1 (42:37):
What does she need to.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
Communicate or how does she need to be to communicate
your safe with me?
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Let me say this first. If a man has not
done the work to let his brain notify the rest
of his body that he is safe, there's nothing that
she can do.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Okay, got it.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
That's the first. First thing. First, I hear that I
grew up. I grew up in the projects, and when
we move, I'll never forget when we moved our first townhouse.
I mean it was projects adjacent, but it wasn't in
the projects. Me and my wife moved our first townhouse.
I was outside with my cousin and every car that
rolled by was looking in the car because you know,
you ride through the hood, you think them boys looking
in the car because they're trying to hurt you. No,
(43:19):
they want to make sure you ain't trying to hurt them, right,
you know that's PTSD at it's finest. But I'm looking
at the cars, I'm looking at everybody. And my cousin said, hey, bro,
you know you safe. You ain't gotta do that no more,
right like you ain't in the hood no more. My
brain did not know that I was safe. I own
my own business. We do very well, but sometimes, you know,
when you're an entrepreneur, sometimes the money don't always look right.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
What I don't have money in my account. I don't
feel safe, and I have to keep reminding my brain
that I'm safe. I'm safe. There's nothing my wife can do,
There's nothing anybody's mama can do. If I do not
feel safe in my own mind and body, then externally,
there's nothing that can happen to help kickstart that. So
I think first things first is he has to be
cognizant of where he is and he has to be
(44:04):
able to know that he's safe. And I think the
second thing is just my data and experience. Every woman
thought she was safe just by virtue of being her.
I never met a woman who didn't think that she
was safe. My wife wasn't always the safest person for
me to be vulnerable with, you know, before we got married.
But I think it's a mix. It's not whether it's climate,
(44:26):
it's not the individual things that happen always in these
little touch points. It's what the attitudes, behaviors, conversations, and
mutual love and respect looked like over a long period
of time. What is you all shared experience with each other.
Don't tell me you're safe, Demonstrate that you're safe if
I tell you something that's uncomfortable for you to hear,
(44:50):
if it's uncomfortable saying hey, I'm feeling a kind of
way right now, Babe. You told me that, and it's
making me feel insecure or it's making me feel defensive.
I want to be here for you right now, but
what you say is making me feel the way I
need a minute like. You have to externalize these internal
thoughts that are going through your mind so that you
all both know where you are now. That takes a
great deal of emotional intelligence, and in twenty twenty four,
(45:11):
that's not something that's in abundance. It's not a commodity
that there's a great deal of. But you have to
you have to show it in your actions off It's
I feel so sorry for folks. It's too much going on,
it's too many distractions. People are categorizing value in these
(45:33):
very obsessive, very peculiar.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Ways, dysfunctional. It's all dysfunctional.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
It is, but we don't see it that way. I say,
you know, people always look back at the nineties and
early two thousands and say that it's really cringe. I
think we want to look back at this time with
all the fifty to fifty conversation and the relationship godly gook,
and it's going to be so uncomfortable to watch how
collectively ridiculous we were. That's right back in twenty twenty four.
But yeah, back to the back to what I'm saying
(46:00):
about it. I think it's just something you have to model.
You have to model safety. You can't just talk it now.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Okay, So that's for the men. Now for the women,
I say the women all the time, let me see
how this lands for you and what you would say
about it.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
I say to women, take the pants off.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
He don't want to come home and find another dude.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Take the pants off.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
And I literally have an exercise where I tell women
to wear a skirt for twenty one days so that
they can get a different, vivate rational pull from the universe.
When you hear me say that, ladies, take the pants off,
what does that stimulate for you?
Speaker 1 (46:38):
As a man.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
It makes me think of this rhetoric we have about
masculine and feminine energy. I don't subscribe to it, but
I understand the conversations that people are having and my
clients talk about it, so I have to lean into it.
Taking the pants off I often hear when women are
being independent or where women are gaining autonomy economically, academically,
(47:03):
vocasionally all these different fields that are very new and
excited for women that they did label is masculine, which
bothers me. What's masculine about achievement?
Speaker 1 (47:15):
Like, it's absolutely nothing.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
I don't mean it that way, but I'm glad that
you that to hear that that's what you're hearing.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
Yeah, and maybe that's me being a girl dad and
me being invested in women from that angle, but you know,
take the pants off to me is also about control
and allowing yourself to take the hands off the steering
wheel of control and allow your relationship to be or
(47:45):
not assuming the super domineering role in your relationship that
makes you and I know this is tough because you know,
the good girl thing with women are supposed to be warm,
but makes you kind of impenetrable. Where I can't get
to you. I can't get to you for the reasons
that I got it. Yeah, yeah, I think it's a.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Control and domination and insisting that it looks the way
you think it should look.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Give you know.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
And I say this to women all the time, particularly
single women. I say, for men with a drop out
of the sky into your life today, is there room?
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Do you have closet space for it?
Speaker 3 (48:18):
Oh? I like that. I like that.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
I like that, you know, or you're just gonna give
him a little box by the stove.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
When I say take the pants off, I mean make
room for him who he is, as he is, and
not that it's always got to be your way and
that you're in control and you're dominating the space.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Give him space. You know. My partner best away about
three years ago, he could not cook.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
When he would say to me, I want to I'm
gonna cook dinner tonight. Inside, I would say, Lord Jesus,
help me, let me get it. Go get a big bag.
But let me tell you something. I would sit at
that table and eat that food and yummy, yummy, yummy
and yummy, as opposed to say, how.
Speaker 4 (49:03):
Can you even put more flour on the chicken? And no,
I just just be in the space in my heart
because for me, so many women have made the head
at home the heart is in deep freeze. That's what
I mean when I say not the masculine feminine, because
(49:24):
our nature is warm and soft and our dominant organ
should be a heart. But when we have the pants
on into our head, that's what I mean.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
I love the framing of that. Yeah, and I think
it also you have to you can't let the idea
of like this hyper idealized version of romance and partnership.
You can't allow that to hold a gun to your
head where you know this ain't a fit, but you
know this is somebody, This is a warm body. I'm
(49:56):
not gonna be alone. I'm not gonna be myself. I'm
not gonna be by myself. This is my opportunity to
have a person when everything is showing you. If you
cannot take the pants off at all because who you
are and who they are is just bumping, I think
that's an indicator that something's wrong. I'm not saying you
need to leave that relationship or exit, but I think
that's indicative or I think that's an indicator that perhaps
(50:18):
you need to reassess the direction and this relationship is
going in. If you can't naturally find a place and
not saying that it's that person's fault, perhaps you all
they bring a part of their personality, brings out a
part of your personality that won't allow you to take
the pants off. Or maybe something from your past, maybe
like we were talking about earlier, your relationship with your parents,
(50:39):
maybe it triggers something there, or to remind you of
something deeply hurtful where you just don't have great control
over that in that moment with that person, I think
it may be a great indicator that you need to
dig deeper with self. Maybe you need to pivot, maybe
you need to pause. Maybe this just ain't your person.
Speaker 2 (50:56):
I think everybody, every relationship, if it takes if it
takes foot, you know, takes hole beyond, you know, bump
knocking boots, that person is still there to teach you.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
I believe that they'll teach you something. Show yourself agreed.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
What they trigger up in you is what you need
to heal. And sometimes you know that gets triggered in
a one night stand. I know you've got to run.
So I want to get these three things out to you,
what is the number one measure of success in a relationship?
Speaker 1 (51:27):
What would you say?
Speaker 3 (51:28):
Oooh, that's a good question. I got you mutual respect one. Yeah,
it ain't gonna work without it.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
Just I respect you for who you are as you are,
respect me for who I am, and then let's come
together and see where we need to integrate.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Okay, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Number one thing you want men to know about intimate
loving relationships.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
That they are They're deeply complex, no matter how badly
your brain wants to oversimplify them. They are deeply nuanced.
I can't remember the name of the couple, but it
was a story about a couple who was married for
like fifty years or something, this other couple that was
married for twenty and the couple that was married for
twenty as the couple that was married for fifty years
(52:18):
asked the couple who's married for twenty, well, how long
you all been married? And they told them, and the
couple that was married for fifty years said, oh, y'all
still getting to know each other.
Speaker 5 (52:25):
Ya, twenty years married, they still getting to know each other.
It is deeply nuanced. It goes deep. It is an
abyss of feelings that you need to grasp that concept
before you go deep diving.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
What is the number one thing you want women to
know about intimate loving relationships?
Speaker 3 (52:44):
Even though women are still fighting to wield power in society,
women oftentimes have a great deal of power in their
relationships that I don't know if they always see both
good and bad. Well, I won't say good and bad.
I don't like that framing, but.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Both positive and not so volative?
Speaker 3 (53:08):
Yeah, both constructive and deconstructive, which I know is something
you've talked about many, many, many times.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Oh, care gains. You are an
absolute joy and a delight.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
I tell you.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
One of the things that I saw you in one
of your videos, your daughter was saying something. You say, well,
do you want me to do so? Or do you
need some time alone? And she said I need time alone?
You said, okay, I'll be right here. I'll check on
you in five minutes.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
That's right. And I do the same thing with my wife.
What's up, baby? You need some space or you need
a hug? What's good? What you need? Oh? Yeah, one thousand?
Absolutely check on you?
Speaker 1 (53:47):
And how do we find you? Kiir does?
Speaker 2 (53:50):
How do we find you? How does the ar Spot
family find you? Because I want them to. I want
my family to become a part of your family.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
I love that. What's up our Spot Family's good with you,
y'all been listening to this whole episode. Thank you for
sticking with us. You can find me on Instagram. My
name is kier Gaines k I E R G A
I N E S. I am also on TikTok. I
am also on YouTube. My wife and I have a
podcast called to Sit Down Talk where we talk honestly
about loving relationships and imagine Jordan's under the waterfall, because
(54:20):
that ain't gonna help you, That ain't gonna help you
get better at being a partner. You can find me
any of those places. I will be happy to have
you as part of my community.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Thank you so very much.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
Our Spy Family Care Games. He is a licensed therapist.
I know we were all over the place, but there
were so many things that I wanted to get from
him as because back, yes, absolutely absolutely, and you know what,
this is what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1 (54:46):
I'm gonna bring you back with your wife.
Speaker 3 (54:49):
Ooh, that's gonna be good. That's gonna be good. I
like that.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
Back with your wife, and then I get to ask
her questions about you, and you questions about her.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
She's brilliant, Your love her.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Yeah, that's my sister at the bar. She's a lawyer,
right she is.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
Yeah, intellectual property and trademark lawyer.
Speaker 1 (55:08):
Okay, oh lord, that's above my grade. I just do
criminal defense.
Speaker 3 (55:16):
I definitely married up for sure.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Okay, my love, Thank you so very much. I want
to respect your time to get out and we'll be
in touch, okay.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Before I leave you today. This is our last episode
of season two on The R Spot, and I'm sure
hoping there will be a season three. I want to
thank you for listening. But more than listening, I want
to encourage you to go back and listen to whatever
episode was your favorite and see what you can find
(55:52):
to put into action in your life. Because at the
R Spot, our intention has been to give us more
are loving, more fulfilling, more satisfying relationships in every area
of our life. So to my our Spot family, I
want to thank you for tuning in. I want to
(56:14):
thank you for your support, and take good care of
yourself until next time, Stay in.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
Peace and not in pieces.
Speaker 2 (56:22):
Bye. Ther Spot is a production of Shondaland Audio in
partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite show.
I am Yamla.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I've been very open about the fact that I was
not always good at making my relationships work. I have
been divorced three times, twice from the same person. In
other words, I have seen a lot and failed a
lot in my relationships. So I am here to share
with you what I learned along the way, because I
(00:24):
did take copious notes. Welcome to the R Spot, a
production of shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome,
(00:48):
Welcome to the R Spot. I Ami Yamla, your facilitator, support,
your sister, woman, your friend, your guide posts as we
del deeper into these conversations about relationships, all kinds of
relationships as the universal classroom for becoming.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
More of the truth of who we are.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Oh my goodness, relationships, relationships, relationships. I don't think there's
any more important than those parental relationships.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
And I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
About you, but mine was not what I would have
created had I gone into the room with the pot
to make it. And mine wasn't either with my father,
who was emotionally unavailable, or my mother.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Who was deceased.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Unfortunately, nobody bothered to tell me that my mother was dead,
so I grew up thinking one woman was my mother,
who wasn't thanks to my father.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
That's the story. The outcome is what you have before you.
So it's all good, Ah, everything the way it needs
to be. That was all my docket. That was my
curriculum and nothing. That's what I lived through. I guess
it was also on my docutent in my curriculum. To
marry the same man twice. I didn't get enough the
(02:08):
first time. I had to go back and get it again.
But I learned something, you know. I left him the
first time, and he left me the second time.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
And one of my.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Teachers told me, you never really heal a thing until
you experience it from both sides. Until what you think
someone has done to you you do it to them.
That's when the fullness of your healing is unfolding. So
I am healed of the need to marry the same
person twice, and I also understand why I did it,
(02:40):
But it was a function of my parental relationship. He
was my father, and I was trying to accomplish with
him everything that I had never accomplished with my father.
And once I got that, we were both free. Your
parental relationships.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It's important.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
That's why today, for this very important conversation, I have
a guess. You know I do love a guest. My
guest today is Ker Gains.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
You know, he's a.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Young and I love him. I saw him when I
went to the White House. It was so exciting. I
love you young people who are out here doing the
work because the more work you do, the less I
have to do. I'm tired, I'm old. I want y'all
to get on it and get it done. Okay, But
(03:29):
he is a licensed therapist, a black man, young black man,
licensed therapist. That also tells me that at some point
in his life he was absolutely crazy, but we're not
going to have that conversation. He's also a mental health advocate.
That means he really supports and is doing it on
(03:50):
the social media. I don't know if it's the Tiki
Taki Hill or whoever you know me and the social media,
but he's putting it out there and he's an accomplished speaker.
He does his things on TikTok.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
It's got a.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Huge following because people love his realness as his authenticity,
and you young ands like to relate to each other,
so he's not like me all with you know, dyed
gray hair.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
He is out there, he's.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Young and he knows. He probably knows who's number one
on the chot. I don't know none of that.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Oh, you give me too much credit, now, I too
much credit. Now.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
He's a dad and he's a husband, and he's still
doing his work in the world.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
You can have it all, beloved.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
You can take care of you, you can grow in you,
and you can serve others caregames.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
What an intro, good gracious. I need you to follow
me everywhere I go and just say that to people
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I will, I'll record it for you.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
He comes from Southeast DC for me as a Brooklyn Knight.
That's Brownsville, right on the border of East New York
Southeast d C.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
And that's where he learned.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And developed his commitment to support his community, to support
his brothers and his sisters.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
But he didn't stay there.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
He been to the White House, he been to Nasau Nasa.
He's done some stuff with an Amazon movie, and he
knows my good girlfriends Miss o Oprah Winfrey and Ms
v Viola Davis and people are lifting acknowledging him for
his authentic approach. We're gonna talk today, Kiir Gaines and
(05:35):
I here on the R spot. Welcome, Welcome, Kiir. So
glad to have you.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
As I could have just sat and listened to that
all day. That was such a beautiful introduction. I've watched
you on my TV screen for so long that this
don't even feel real right now. They don't feel real,
But I am glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
You know what, I want to ask you this question
straight up because a lot of my listeners are women,
and you, regardless of the age, I know what you're
going to say. Well, I don't know what you're going
to say, and if I did know, I probably forgot.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
But in your.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Heart when I was reading your bio and listening to
some of your things, because you've talked about it, you
were raised by a single mom in Southeast DC. So
here's my inquiry. I want to make this inquiry. I
don't ask questions anymore. I inquire how does a fatherless
son learn how to be a good dad? I mean,
(06:37):
what's the model that you follow? What are the tools
that you need? How did you learn that? I want
to know your story?
Speaker 3 (06:46):
You know, I just I lean into what feels good.
I think one intrinsic part of masculinity that I've grown
to resent is this narrow definition of how you're supposed
to operate. Like I even talked to my friends, I'm
a member of the fraternity, your all time shout out
on Megasife five fraternity route to the brus my brothers,
but those are those are excellent men. They deserve that
(07:08):
shout out. But even in that community and men, they
are excellent fathers. But without here sometimes is this belief
of I gotta be hard on my sons and I
have to roll out this benevolent carpet of princess treatment
for my daughters. And I'm like, well, wait a minute,
what if you reverse the roles and you laid out
(07:29):
that benevolent, warm love to your sons and you can
see the brain kind of dysfunctioning and saying, wait a minute,
that's not in my scheme of how manhood is supposed
to work. And it's but that's how you develop a strong, healthy, secure,
conscientious man. And I think my mom did a really
good job of that. So I leaning on what feels good.
(07:51):
I trust my instincts, I trust my heart. I believe
that men can be warm and still not to be
played with. I believe that men could be soft and
he will be very strong. I believe that men can
defer to the genius of the people around them and
still be a strong leader. So that's that's kind of
what I shift into. I don't I don't think that.
(08:11):
You know, there are a lot of men that were
raised by their fathers and raised in the wrong direction.
Doesn't necessarily teach them how to be good dads. You
take your experience into account, you take who you are
into account. You listen, and you try to be the
best that you can be with the bandwidth that you
have in the moments that are in front of you.
That's it.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
You you talked about going to therapy. What led you
in that direction. It's so funny.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I was in the store the other day and I
met a brother and he was so excited to see me,
and he said.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Miss miss Yamla I started therapy.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
That said, who won great?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
You know, he recognized the need.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
And he It reminds me of I had to guess
Tony Porter.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Love Tony Porter. That's my mad mad box. Yeah, shout
out to Sony.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
So my question to you, my inquiry that I'd like
to make of you is what was.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
The impetus for you as a man going into therapy?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Ironically, it was fatherhood. The woman that I am now
married to and I called my wife, she wasn't always
my wife, and she was not my wife when we
found out we were going to have our first child,
she was my girlfriend. And much like you, I lost
my mom when I was young, so I realized that
there was some touch points that I was missing. I
realized there was some connective tissue that wasn't quite there.
(09:39):
And my biggest fear was.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
That that wait a minute, I don't want to slip
past that. How did you realize that there were touch
points and connective tissue?
Speaker 1 (09:47):
How did you realize it?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Just in some of my thought processes, I've always been
good at compartmentalizing. So I can compartmentalize the way that
I see the world, and I can tell where my
biases are, Like I think that because I grew up
black and poor, or uh, I think that because I
only have the experience of being a man. So sometimes
my experience is dealing with women. When I was dating,
(10:10):
dealing with work, culture, everything, I could see these gaps
in what I wanted to do or what I wanted
to say, or how I wanted to think, versus what
actually came out. Wow, And I could feel the disconnect,
but I couldn't tell you where it came from or
while I was there. And I operate under the assumption
that if you've been trying to do something for a
long time by yourself, and after a long time you
(10:32):
still not better at doing it or figuring it out
or solving it, that's indicative of you having the inability
to not be able to do it by yourself, and
perhaps you need to get some help.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
One of the things Tony talked about is how challenging
it is for men to admit they need help, to
ask for help, and to receive help even when it
shows up.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
He talked about that, So it was.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
You becoming a father, recognizing some gaps in your own
cognitive of ability. And I'm repeating this because I think
what you're talking about women experience as men is they
don't care, or they're this or did that or the
other thing, And it may just be a level of unawareness.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Where did you go to school, did you get did
you do Howard?
Speaker 3 (11:16):
No, No, I didn't do Howard. So I got my
undergrad and my master's degree from the University the District
of Columbia only public college in DC HBCU. Yeah, yeah,
that's why I got my education.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Okay, good for you, Good for you.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
I was reading something and listening to something you wrote,
and when I saw you on Holda and uh, what's
her name?
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Hold On Jenna?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, hold In Jenna.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
But you had this very wonderful thing that you wrote.
Oh no, it was your podcast where you say eight
things you should never say to or do to your partner.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, let's talk about them, because that's
gonna touch everybody.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
The men, the women, the flute, the nuts and the berries.
What do you say, I'm old.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
On?
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Are the eight things. Let's talk about them one at
a time because people people do it all the time.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yeah, they do, they do. Let's see if I can
remember that was like a million articles ago. I can
tell you the spirit of the things that you shouldn't
do or say, and I know a lot of them
were around blaming and accusatory language. I think that's the
hardest thing when I see couples, you know, resentment builds
in a relationship so fast and The scariest thing about
(12:40):
resentment is it allows you to have car blanche to
say behavior things yeah, and behave in a way that
isn't conducive to you get in the results that you
so desperately need. So now you think you're helping yourself
and you think you're being communicative, but the way that
you're presenting with you have to say to the person
(13:01):
they can't even hear you for real, and that it
happens frequently. So the blaming and accusatory language was one thing.
Another thing was the pathologizing and vilifying everything your partner does.
It's you know, when you get to a point when
you're tired of somebody, or you're getting tired of somebody,
it's like that person that work that you don't like.
(13:23):
You don't like Carol. You know, you don't like Carol.
You don't like what she brings to the pop. Look,
you don't like her stupid haircut. You don't like Carol.
Carol can come in and be the perfect person, but
you have already decided that you don't like Carol. So
when Carol sneeze you, why you gotta sneeze that way? Carol?
You're so damn annoying. You've already vilified her, and you
(13:44):
pathologize everything that she does.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
She can't do right, anologize explain that because women do
this the men all the time.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
But I want to come from you to.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
You just say that I can't. Yeah, So a good
example of pathologizing women do not care he me. This
is not an indictment, it's an invitation to.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Me to our conversation.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
So a good example of pathologizing sometimes that I see
is what's the term that's really popular now, I'm weaponized
in competence. Okay, so the guy in the relationship forgot
to do something, and he, to be fair, he has
a history of forgetting to do things, but it'll automatically
(14:27):
get labeled as weaponized in competence and its symptomatic of
a larger psychological social issue that he has. When in
all actuality, there's a big chance that he forgot because
it isn't quite as important to him as it is
to you, or he doesn't have the touch points on indicator,
there's no calendar that he can go back and reference,
(14:50):
or maybe it's not on his calendar, maybe he has
other things on his mind. All of these things that's
an example of pathologizing something.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Let me give you an example, because I hear this
all the time. You used the wind.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
He said, you asked him to, I don't know, fix
the garage door, fix the window, and you asked him once,
you asked him twice, you asked him three times. He
didn't do it, and he told you he forgot. And
then something comes along on the spot of the of
the on the spot that he forgot to do. And
(15:21):
the woman's response to that is, see, you never do
what you say you're gonna do. Every time I asked
you to do something, you forget. I asked you to
fix the closet door.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
You forgot.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
I asked you and something you know you only want
to do what you is that It is that how
they do it well.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
The multiple things happen just now, because then you start
dog piling, and once you dog pile, the issues become
so stacked and layered that there's no real place to
know how to start. It's like those old telephone calls
back in the day. And see that now I'm old
in the conversation. But the ones that swirl up and
they get tangled up together, five or six of them
(15:59):
get singled up together. You don't know where the beginning
or the end is, and that's what dog piling does,
because now you're reaching back from stuff unresolved, issues from
early in the relationship that probably could have been much
easier to hash out and talk about had they been
resolved closer to the time of it happening. But now
it's five six years later. You're digging in that bag
(16:20):
and it's stacking and stacking and stacking, and now it's
more so about expression frustration and it's not about problem solving.
There's a space for expression frustration and it's valid, but
in terms of problem solving it isn't always helpful, especially
when you consider the tone that you're expressing those frustrations through.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Boy, I'm so glad to hear that come out of
your mouth, because I say the women all of the time.
A woman's mouth is connected to the valves and the
chords and the strings of a man's heart, because the
first thing he heard when the little ears were forming
on his body was his mother's heartbeat. That was the
(16:58):
first thing he heardman's voice and her tone, her tenor
you can destroy a man's heart that way. What you're
talking about too, is what I call historyonics. Women are
history majors.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
It could be twenty twenty four. We'll go back and
dig up something you did in twenty nineteen. You don't
even remember you did it, you know, and the impact
of that and how that is emasculating. Here's another thing
I'd like you to talk about from a professional experience.
And I don't know what you call this, but it
(17:32):
would be among my eight things that you don't do
to your partner where nothing they ever do is good enough.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Oh yeah, ooh, that goes deep too.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Wait a minute, Wait a minute, hold that answer, hold
that answer. Let's do that. After the break, we'll be
right back.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Welcome back to the R Spot. My guest today is
care Gains. He's a licensed therapist, a mental health advocate,
and an accomplished speaker on the subject of relationships. So
I have so many things whenever I have a man
on the show, I just have so many things I
want to get a masculine opinion about, because I know
y'all get tired of hearing me talk about my stuff.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
You know what I figured out what I found working
with women that oftentimes in a marriage a heterosexual relationship
is what we're talking about. Oftentimes, in those relationships, if
a woman demonstrates that behavior nine times out of ten,
I hate those type of terms, but let's just go
with it. Nine times out of ten, she's modeling what
was given to her as a child. Because I think
(18:44):
women's relationships with their mothers is something that we're just
now kind of publicly talking about, and there's a lot
of problematic tension in those relationships. Quite often. Immy wounds,
oh and they run, they run very deep. And just
like a number of those things, the shame of being
a female slob, the shame of being a woman, at
a young girl at rest Sunday, you better get up
(19:06):
and clean the house. All of these things, the permanent
dissatisfaction with your performance. No matter what you do, it's
not good enough for mom or it's not good enough
for dad. You begin to model those same behaviors in
your relationship. The shame of being a female slob. Well,
girls should never be dirty. They don't have the room
to be that. And you see those dynamics play out
(19:27):
in marriage all the time. When there may be a
compulsion to clean or anxiety around cleaning that urges everybody
in the house to be on that same page, and
it becomes a sense of dysfunction. And it's hard to
see it because cleaning is productive and people don't see
dysfunction as something that can also be productive or something
that can also help you. So yeah, that happens very often.
(19:52):
Usually it's a byproduct of a parental relationship that was
very much so molded under those same guys.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I said, some of us grew up in such dysfunctional
for mental relationships. I want to talk to you about
this because a lot of men, men finally trust me
after all of these years.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Congratulations. That's hard.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
I know it is as a public person. But they'll
tell me anything, some things I really don't even want.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
To know, but are you in there?
Speaker 2 (20:20):
But they trust me because I honor them and their dignity.
Women trust me too, but they have I want to
talk to you about this because I hear this today
from so many men, and maybe if you can address
it and support the women who are listening. And that
is the aggressive experienced, that disrespectful manner in which women
(20:47):
have become accustomed to addressing men today.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Can you give me an example, jumping up in their
face pointing their finger at.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Him, calling them names, you know, the big word, you
know in please, who you talking to?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Who you think?
Speaker 2 (21:05):
It's just very, very aggressive, And sometime in that aggression
is also put down. And I know the way women
will dismiss it is they'll say, but what about the
way he talks to me, he calls me out my neck? Well,
we're not talking about that right now. We're talking about
the seemingly acceptable behavior of women. I've seen it, jumping
(21:29):
up in a man's face and with the finger and
rolling of the head.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, I so I've seen it before. I will say this,
that's not a part of my personal data and experience.
As soon as you start to exhibit uncontrollable anger, misplaced anger,
uncontrollable rage. Whether you're physically smaller than me or not,
doesn't matter how much you can can or can't hurt me.
(21:55):
It matters to me what your intent is. So as
soon as you start to display those behaviors, my boundary
game is fantastic. I have nothing for that. I didn't
grow up in a house with that. I never was
interested in women who display those behaviors. My wife ain't
nothing like that, My female friends ain't nothing like that.
That's never anything that I've ever let anybody be comfortable
(22:16):
displaying in front of me twice, so I don't have
any experiential history with that at all. I do see that,
and I don't know where that comes from. That's probably
a better question for a sociologist, but I will say this.
I think that it's this unwritten rule because I used
to work in education and students would do a similar
thing where physically, boy, I will mop this floor with you,
(22:40):
what is you talking about. I will put your head
through that concrete wall. I'm gonna call my father. I'll
put his head through that concrete wall to stop playing
with me. It's the students know that you have a duty.
It is against your social role, it is against your
social script to hit them back, so them a different
(23:00):
it emboldens them in a different way. I think there
may be some of that where we know boys don't
get taught many things consistently, but one thing boys get
taught consistently is you're not supposed to put your hands
on women. And I think that that's a bit of
a safeguard.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
I think they're taught that. I don't think they taught that.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I think they're taught that. How many of them absorb
and demonstrate that learning is a completely different thing. But
I think they're taught that. And I'll say we I
hate when men talk about other men and say they
don't exclude yourself from the shit like I'm sorry you
say it.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I love it. You're bilingual. You're bilingual. That was a
sentence and answer.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
But yeah, it's when it comes to men in violence
and things like that. On one hand, you have to
flash light on the fact that black women have the
highest rate of intimate partner violence, like it's an epidemic,
it's really really bad. And also in the same breath,
it could be very problematic to say that black men
(24:06):
are inherently violent, because not all black men commit those acts,
So it's hard to shine light on one in a
public eye without taking away from the other. But to
wrap it all up, I think it's a little bit
of that you're not supposed to hit me, You're not
supposed to do this, And I think it emboldus folks
to lean in a little bit more. We were at
(24:28):
a fair last year and this big guy cut in
front of this woman and I saw it happen. He
didn't see her. He didn't see her, and I mean,
she got livid and she it continued to escalate and
continue to escalat and the next thing I know, she's
in his face, point in her finger, and I told
my wife, I'm like, yo, she needs to chill because
(24:51):
you could see him trying to move on, and she
follows him and she continues to antagonize him, and that
dude was big. If he would have swung, it would
have been an issue. And you know, I'm like, hey, y'all,
everybody relaxed. Everybody relaxed. Trying to de escalate. That didn't work.
She was very angry. And I think sometimes because of
the gender scripts that we have in society, like men
(25:14):
can't really see themselves in a way that's different from
what society says they are, like emotionally complex, men have
a hard time grasping their own emotional complexity. And because
in society, women don't always have a lot of power,
and women aren't always framed as angry or violent, I don't.
I think a lot of women have a hard time
seeing sometimes when they have issues around anger and controlling
(25:37):
their anger on what that looks like. So I think
it could be a mix of all that.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Nice girls don't get angry, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
And one of the things that I'm really glad about
is all of these false notions and misnomas and the
ridiculosity and crazy men, that it's being busted up.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
I mean, we see it out of the world. I
love it.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I love it that we're being forced to make inquiry.
Let's talk about marriages relationships today. Let's bring it right
here home to the twenty first century. Because I'm looking
out in the world, I see and you know, I
could be very wrong about this.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
I see this presidential.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Election as a function of the deterioration between.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Men and women.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Oh please any more.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Well, I just see how the world is responding to
a woman candidate, particularly a woman of color who's a candidate.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
I have to say this.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
You know, her opponent, the Republican candidate. I've been very
aware of the things that he has said about her
and the silence I've heard from black men about it.
It's been very disturbing to me. And I'm wondering if
(27:01):
it's because she's got a white husband. I'm wondering if
I just I want to get to the day where
because I love black men and I mean, I've got
some powerful black men in my life and you better
not mess with me. I make two phone calls and
you done. Okay, Yeah, I don't understand. I wanted to
(27:24):
know why has there not been a public outcry about
the way these people have been speaking about her, denigrating her.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I wanted my brothers to stand up and say no, no, no, no,
not yet. I don't care. They can say everything else
on tw it. I don't care if you're voting.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
For her or not.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Why has that been allowed to go on? And I
think it's the same way that in today's society, I
don't hear black men's voice speaking out about the like
you said, black women are the number one victims, or
(28:08):
the experience in home violence, relational violence with any other
I don't hear enough black men speaking about that.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I don't either. And in my mind,
I always wonder where will those conversations live and what
do they look like? Because I do see black men
speaking about it, but they don't have a large share
of voice. And I'll even go as far as to
say it's hard to find intelligent male perspective online that
(28:39):
isn't of overtly sexist, that isn't overtly propagandists, or isn't
talking about finances or securing external resources.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
How about brothers, keep your hands off your wife.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
You out of order, and I think that does well.
I'll say this in my mind. It happens in interpersonal conversations. Okay, yeah,
I think so to what magnitude, clearly not enough. To
what magnitude, I don't know. But I also know that
men get very defeated when it comes to changing the
(29:15):
attitudes of other men. I've seen this a lot. Whereas,
like I've told him two three times, he's going to
do him, and at some point, men who are doing
what they're supposed to do they do a thing that
I'm not sure is hopeful. And I've been guilty of
this myself. We disassociate from those men, okay, and those
men are no longer connected to a community of men
(29:36):
that have a difference of opinion, that have a difference
in philosophy, and who can correct you. When those men
know that they're doing the wrong thing, they don't come
back and tell us. I always say, in my circle,
I don't have any dead be dads in my circle.
I thought that. I thought that until I continue to
do some investigation, and time did what time does, and
(29:57):
it started revealing things. But those men don't come I'm
back and say, yeah, man, I hit my wife the
other night, and then continue on with the conversation. You'll
think he gonna come and tell me that and then
have to hear my mouth continuously and feel my judgment continuously,
and feel my constant correction. And then he has to
look at the way my life goes and constantly compare
myself to him. I don't he won't say that, he'll
(30:20):
be quiet, He'll be silent around us. So I think
that's more of a complex phenomenon than I need brothers
to speak out loud, because man, it's you speak. If
I go on Twitter and I say something positive, if
I refresh the screen, you can't even see what I
said anymore. The information moves so quickly. So it's my
(30:42):
personal philosophy is, you know, I'm not gonna just call
you out, but I'm gonna also call you in. And
it starts with the inner circles. How to do it
from a larger perspective, I'm working on that. I don't
think that's going to be a one shot killed. But
I think it starts in in our immediate circles, in
our immediate communities, And I'm afraid that's something that we
(31:04):
can't track or really see in a place where we
can get like a like a catch off you point out.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I hear that, and I believe that, and I'm on
that step with you. But when I look and I
see the thousands and thousands of comments from black men
about Diddy they got something to say about that, I
want to know, why can't we have that same voice,
(31:33):
you know, brothers, if you're in breakdown with your wife
and you feel come here, come there. I know that's
the work that Tony Porter does. I just you know,
I want to see a stronger presence of black men
in the world standing up for black women because and
(31:54):
now let me just say this, they also did it
to Hillary.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
They tow her.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Down when she ran, but that won't that was white
men stand up for her. You know, I don't think
I want to see brothers standing up, you know, for
a sister, because the things that they're saying are just disgraceful.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
But anyway, yeah, and and just to just to wrap
this thing up, I do too that's something I want
to see, and that's one of the things that influenced
me and inspire me to do the content that I
do because with men, reaching men is hard. We were
talking about that before we hopped on the pod.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Well, I'm not going to say that, cancel, cancel. Reaching
men is a challenge, it's not all Okay.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
I accept that. Yes, okay, let's let's use that frame.
I love that. Actually reaching men is a challenge. And
one thing we didn't we haven't been doing a great
job of, is meeting men at eye level, like meeting
men exactly where they are, and also telling men is
one thing, but sometimes men need to see it. And
then my content, I don't just tell you this is
(32:57):
what I do, this is how you should do it,
how to model it, This is what my version of
that thing looks like. Your version might be very different,
but take my version. Keep what's nutritious, discard what isn't,
and try and try and try. This masculine ideology isn't
real big on experimentation, It isn't real big on flexibility.
(33:19):
It ain't oh man, it's so heavily self reliant to
a fault. So I try to demonstrate that in my
everyday life, so I can definitely call me in on that.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Oh, I'm so glad to have you here. Today is
my guest care.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
We're going to have more and more to talk about
when we come back. Welcome back to the R spot.
I mean, I'm my guest Today is care games and
we're just talking about all sorts of goodness as it
(33:57):
relates to men and women and relationships. And I want
to ask here some stuff about that so I can
get another opinion.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Help me with this. And this is for the ladies
listening to.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
If I do a workshop on the weekend, women will
show up, They get the babysitter, they'll do what they
have to do, blah blah blah. If I'm doing something online,
women will show up. Most men who show up come
because the woman brought him. Yeah, here's helped me understand
(34:28):
the thinking here. If a man has to pay the mortgage,
the childcare, the car note, and I'm doing a weekend workshop,
does he have the freedom to spend that money to
take that time to come.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
And do it.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Can't one? Why wouldn't he?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Because will she support him in it? Or will she
say you ain't you got to do this. You can't,
you know, I'm just asking. I'm not making any accusation.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I hear you. I hear you. I don't. I have
a tough time to generalize on women like that. My
experience with women has been largely either either it has
been positive or it's been human right, It's been one
of those two things. And I think that relationships are very, very,
very complicated. And I think that when it comes to
(35:22):
men seeking help, uh, it's it's so far outside of
the schema of of men what we always thought about men.
Put it like this, I honestly believe in my heart
that in terms of the way that we look at
gender identity and gender scripts, I think that women are
becoming more liberal with the way that they see those things,
(35:45):
and not politically. I'm just talking about personal ideology, becoming
more liberal in terms of the way they see womanhood
and femininity. And men are either as conservative as we've
always been, or we're becoming more conservative. And that in
that concern, rovatism does a thing where it sticks to
an old philosophy that don't really apply anymore. Like you,
(36:06):
the protector provider that was that was that was the
ship in the sixties and in the seventies. Yeah, you
know what I'm saying. That was, but now you have
to be more. And I think the conservative piece of
masking the ideology that's really self reliant and really big
(36:28):
on masking vulnerability. I understand why it exists. It had
to fulf very for a very long time. But the
human brain doesn't always do a good job of knowing
when it's time for change. And societally, man, we're a
big ship and the Titanic king Bucker you like before
that scort, you know, it takes a long time for
that thing to turn around and change course. So I
(36:50):
think we're dealing with a lot of different things at
one time. And with men, I think the buying is
going to be them seeing themselves in the work. I
think when most men think of a workshop, they think
of something that's for women, where you sit around and
you get affirmed and y'all might be clapping a snap
in the yes, live your best life, walk in your truth,
(37:12):
and that's fantastic. But that's how my wife talks. That's
not how I talk.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
They need to come to one of mind. I don't
talk like that either.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
I love that, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm
glad that women vibe with that. Women deserve those spaces
and languages and language that feels like them, you know.
But if we're going to reach men and have it
be less arduous to do so, I think we have
to change the service delivery approach.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
I think that they don't know well in terms of
my other question, the weekend workshop, I don't think they don't.
Either they don't know how, or they haven't given themselves
permission to take that time for themselves.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Because we're so glad you said that they don't.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Give themselves permission to take that time.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
That's one thing, you know, we did when Courtney be
Advanced Dvance released his book The Invisible Ache. We did
like workshop online and I had probably five hundred and
something men sign up and forty something show up.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Five hundred signed up and forty showed up. Yeah was
it free?
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Okay, yeah it was anutrition would the free stuff be crazy?
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Rayest competitor, My greatest competitor is free. I just was
slapping down she everywhere giving herself away. She's a howl.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Oh my god, free as a howl. I mean, she
just gives herself to everybody. But yeah, four five hundred
signed up and only forty showed up. And you know,
I really had to take that into prayer and see
and one of the things that I said, I want
to talk to you about these two things before you
get out of here. Number one, my father said it,
(39:06):
and I've seen it and I raised my son.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
I've seen it in my husband's I've seen it in
my friends.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
A man who is not accountable to anyone is a
danger to himself and everybody else.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely absolutely, And in there anyone, yourself needs
to be included. You need to be accountable to self. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
How do men learn that if they haven't seen it?
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Which goes back to my original question, how does a
fatherless son become a good father? How do men learn
accountability when they haven't seen it or experienced it? How
do they learn it?
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (39:48):
You bought that thing all the way back around there?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
I'm good like that, Yeah you are.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
I think how do men bring themselves to a point
of self on ability when it has not been modeled
for them.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
And when nobody's holding them accountable.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
To do it, and when no one's holding you accountable
to do it? I think the only way something has
to institute change. Something has to bring about a desire
for change. Either it's something that's going to be self motivated,
like I'm tired of being this way. I'm tired. I
(40:26):
don't like the way I feel when I'm drunk anymore.
I feel like I'm running from my problems. I don't
want to do this anymore. I gotta change or do
something different. Either it's going to be that or when
he loses everything and he's rock bottom, does it mean
that he'll do the things that are necessary, because you
still have to take the steps. But I think the
light switch that turns on that says I have to
(40:48):
do something, have to be self accountable is when you
have a very strong and deep desire for changing your
own life, and you're at the point, you're at the
point at the stages of cha's not pre contemplation, not contemplation,
You're at the point where you're ready to make a
step forward. And I think what supercharge is that is
if you're one of those men that could say, hey,
(41:09):
I know I'm self reliant, I'm independent, I can provide
for myself and do all of those things, but I
really need some help right now. Seeking behaviors yeah, the
help seeking behaviors. And with men, what I find what
we do oftentimes is we jump to the extreme of
something in order to fix it. Like, oh, my cars
(41:30):
making noise. Time to change the engine. Yo, wait a minute,
might be the fuel pump. Bro, you know you might
have a valve in that engine. That's a little bit off.
Let's check the easy to fix things. I've had men
come in my office, like y'all need to take this
cold plunge in this twenty degree tub. Like, yo, you
know you could just take a shower and if it's hot,
like turn it on cold for the first two minutes.
(41:53):
Baby steps matter. It's so hard to get through the
men sometimes, I'll say, so challenging to use your framing
to get through the mess. Sometimes the baby steps matter,
the little touch points matter, and it's okay, bro, it's okay.
It's okay. If you need somebody to hold your hand
through this, it's all right.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
But do they know they can trust?
Speaker 2 (42:12):
What I find with men is if you burn them
one time, if you violate them one time. One of
the ways that women do that is he has a
vulnerable moment. He tells you something sacred or secret and
you use it to beat him up later.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
If you do that, he's done.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
So I don't know, or you tell me, how does
a woman let a man know you're safe with me?
Speaker 1 (42:37):
What does she need to.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
Communicate or how does she need to be to communicate
your safe with me?
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Let me say this first. If a man has not
done the work to let his brain notify the rest
of his body that he is safe, there's nothing that
she can do.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Okay, got it.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
That's the first. First thing. First, I hear that I
grew up. I grew up in the projects, and when
we move, I'll never forget when we moved our first townhouse.
I mean it was projects adjacent, but it wasn't in
the projects. Me and my wife moved our first townhouse.
I was outside with my cousin and every car that
rolled by was looking in the car because you know,
you ride through the hood, you think them boys looking
in the car because they're trying to hurt you. No,
(43:19):
they want to make sure you ain't trying to hurt them, right,
you know that's PTSD at it's finest. But I'm looking
at the cars, I'm looking at everybody. And my cousin said, hey, bro,
you know you safe. You ain't gotta do that no more,
right like you ain't in the hood no more. My
brain did not know that I was safe. I own
my own business. We do very well, but sometimes, you know,
when you're an entrepreneur, sometimes the money don't always look right.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
What I don't have money in my account. I don't
feel safe, and I have to keep reminding my brain
that I'm safe. I'm safe. There's nothing my wife can do,
There's nothing anybody's mama can do. If I do not
feel safe in my own mind and body, then externally,
there's nothing that can happen to help kickstart that. So
I think first things first is he has to be
cognizant of where he is and he has to be
(44:04):
able to know that he's safe. And I think the
second thing is just my data and experience. Every woman
thought she was safe just by virtue of being her.
I never met a woman who didn't think that she
was safe. My wife wasn't always the safest person for
me to be vulnerable with, you know, before we got married.
But I think it's a mix. It's not whether it's climate,
(44:26):
it's not the individual things that happen always in these
little touch points. It's what the attitudes, behaviors, conversations, and
mutual love and respect looked like over a long period
of time. What is you all shared experience with each other.
Don't tell me you're safe, Demonstrate that you're safe if
I tell you something that's uncomfortable for you to hear,
(44:50):
if it's uncomfortable saying hey, I'm feeling a kind of
way right now, Babe. You told me that, and it's
making me feel insecure or it's making me feel defensive.
I want to be here for you right now, but
what you say is making me feel the way I
need a minute like. You have to externalize these internal
thoughts that are going through your mind so that you
all both know where you are now. That takes a
great deal of emotional intelligence, and in twenty twenty four,
(45:11):
that's not something that's in abundance. It's not a commodity
that there's a great deal of. But you have to
you have to show it in your actions off It's
I feel so sorry for folks. It's too much going on,
it's too many distractions. People are categorizing value in these
(45:33):
very obsessive, very peculiar.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Ways, dysfunctional. It's all dysfunctional.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
It is, but we don't see it that way. I say,
you know, people always look back at the nineties and
early two thousands and say that it's really cringe. I
think we want to look back at this time with
all the fifty to fifty conversation and the relationship godly gook,
and it's going to be so uncomfortable to watch how
collectively ridiculous we were. That's right back in twenty twenty four.
But yeah, back to the back to what I'm saying
(46:00):
about it. I think it's just something you have to model.
You have to model safety. You can't just talk it now.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Okay, So that's for the men. Now for the women,
I say the women all the time, let me see
how this lands for you and what you would say
about it.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
I say to women, take the pants off.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
He don't want to come home and find another dude.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Take the pants off.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
And I literally have an exercise where I tell women
to wear a skirt for twenty one days so that
they can get a different, vivate rational pull from the universe.
When you hear me say that, ladies, take the pants off,
what does that stimulate for you?
Speaker 1 (46:38):
As a man.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
It makes me think of this rhetoric we have about
masculine and feminine energy. I don't subscribe to it, but
I understand the conversations that people are having and my
clients talk about it, so I have to lean into it.
Taking the pants off I often hear when women are
being independent or where women are gaining autonomy economically, academically,
(47:03):
vocasionally all these different fields that are very new and
excited for women that they did label is masculine, which
bothers me. What's masculine about achievement?
Speaker 1 (47:15):
Like, it's absolutely nothing.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
I don't mean it that way, but I'm glad that
you that to hear that that's what you're hearing.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
Yeah, and maybe that's me being a girl dad and
me being invested in women from that angle, but you know,
take the pants off to me is also about control
and allowing yourself to take the hands off the steering
wheel of control and allow your relationship to be or
(47:45):
not assuming the super domineering role in your relationship that
makes you and I know this is tough because you know,
the good girl thing with women are supposed to be warm,
but makes you kind of impenetrable. Where I can't get
to you. I can't get to you for the reasons
that I got it. Yeah, yeah, I think it's a.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Control and domination and insisting that it looks the way
you think it should look.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Give you know.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
And I say this to women all the time, particularly
single women. I say, for men with a drop out
of the sky into your life today, is there room?
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Do you have closet space for it?
Speaker 3 (48:18):
Oh? I like that. I like that.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
I like that, you know, or you're just gonna give
him a little box by the stove.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
When I say take the pants off, I mean make
room for him who he is, as he is, and
not that it's always got to be your way and
that you're in control and you're dominating the space.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Give him space. You know. My partner best away about
three years ago, he could not cook.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
When he would say to me, I want to I'm
gonna cook dinner tonight. Inside, I would say, Lord Jesus,
help me, let me get it. Go get a big bag.
But let me tell you something. I would sit at
that table and eat that food and yummy, yummy, yummy
and yummy, as opposed to say, how.
Speaker 4 (49:03):
Can you even put more flour on the chicken? And no,
I just just be in the space in my heart
because for me, so many women have made the head
at home the heart is in deep freeze. That's what
I mean when I say not the masculine feminine, because
(49:24):
our nature is warm and soft and our dominant organ
should be a heart. But when we have the pants
on into our head, that's what I mean.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
I love the framing of that. Yeah, and I think
it also you have to you can't let the idea
of like this hyper idealized version of romance and partnership.
You can't allow that to hold a gun to your
head where you know this ain't a fit, but you
know this is somebody, This is a warm body. I'm
(49:56):
not gonna be alone. I'm not gonna be myself. I'm
not gonna be by myself. This is my opportunity to
have a person when everything is showing you. If you
cannot take the pants off at all because who you
are and who they are is just bumping, I think
that's an indicator that something's wrong. I'm not saying you
need to leave that relationship or exit, but I think
that's indicative or I think that's an indicator that perhaps
(50:18):
you need to reassess the direction and this relationship is
going in. If you can't naturally find a place and
not saying that it's that person's fault, perhaps you all
they bring a part of their personality, brings out a
part of your personality that won't allow you to take
the pants off. Or maybe something from your past, maybe
like we were talking about earlier, your relationship with your parents,
(50:39):
maybe it triggers something there, or to remind you of
something deeply hurtful where you just don't have great control
over that in that moment with that person, I think
it may be a great indicator that you need to
dig deeper with self. Maybe you need to pivot, maybe
you need to pause. Maybe this just ain't your person.
Speaker 2 (50:56):
I think everybody, every relationship, if it takes if it
takes foot, you know, takes hole beyond, you know, bump
knocking boots, that person is still there to teach you.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
I believe that they'll teach you something. Show yourself agreed.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
What they trigger up in you is what you need
to heal. And sometimes you know that gets triggered in
a one night stand. I know you've got to run.
So I want to get these three things out to you,
what is the number one measure of success in a relationship?
Speaker 1 (51:27):
What would you say?
Speaker 3 (51:28):
Oooh, that's a good question. I got you mutual respect one. Yeah,
it ain't gonna work without it.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
Just I respect you for who you are as you are,
respect me for who I am, and then let's come
together and see where we need to integrate.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Okay, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Number one thing you want men to know about intimate
loving relationships.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
That they are They're deeply complex, no matter how badly
your brain wants to oversimplify them. They are deeply nuanced.
I can't remember the name of the couple, but it
was a story about a couple who was married for
like fifty years or something, this other couple that was
married for twenty and the couple that was married for
twenty as the couple that was married for fifty years
(52:18):
asked the couple who's married for twenty, well, how long
you all been married? And they told them, and the
couple that was married for fifty years said, oh, y'all
still getting to know each other.
Speaker 5 (52:25):
Ya, twenty years married, they still getting to know each other.
It is deeply nuanced. It goes deep. It is an
abyss of feelings that you need to grasp that concept
before you go deep diving.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
What is the number one thing you want women to
know about intimate loving relationships?
Speaker 3 (52:44):
Even though women are still fighting to wield power in society,
women oftentimes have a great deal of power in their
relationships that I don't know if they always see both
good and bad. Well, I won't say good and bad.
I don't like that framing, but.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Both positive and not so volative?
Speaker 3 (53:08):
Yeah, both constructive and deconstructive, which I know is something
you've talked about many, many, many times.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Oh, care gains. You are an
absolute joy and a delight.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
I tell you.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
One of the things that I saw you in one
of your videos, your daughter was saying something. You say, well,
do you want me to do so? Or do you
need some time alone? And she said I need time alone?
You said, okay, I'll be right here. I'll check on
you in five minutes.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
That's right. And I do the same thing with my wife.
What's up, baby? You need some space or you need
a hug? What's good? What you need? Oh? Yeah, one thousand?
Absolutely check on you?
Speaker 1 (53:47):
And how do we find you? Kiir does?
Speaker 2 (53:50):
How do we find you? How does the ar Spot
family find you? Because I want them to. I want
my family to become a part of your family.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
I love that. What's up our Spot Family's good with you,
y'all been listening to this whole episode. Thank you for
sticking with us. You can find me on Instagram. My
name is kier Gaines k I E R G A
I N E S. I am also on TikTok. I
am also on YouTube. My wife and I have a
podcast called to Sit Down Talk where we talk honestly
about loving relationships and imagine Jordan's under the waterfall, because
(54:20):
that ain't gonna help you, That ain't gonna help you
get better at being a partner. You can find me
any of those places. I will be happy to have
you as part of my community.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Thank you so very much.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
Our Spy Family Care Games. He is a licensed therapist.
I know we were all over the place, but there
were so many things that I wanted to get from
him as because back, yes, absolutely absolutely, and you know what,
this is what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1 (54:46):
I'm gonna bring you back with your wife.
Speaker 3 (54:49):
Ooh, that's gonna be good. That's gonna be good. I
like that.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
Back with your wife, and then I get to ask
her questions about you, and you questions about her.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
She's brilliant, Your love her.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Yeah, that's my sister at the bar. She's a lawyer,
right she is.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
Yeah, intellectual property and trademark lawyer.
Speaker 1 (55:08):
Okay, oh lord, that's above my grade. I just do
criminal defense.
Speaker 3 (55:16):
I definitely married up for sure.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Okay, my love, Thank you so very much. I want
to respect your time to get out and we'll be
in touch, okay.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Before I leave you today. This is our last episode
of season two on The R Spot, and I'm sure
hoping there will be a season three. I want to
thank you for listening. But more than listening, I want
to encourage you to go back and listen to whatever
episode was your favorite and see what you can find
(55:52):
to put into action in your life. Because at the
R Spot, our intention has been to give us more
are loving, more fulfilling, more satisfying relationships in every area
of our life. So to my our Spot family, I
want to thank you for tuning in. I want to
(56:14):
thank you for your support, and take good care of
yourself until next time, Stay in.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
Peace and not in pieces.
Speaker 2 (56:22):
Bye. Ther Spot is a production of Shondaland Audio in
partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite show.
Host
Iyanla Vanzant
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com