December 30, 2024 • 44 mins
We are back for round 2 with JP Saxe! Kat has Grammy nominated singer/songwriter JP Saxe on the show to talk about relationships from a slightly different perspective for a second week in a row. This week, Kat and JP dive more into masculinity and how to embrace the parts that fit and find freedom from the types chains and expectations that toxic masculinity attempts to lock people in.
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Produced by: @HoustonTilley
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
I started to realize that not being an expert isn't
a liability.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's a real guest.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
If we don't know something about ourselves at this point
in our life, it's probably because it's uncomfortable to know.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
If you can die before you die, then you can
really live.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
There's a wisdom at death's door.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
I thought I was insane. Yeah, and I didn't know
what to do because there was no internet.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
I don't know, man, I'm like, I feel like everything
is hard. Hey, y'all, my name is Kat. I'm a
human first and a licensed therapist second. And right now
I'm inviting you into conversations that I hope encourage you
to become more curious and less judgmental about yourself, others,
(00:54):
and the world around you.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Welcome to You Need Therapy.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Hi guys, and welcome to a new episode of You
Need Therapy Podcast. My name is Kat. I am the host.
And quick reminder before we get into the good stuff today,
because we have some good stuff today that although I'm
a therapist, and although this podcast is called You Need Therapy,
this does not serve as a replacement or substitute for
any actual mental health services.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
However, it still can be helpful.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So now that we have that out of the way,
I get to introduce part two of the conversation that
I had with singer songwriter JP Sachs.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
It's going to be just as good as last week.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
And I know you guys loved the episode last week
and some of the things we talked about. We expand
on some of those topics about breakups and heartbreak and
all of that, and we also dive into some more
topics and talk about masculinity, what it means to be
a protector and all of the things. So if you
have not listened to part one, press pause, go listen
to part one, and then you can listen to part two,
(01:54):
because this was the way that the actual conversation happened.
So I just think it would make more sense for
you that way. And I want to remind you guys
that if you are new to JP Sacks and one
you're welcome, but two, you need to follow him on Instagram.
His Instagram handle is at JP Sachs sa XE. He
has a song that came out a couple of weeks
(02:15):
ago called When You Think Of Me, and then he
also has very timely a song coming out this Friday,
called the good parts, and we talk about some of
that in the conversation. So you're gonna want to definitely
go follow him on Instagram and if you click on
the link in his bio, you can pre save that
song and you can, in the meantime go listen to
When You Think of Me because it is such a
(02:36):
good song. So thank you JP for continuing this conversation,
and thank you guys for continuing to listen to this conversation.
I will talk to you guys on Wednesday for couch Talks,
but in the meantime, here is part two of my
conversation with JP Sacks. I do have a question about
for you, really actually as a man, what is it like?
(02:59):
Woman asked this generally, Then I'm going to get a
little bit deeper. So what's it like just in our
world being a man who has is this is an assumption,
but I assume that you have access to your feelings
and you're pretty emotionally literate.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
So what is it like for.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
You to be a man in this kind of toxic
masculinity driven society who has feelings, who has access to them,
who talks about them, who writes about them, who sings
about them. What is that like for you? Is it
all sunshine and rainbows? Is there a light in a
dark side?
Speaker 4 (03:35):
I think I arrived at the analysis of my emotions
in a.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Number of ways.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
I'm not sure I actually feel my emotions nearly as
much as one would expect as someone who works with
the jurisdiction of emotions. I think part of the reason
that I developed the skill of articulating my emotions and
songs was because I didn't feel like I knew how
to actually embrace or feel them for a number of reasons.
(04:04):
I mean, I think that's like a lot of that
is growing up with an alcoholic parent, like my adolescence,
I learned conflict resolution in communication as an only child
with two parents a lot of the time under the
influence of something. My mom really struggled with alcoholism in
my teenage years. My dad is best dad in the world,
(04:26):
but can be rather conflict avoidant. So that dynamic was
me getting home from school at five pm to just
irreverently drunk mom, who I learned as a twelve year
old that if I said the wrong thing that she
would break shit or hit me or leave, and she
(04:47):
could be gone for three days.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
And we wouldn't know what was going on.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
But if I said the right thing and if I
treated her with the if I went about it exactly
the right way, then I could have like silly, drunk
fun mom. But that could like flip like I could.
It could be one word and that would flip. But
I would make it a game for myself. I kind
of would get home and it was like a challenge,
and my dad would tell me, like, you know, you
(05:12):
have to be the mature one when I was like
eleven twelve, because you know she's not going to be
so you have to be the mature one. And obviously
there's an intense emotional reaction as a kid to seeing
your parent like that. But I couldn't let myself feel
that because if I the worst thing I could say
was something about how it affected me, like that would
(05:32):
be the most triggering thing for her. So that was
really my first experience with navigating emotionally tumultuous moments was
having to channel my full emotional experience through an intellectual
lens to make sure I said things in the right way.
(05:54):
And I think that did two things to me as
a young adult. It honed my ability to articulate my
emotions even when they were very intense. It also made
it very very hard for me to have any sort
of honest emotional reaction without intellectualizing first. So that's like
one of the challenges of my life. But it's also
(06:15):
one of the blessings in my life because I think
it frames my entire profession as a.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Songwrit Yeah, and one, thanks for sharing that. I really
appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
And also thank you for sharing that just in the
sense that there I am have as a therapist, assuming
something about somebody and thinking that it comes from one
space when we really have no idea the experiences we've
had that led us to be the humans that we are.
And so you have this amazing skill of being able
(06:47):
to write and articulate feelings that people can also then
you know, feel with you and feel connected. But it
comes from this like actually, I'm going to use this
word and I don't know if it's going to fit,
so if it doesn't, just let me know. It comes
from the traumatic experience. So it comes from a situation
that we might not have chosen and talk about like
(07:08):
a weird dissonance. That's a weird dissonance.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
Yeah, I mean so to speak to the rest of
your question also about like how that ties into masculinity,
I think, well, firstly, I think people falsely equate being
able to express your emotions in a song with vulnerability.
I don't personally think there's anything that vulnerable about the
songs because I have spent months crafting exactly how I
(07:34):
want to present those emotions. And to me, my definition
of vulnerable is allowing yourself to exist without all of
the editing, and that is highly highly edited emotional content.
Like I spent months crafting exactly how I want to
(07:54):
articulate the emotion that I am fitting into a song.
Now as a person like that absolutely is rude. In
I had to when I was, you know, in my
early twenties, in trying to unlearn the conflict resolution that
I had developed through my mom. In order to feel
really anything, I needed to figure out how to describe
it to myself. I need to describe it to myself
in order to feel it. So yeah, now I describe
(08:17):
my emotions too through songs in a way that then
allows other people to feel it. But it's really just
me trying to show myself how to feel it, and
other people feel their emotions similarly to the way I do.
So that works in people who listen to my music,
But the area in my life where I'm vulnerable is
definitely not my music, because even though they are about
(08:38):
sensitive things, are about personal things. I've been so thoughtful
about how i want to craft it that it feels safe.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
It feels intentional.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I was going to ask you, like, is there any
like regret in like writing a song about something and
then you have to like sing it all the time,
and maybe it's about a time that you don't want
to go back and be in. I can make the
assumption I might be wrong that, like maybe not, because
of what you are just expressing of, Like, this is
a pretty crafted thing, and I'm I'm sharing this in
a way that actually doesn't feel that vulnerable to me,
(09:06):
although I mean not that it's dishonest, right right, Like
it's difference dishonest.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
It gives me anxiety because I know, I know that
I'm that not just for other people, but for myself.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I am time capsuling.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
An emotion, a feeling that is going to represent for
me personally, like an era of my life, on an
era of what it felt like to be myself in
a moment. Yeah, so I want to accurately depict that
for myself.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Where do you feel the most vulnerable? Like when do
you feel the most like? This is the hard, tough stuff.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Yeah, it's the moments that I don't get to that
I have to exist without really thinking through how I'm
going to exist yet just allowing myself to be unedited, unfiltered, unprepared.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
What about it like live shows?
Speaker 4 (09:57):
I mean I love live shows. I find the very stimulus.
It's like a conversation, but you know, you get the
added charisma that you're given by the how stimulating it
is to be on stage in front of a lot
of people. Okay, Like there's a personality I get to
have on stage that it's very hard to stimulate anywhere
else because of just the chemical implications of being in
front of that many people.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I was going to say at the Nashville show that
I was at, I don't know if you remember this,
because I don't know if you remember everything that happens
on stage, But I don't remember what song it was.
But there was a song that like you had like
the audience sing part of it, and then you ended
up singing like the same verse a couple of times,
and I wouldn't even I don't even want to call
this a mess up because the way that you orchestrated
(10:39):
it was like, well, this is kind of like the
coolest moment of the show. Like everybody was laughing. It
felt like everybody was in it together. You felt like
a real person, even though that was like you were
closer to us than some venues that you might play in,
but like you actually felt like a real person.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
You weren't robotic.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So does that feel vulnerable or is that a space
where you like, I feel like I'm alive and I
can be myself and I can be messy even though
I'm performing.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
To be honest, I don't exactly know.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Maybe I falsely equate vulnerability with discomfort, So it feels
weird to call that vulnerability because I feel very comfortable
in that space. But maybe that's like a false pretense.
I love that stuff, like I love when the shows
are spontaneous, indifferent and exist in a way that they're
not going to exist in any other moment.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And I remember the moment you're talking about because it
was in three minutes.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
Okay, yes, yep, And there's the end of the verse
is the I'm afraid you won't meet me halfway, and
I like chuckled, and I was like kind of went
down like that, and then the next line and You're
afraid I won't know how to stay, And then I
also chuckled because it also went down like that.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
And it just felt like there was this sad prophetic
nature to that moment of that song. And then as
I continue to perform the song, kept thinking about that
moment and then forgot all of the words to the
second verse, and luckily people in the audience knew it
and helped that.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And I feel like you don't see that a lot,
and I don't know what that means or if that's
even important, but I was like, well, this is actually
one of the most memorable parts of the show, and
I'm remembering in a good way. Let's actually go back
to that and just maybe you were talking about more
of like why your emotions really came about, But I
(12:20):
actually do really want to know, even if you don't
feel that way, even if you don't feel like you
have the access to your emotions, the wapes people might
assume of you, what is it like, because I feel
like a lot of the conversations around masculinity happen without men.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
It's women talking about men. And I'm very.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Interested in what is the perspective of the man, because
while while women are all genders really are affected by
just patriarchy in general and masculinity in general. We're affected,
but you guys are affected by it too, because there's expectations,
and how do we actually show up as authentic and
love that part of us if it doesn't meant expectations.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
So just tell me what it's like to have feelings
as a guy.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
I mean, I think the stereotype that men are not
emotional is so absurd because I think it acts as
if some feelings count as emotional and some feelings don't,
as if, like, you know, you picture your stereotypical like dude,
(13:26):
like you know, cis gendered straight dude punching through a
wall in anger, and but that's just him like being
I don't know, manly.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
As if like that's not that's not emotional.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Being emotional, but like a woman can shed a few
tears in her car listening to a song and she's
the hysterical. One quote unquote Big Air quotes on that
one for those people listening. But like as if, like
we've we've established that some emotions can be quote unquote
manly and some make you any version of the derogatory,
(13:59):
sexist words that we call men. So yeah, that spectrum
is odd to me. I think, regardless of your gender,
whether you're non binary, whether you're a woman, whether you're man,
we live in a society that teaches us that some
emotions are more allowed than others in our identity. And
also I think the idea that like emotions and intellect
(14:23):
are separate is just absurd as well, Like they're a
very intertwined experience of ourselves, and there's all kinds of
information in your emotions that you get to then think about.
I live in a world where, like most of the
most of the people around me are emotionally literate, big feeling, articulate,
(14:45):
people who are very rarely in this version of their
life told that they're being too much. But you don't
live in southern California, you know, you grow up in
any kind of small town. The version of what it
means to be a quote unquote man is a pretty
limited thing. But I also think that expanding on that
(15:06):
doesn't mean rejecting yet because you know, maybe like you
saw your dad your uncles in a certain way, and
there's things about who they are that you want to embrace.
I have like a bunch of non binary friends who
have not just rejected the stereotypes of what it means
to be a quote unquote man, they've rejected the identity
of man at all. But that doesn't mean that there
isn't things that about who they are that they've taken
(15:28):
from their dads or their uncles or their grandfathers.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Like it's not a one or the other thing.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
It's not like, you know, you're either this super masculine
human in the way that you grew up learning you're
supposed to be, or you become this like sensitive, crying
all the time, like weird stereotype. It's just all deeply whack.
The truth is, there are just so many ways to
be a person that live on a spectrum that's a
lot wider than the parts of it that we limit
ourselves to. And figuring out what part of that feels
(15:57):
the most honest without the limitation of the perceived judgment
of certain emotions more than others is a really freeing,
really wonderful thing that I think makes you stronger as
a human being if you can embrace the individuality of that,
not weaker because you're not being a quote unquote man.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
There was a million things you just said, but one
what did you say? I need I needed to repeat
that because I liked it. Something about you can was it?
Like you just you can disagree with it without rejecting it,
like you can keep parts of it.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
I like that idea that like, we don't.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Have to completely like abolish masculinity to not live in
this like one or the other world.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
No exactly. I mean, that's that's the exciting part of it.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Yeah, it's not like like, well, toxic masculinity, fucked, masculinity fucked.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
You know, I'm abandoning all of that. It's not like that.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
It's it's it's finding the parts of your emotional experience
that feel the most authentic to yourself and not limiting
that to the boundaries that you know you have been
taught growing up.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Now.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
That's not easy to do, right, especially you know, if
you know, for better or worse, I have the blessing
of not being tied to too many expectations of my
very small family. So it's I recognize that there's a
challenge to existing in opposition to the expectations of a
lot of people around you.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
There's a freeing component that you're talking about, and then
there's a grief component too for a lot of people
because leaning into this idea that we don't have to
be one or the other, we don't have to be
two things, this isn't right and that's wrong.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
By finding freedom for that, you might be grieving.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Certain relationships, certain expectations that.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
You might even have for yourself.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Ideas like means to an ends for certain things when
we are not groomed isn't the right word, but when
we are brought up in a culture where there are
these two things that feel really stable, and then we
realize because these two things don't neither feels like right
or safe, we still feel really uncomfortable in the process
(18:12):
giving out of it. Right, So like, I can feel
actually safer in this place where I don't have to
live in these lines drawn for me, but it also
might be way more uncomfortable. And I think a lot
of times people get those confused where if I'm uncomfortable,
that means I'm not safe, but actually this is safer
it just feels weird and there's some loss in that,
(18:33):
and loss is uncomfortable. So for you personally, not everybody's
experience is going to be like yours, and so I
don't want you to feel like you have to qualify it.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
But what do you.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Think were the things in your system and your community
that let you kind of move outside of those lines
that society kind of draws or definitely draws.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
I am very lucky to be to be rewarded for
embracing my emotional experience of the world. I also get
to think about my feelings all of the time, like
it's my job.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Because it is. I mean, just like you do.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
We live in a world where we get to think
about our feelings twelve hours a day if we want to.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
That is not the reality for most people.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Most people go to a job that doesn't leave very
much room for them to be thinking about their emotional
experience of the world because they've got shit to do.
And therefore, you have a couple hours on either side
of a job where there is space to explore your emotions,
and it's also exhausting, and you're coming home to a
couple of hours where you probably still have all kinds
(19:39):
of things to do, whether it be the roles of
your family or any number of things. All that to say,
the amount of time of the day where there is
left to be analytical about your emotional experience is pretty small,
and it's probably parts of the day where you're already
exhausted from everything else you had to do to just
exist in that reality.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Is where I.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Think artists provide value because we get to spend we
have to spend a lot of time analyzing our emotions,
so we can distill it into something that becomes a
little window for someone to get to those parts of
themselves a little faster. So maybe I spend months thinking
about a feeling so I can capture that feeling in
a three minute song. So when you get home at
(20:23):
the end of your day exhausted, you can sit in
your bedroom or listen to that song and access that
feeling in yourself with a little bit more ease, without
having to spend all that time to get there, because
an artist spent all that time to get there for
you and help you get there. That is like, if
I were to romanticize where I feel purposeful as an artist,
(20:44):
it's in that process.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Well, I don't even think that's romantic. That seems pretty
factual to me. You are providing a really valuable service
to a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Thanks.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
I'm grateful I get to do it. I think I
think poets do it. I think filmmakers do it. I
think writers do it.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Think.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
I think that's why it's important for artists to face
the more difficult elements of their emotional experience. You know,
I think it's why you know when people ask me, like,
is it hard to write about the most difficult parts
of your life? Is it hard to write about these
difficult feelings? It feels the most purposeful when it's more difficult.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Oh, I really like that. It feels more purposeful when
it's difficult.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
If this was like no big deal, would be like, oh,
I could do this with my eyes closed, Like what
does it matter? I want to go back though, to
what you said in the very beginning of about you
think it's kind of silly that people say mental have emotions,
because I agree with you, and I think we've categorized
certain emotions as masculine and femine, that that one's okay
(21:44):
to have, that one's not okay. But you're right, and
if we actually opened up space to look around us
and see things more clearly. We would see that every day,
but because of the boxes people get put in like
think about fear or or I think not any feeling
and in to me, the way I view emotions is
that feelings are guides and they kind of like lead
(22:06):
us to what we need. So if I'm feeling something,
it's saying like, hey, hey, there's something going on, there's.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Something that you need, let's tend to it.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
And so if we only let men feel certain things
like anger, it can even be seen as like cool
or like oh yeah, like he's protective and he's this,
and there's a whole thing about men and protection that
I won't go down. Well. If men are only allowed
to feel that, they don't get to explore like what
the actual like what's underneath any of that, while women
(22:36):
can sometimes And if you're not in one of those boxes,
then who knows what your rules are? And maybe there
are like a mixture of them, and that makes it
even more confusing. But what happens if I, like, for example,
if I am having road rage.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I use this example all the time. I want to
know your thoughts on this.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
If I am driving and let's say, for the sake
of this conversation.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I'm a dude.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Somebody who cuts me off and I'm like pissed, and
I honk my horn, I flip them off.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I'm like fuck you man, and blah.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Blah blah blah blah blahah whatever. Okay, most people that's
road rage.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
That's rage.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Most people would say like, oh okay, like rage anger,
Like okay, that's where it stops and there's nothing else
going on there. But what I actually think if we
were to boil that down and if feelings were like
equal and free for everybody, is it really anger that's
there or is there something else? Because when somebody cuts
you off, what happens is you maybe you almost gotten
a wreck, or maybe you like almost spilt your coffee
(23:32):
or like who knows what happened. But a lot of times,
underneath that rage is fear. And fear is an emotion
that is like so wonderful because it one it can
protect us, but also it shows us what's important to us.
And sometimes that's just basically our life is important to us.
But what we do is like men don't get to
go down that like ladder and see like okay that
(23:52):
actually I was scared, and what do I need? Well,
if I'm scared, do do I need protection? Do I
need care? Do I need comfort? No, you can't need
that because you're supposed to protect and you're supposed to care,
and you're sppitialian stuff, And so all of that to
say is it's not that personally that I see. It's
not that men don't have these emotions, that men are emotional.
(24:13):
When anybody says like, oh, I'm not very emotional, no
you are, you just kind of like stifle yourself and
you put all your emotions in this box and then
everything else is living underneath a rock somewhere that might
explode at any given moment.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
I have a couple thoughts on that, and I want
to speak specifically to the protectiveness you mentioned, because we
were talking about it a bit earlier too. In my
own experience, whether you're a man, non binary woman, I
think all of us feel protective of the people we love,
but in the context right now of cisgendered man, there
is absolutely that stereotype of we are the protector. I
(24:50):
actually don't think that's one that if you feel, if
that comes naturally to you, you feel you want to
protect your family. That's a beautiful thing. I don't think
anyone suggesting you should not feel that way. I think
the exciting part of the conversation is it's just maybe
expand what that means to protect the people you love.
You know, sure like that occasionally will mean you are
(25:13):
physically protecting the people you love. Depending on where you live,
probably not very often. But why can't your desire and
in your nature to be a protector, Why can't that
apply to protecting someone's emotional safety, someone's safety in themselves,
(25:35):
you know, because that's where we live on a daily basis.
You know, you're a man in a relationship with a
woman and you want to make that woman feel safe.
Isn't that safety, like a safety to be herself? In
making her feel safe to be herself means showing up
to her as a good listener, showing up for her
with consistency, with affection, Like that's being a pret So
(26:00):
I don't think it's about like when we talked about,
you know, we're not throwing out the baby with the
bathwater on some of these stereotypes like it's not all bad,
it's just a little bit of redefinition of like how
we shape protector.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
It was about a year ago, maybe actually probably a
year and a half ago. I had a conversation with
Justin Baldoni, who wrote this book Man Enough.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
I mean, his podcast is freaking incredible. So I was
asking him.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
I don't remember what I asked. He kind of like
gave it to me straight. He's so great and he's
an expert on this. It's what he's spending his life
work on. And I don't know what I asked him,
but he went on this kind of like it wasn't
a ramp, but he just said it was so much
like h that I was like, yes, But I think
I was talking about how like, if I'm dating a man,
(26:47):
I want him to be emotional. I want to be
able to have emotional conversations. And there also is that
part of me that's like, well, he can't be too emotional,
so I want him to cry, but like I want
him to cry at certain things. And it's the whole
thing that I've had to dismantle myself. And he was like, yeah,
because there's this experience that we're all going through, and
(27:07):
we're all all kind of working through some most some
of us are where like a woman feels like she
needs to be protected, and so when we see something
that is in our society deemed as weak, which is
again emotions are seen as weak, where I see them
as like these are tools, these are guide, these are
(27:27):
amazing things. But if you show too much of them
or you can't control them with air quotes, then there
becomes this fear of the woman that the man can't
protect me. And he went down this whole rabbit trail
around like, well, why do we actually need to be protected?
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Because there are there's other.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Men out there that we do feel we need to
be protected from. So I say all that because with
the idea that wait, there's other ways that somebody can
protect me. I might be in a relationship with somebody
who could like literally take anybody out. If somebody tries
to like hurt me in any physical way, he can
like karate chop, you know, like figure that out. But
(28:09):
I have haven't told them huge parts of me, Like
I don't feel safe enough to like actually share with
them experiences I had or beliefs I have about myself,
or I still feel like I have to perform to
be wanted by that person or I can't. I can't
show certain emotions else this person is going to think
ex of me. So you're bringing in this amazing idea
(28:32):
and I'm so obsessed with looking out words and really
digging into their meaning, Like protection, Why are we thinking
about that in this one way? When if you don't
feel like you can be yourself with your partner, no
matter what gender they identify with, you're not protected, right,
I mean, I agree completely.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
And if you're you know, if you're listening to this
as someone who feels a sense of you feel a
desire to be a protector for someone you're in a
relationship with, which I definitely do, what does that mean
other than make your partner feel safe? That's what that means.
To protect someone means make them feel safe. What is
on a daily basis it mean to make your partner
(29:13):
feel safe?
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Right?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Like?
Speaker 2 (29:15):
That can be so very many things.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah, it doesn't mean beat up the guy down the street, Like,
that's not what it means at all the majority.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
I mean, maybe once a year, if you live in
the right neighborhood, it means that. But like on a
daily basis, it probably means emotional things. It probably means
being in touch enough with your emotions that your partner
isn't going to feel judged when they share theirs with you.
And to just to what you're saying with Justin Baldoni,
(29:45):
I mean I love him, big fan, like cannot wait
to meet.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Him, would love to talk.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
You need to be on his podcast. I would love
to be on his You would be a perfect guest.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Like when he you know, cries on that podcast, Like
there's something revolutionary about that. But also I think there's
a nuance to that that like being in touch with
your emotions as a quote unquote man doesn't just mean
like every time you feel something you cry. It means
when you are in a setting where it is safe
to do so, you aren't stopping yourself because of the
(30:18):
way you've internalized what it means to be a man.
No one's saying that, like, you know, you should, you know,
someone should say something hurtful to you on the job
and then you should just start crying, you know, Like that's.
Speaker 6 (30:32):
That's not that's not what anyone's fighting for, right It's
why like even when you hear athlete like you know
this might be like slightly controversial amongst the community around
reshaping masculinity.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
But like you know, when athletes.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
Say, like, you know, you don't cry on the court,
that's a different like we can be discerning about this, like, yeah,
maybe it does show weakness to cry on a sports field,
like that doesn't. But that's a different fucking setting. Then
you get home, you have it, you're with your family
or your partner or your children, and something really sad happens,
(31:05):
whatever it is. You're having a conversation about trauma, you're
having a conversation about, you know, issues in your youth,
you're having a conversation about someone who's passed.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
In that setting.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
Strength can mean crying in that setting, because it's weak
to think you can't be seen that way. It's weak
to not be secure enough to let the people you
love be seen that way. Like redefining masculina doesn't mean
we're just walking around sobbing all the time.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Right, which we have to be disserving.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Right Again, that goes to we're not getting rid of it,
And I you're opening up a whole other conversation which
I won't take you completely down, but I have this
real like thing about intimacy and vulnerability, and like, yeah,
we have where there's a movement and Brene Brown is
leading the pack and we need, yeah, we need to
actually like access that part of us.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
And it is very important.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
And I don't need to tell my trauma to every
single person I meet or go on a date with,
or or think is nice or or find funny. Like
that's first of all, that's not intimacy and vulnerability. That's
just information sharing. That can be trauma dumping. That's trauma dumping.
Is not intimacy. And so I think that we have
(32:13):
as we are like redefining a lot of things right now,
which is so important. What we're doing is we're taking
out that discernment part. We're just putting We're going from
over here to overhere. And first of all, that's terrifying
for a lot of people, and so some people are
just like.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
No, not doing that.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
You want me to cry everywhere I go. No, I'm
not doing that. Well great, because we're not asking you to.
So thank you for saying that, Because you're right, there
are spaces where actually, if I want to like access
that part of me that I feel like is shut down, I.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Have to do it in places that are safe.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
So if it's not safe to do it like literally, like,
if I want to learn how to be vulnerable, I
need to do it in places that are safe, because
if I'm vulnerable to every person I meet, I'm going
to have a lot of experiences that say, hey, don't
do that anymore. And then I'm going to create, whether
it's a trauma bond or a belief about myself. And
it's the same thing with masculinity of maybe one day
(33:11):
will there will be a space where like we don't
even have to have these conversations and everybody is just
like a bubble of love. But that's not where we
are right now, and so because of that, we have
to actually like track and say, Okay, this is a
space where like this is welcome. And maybe that's even
stretching it too far. Maybe it's sometimes it's not welcome
(33:31):
and I still can be myself and there's work to
be done around that.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
But I have to have.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
The ability to say, wait, I believe that this is
an okay part of me, but this isn't the place
to do that because it would be harmful to do
it here.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
I have to have.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
The ability to say, wait, I believe that this is
an okay part of me. But this isn't the place
to do that because it would be harmful to do
it here.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, and that's hard.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Oh yeah, that is a hard thing to go about
doing because being able to differentiate between good discomfort like
uncomfortable but pushed through discomfort and no discomfort, don't do
that anymore bad that's hard.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Knowing the difference is hard, and you make mistakes in that,
oh totally.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
Also, being discerning is hard. Being not looking at things
in the binary is hard because sure, it's it's simpler
to be like, okay, this is what I was taught.
Being a one of the two genders means growing up
in whatever framework of a mentality I've grown up in,
it's easier to be like okay, Like living a life
(34:43):
correctly means just doing that, But dismantling that means there's
now a lot more options, which requires a lot more
thought and fitting into you know, what does it mean
to be myself separate from the things that I've learned
to be myself within right, but not completely separate? Like Also,
what do I still want to take from that? Like that?
(35:03):
That's just that's a lot of work. Yeah, and I
think that's why, you know, I don't really have all
that much judgment for people who you know, haven't found
that or are like a little bit adverse to it
because it makes sense, like it's challenging, it's not an
easy it's not like you.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Just do it thing.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Yeah, I wish that it was that way, but it's
not at all.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
And as we go through those spaces, what people maybe
don't talk about as much is that the more you
open yourself up, the more I've opened myself up, the
more people are going to open themselves up to like
expanding their view of what they can be and how
they can be. The more you're also opening yourself up
for criticism and judgment and speculation and all the things
(35:46):
that don't feel great. And we have to learn and
it's a process. We have to learn that like people
agreeing with us or people under even understanding us, isn't
like a measure of.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Like doing it right, like totally.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Just because somebody understands me, they might have the wrong idea.
And I have to stop basing my actions and the
way I go out and experience the world on other
people's understanding of how I'm living, because you're never and
there's no way to get a one hundred percent accuracy
on people understanding you and agreeing with you.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
There's no way.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
But the more I'm going to kind of color outside
of those lines, the more people won't get me right now.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
And that's tough.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Yeah, I mean, even like calling back to something we
were talking about a while ago, like the subject matter
of my new music it's a little bit a tad
more controversial than the subject matter of.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
My last album. This is true because.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
The nuances of being left are far more explored in
songwriting than the nuances of leaving.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
I want to say, like you're doing the Lord's work
because like, no, people aren't talking about that.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
That's an exaggeration. But like when I listen to your
new song.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
The first time I listened to it, I literally texted
my friends and I said, well, if somebody's going to
break up with me, this is how I would want
them to do it right. And I know it's like
not that simple, because again, I might be that person
on the other side that's like this doesn't make sense,
Like I might not have learned this idea that you're
placing out there yet, and it's not an idea that's
(37:20):
talked about and for people to actually understand it, we.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Have to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
And I understand why it's not as talked about or
explored because we villainize the people who have left us.
Not all of us do, but a lot of us
villainize the people who have left us. And I understand
why because anger is I think easier to feel than sadness.
(37:44):
It's very hard to be sad at someone. You can't
be sad at someone, you can be angry at someone.
So if you're if you have a meant sadness, I
think you because you can't be sad at you convert
that sadness into something ellis and that's what we project.
That makes sense, But it's the vantage point that I
(38:04):
have right now, and I do feel creatively purposeful in
exploring it right now because it does feel under explored.
But that doesn't come with any that doesn't come with
the lack of recognition that being on the other side
of things is fucking horrible. It's fucking horrible, and it
does I have no lack of empathy for how horrible
it is to be on the other side of these songs.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Do you feel less supported in the music you're making
right now because.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Of that it's a really good question.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
I do feel it's been a bit polarizing, you know,
the response is to I mean, I've put a one
song from this body of work, but there's quite a
lot more that explores the nuances of the emotional experience.
But on this song on when you think of me,
you know, it's kind of either been like fuck you,
(38:51):
fuck this, or it's been this helped me understand the
end of relationship in a way that he would have
never been able to explain to me, and I'm so grateful.
Or actually, one of my favorite ones was this helped
me forgive someone who I don't know if he deserved it,
but I needed to forgive him for myself. And these
are the words he never would have said to me,
(39:12):
you know. Like that obviously as feedback is like really meaningful.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah, but you know, I get it, and I my
goal is not to be defensive. My goal is not.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
To be like, hey, like you, you know, you're demonizing
the person in the role of walking away, and here's
all the reasons why you shouldn't. I'm not even trying
to say that, but I guess I am saying too.
I just I don't know there's not even like a mission.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Statement in It's just I think that there is maybe
not a mission statement, but there is a lot of power.
And again, I've only heard this one song, so I'm
very interested in hearing more. But there is a perspective
that again, like I have not heard and it doesn't
necessarily apply to my situations where I've wanted to hate somebody,
(40:01):
but I can totally understand and sit in a space
where I'm like, oh my God, like maybe he isn't
this horrible, bad, terrible guy that needs to do whatever,
or a girl that needs to do whatever, or maybe
there is this space that can that somebody can coexist
and live. And maybe that doesn't make it easier for
(40:21):
me to feel, but it actually leads me to healing
a lot faster.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
If a relationship bends and there isn't abuse, like setting
aside when there is abuse, because that's different. So when
a relationship bends without abuse and there isn't infidelity, there
isn't you know, any of the ugly ways of.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Relationship can end.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
There's just two people tragically growing apart, tragically growing apart
in a way that neither of them wanted, and one
person recognized that recognizes that in a way that the
other doesn't want to or doesn't want to accept. It's
an extraordinarily painful thing. And I don't know very many
(41:07):
songs that recognize that love can be over and also real.
And for me, that is a more peaceful place to exist.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Now.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
I know, it's a lot easier for me to exist
there having it been my decision. And it's a lot
harder to come to that awareness when it's something that
happened that you didn't want to happen.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
And I recognize that, and I have empathy for that.
Speaker 4 (41:31):
But for me in either of my last two relationships,
like I have no interest in looking back at those
relationships and in trying to write over beautiful memories with
you know, the filter of disdain, like I don't want
to do that.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
It makes me sad, well, yes, because I think a
struggle that I no longer have is that in a relationship,
even if when it did end poorly, I still had
so many good moments, like so many good memories and
so many good experiences, and I felt the need to
tarnish them all and say.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
That they were all alive.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
But like, wait a second, we did really care about
each other when we went on that trip, and really
we did laugh a lot, and we did do that thing,
and we did make that and we did go to
that place. And I don't have to ruin all of
those memories because that was me living my life and
that was a part of my life I really liked.
And that's really hard for people. And I think there's
like so much freedom in this idea you're putting out there.
(42:28):
We're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, you don't have
to do that. Those things can still all be really
really good, and those can be memories that you hold
on forever. Maybe you can't feel maybe you can't sit
with those right now, maybe you need some time, but like,
you don't have to throw those away, And it's easier
for us to say I need I remember saying going
through a breakup, like I wish you would have just
(42:48):
cheated on me, or I wish you would have done this,
because I just want to hate them so much because
it would have been easier for me to throw everything
away than realize that parts of that were good and
it just wasn't gonna work.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yeah, I think that's exactly it. I think that's exactly it.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yeah, but you hadn't written this song yet, so I
had to figure that out on my own.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
I mean no, I mean it's exactly what you said.
Speaker 4 (43:09):
It's just it's easier to tell yourself that it was
all a lie than it is to come to terms
with something that was really beautiful and you don't get
to have it anymore.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yeah, but you did have it.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Well, we're just going to end this one on a
sad happy note, a mixture that's the both and that,
like there's good and there's icky and all of this,
And I think that is like the great risk we take, right,
that's the great risk we take with any relationship, that
any relationship can end or change or shift, and we
get to make the choice do we want to risk
(43:41):
that or do we want to live with this like
pit or this desire or this longing that we just
refuse to let ourselves follow.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
We get to make those decisions.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Yeah it's Thomas. Yeah, Hey, this was so nice. Thank
you for having me.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Oh this was amazing.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
I feel like I could talk to you for ten years,
But I assume you have things to do and I'm
have another things to do as well. M
I started to realize that not being an expert isn't
a liability.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's a real guest.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
If we don't know something about ourselves at this point
in our life, it's probably because it's uncomfortable to know.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
If you can die before you die, then you can
really live.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
There's a wisdom at death's door.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
I thought I was insane. Yeah, and I didn't know
what to do because there was no internet.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
I don't know, man, I'm like, I feel like everything
is hard. Hey, y'all, my name is Kat. I'm a
human first and a licensed therapist second. And right now
I'm inviting you into conversations that I hope encourage you
to become more curious and less judgmental about yourself, others,
(00:54):
and the world around you.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Welcome to You Need Therapy.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Hi guys, and welcome to a new episode of You
Need Therapy Podcast. My name is Kat. I am the host.
And quick reminder before we get into the good stuff today,
because we have some good stuff today that although I'm
a therapist, and although this podcast is called You Need Therapy,
this does not serve as a replacement or substitute for
any actual mental health services.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
However, it still can be helpful.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So now that we have that out of the way,
I get to introduce part two of the conversation that
I had with singer songwriter JP Sachs.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
It's going to be just as good as last week.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
And I know you guys loved the episode last week
and some of the things we talked about. We expand
on some of those topics about breakups and heartbreak and
all of that, and we also dive into some more
topics and talk about masculinity, what it means to be
a protector and all of the things. So if you
have not listened to part one, press pause, go listen
to part one, and then you can listen to part two,
(01:54):
because this was the way that the actual conversation happened.
So I just think it would make more sense for
you that way. And I want to remind you guys
that if you are new to JP Sacks and one
you're welcome, but two, you need to follow him on Instagram.
His Instagram handle is at JP Sachs sa XE. He
has a song that came out a couple of weeks
(02:15):
ago called When You Think Of Me, and then he
also has very timely a song coming out this Friday,
called the good parts, and we talk about some of
that in the conversation. So you're gonna want to definitely
go follow him on Instagram and if you click on
the link in his bio, you can pre save that
song and you can, in the meantime go listen to
When You Think of Me because it is such a
(02:36):
good song. So thank you JP for continuing this conversation,
and thank you guys for continuing to listen to this conversation.
I will talk to you guys on Wednesday for couch Talks,
but in the meantime, here is part two of my
conversation with JP Sacks. I do have a question about
for you, really actually as a man, what is it like?
(02:59):
Woman asked this generally, Then I'm going to get a
little bit deeper. So what's it like just in our
world being a man who has is this is an assumption,
but I assume that you have access to your feelings
and you're pretty emotionally literate.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
So what is it like for.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
You to be a man in this kind of toxic
masculinity driven society who has feelings, who has access to them,
who talks about them, who writes about them, who sings
about them. What is that like for you? Is it
all sunshine and rainbows? Is there a light in a
dark side?
Speaker 4 (03:35):
I think I arrived at the analysis of my emotions
in a.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Number of ways.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
I'm not sure I actually feel my emotions nearly as
much as one would expect as someone who works with
the jurisdiction of emotions. I think part of the reason
that I developed the skill of articulating my emotions and
songs was because I didn't feel like I knew how
to actually embrace or feel them for a number of reasons.
(04:04):
I mean, I think that's like a lot of that
is growing up with an alcoholic parent, like my adolescence,
I learned conflict resolution in communication as an only child
with two parents a lot of the time under the
influence of something. My mom really struggled with alcoholism in
my teenage years. My dad is best dad in the world,
(04:26):
but can be rather conflict avoidant. So that dynamic was
me getting home from school at five pm to just
irreverently drunk mom, who I learned as a twelve year
old that if I said the wrong thing that she
would break shit or hit me or leave, and she
(04:47):
could be gone for three days.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
And we wouldn't know what was going on.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
But if I said the right thing and if I
treated her with the if I went about it exactly
the right way, then I could have like silly, drunk
fun mom. But that could like flip like I could.
It could be one word and that would flip. But
I would make it a game for myself. I kind
of would get home and it was like a challenge,
and my dad would tell me, like, you know, you
(05:12):
have to be the mature one when I was like
eleven twelve, because you know she's not going to be
so you have to be the mature one. And obviously
there's an intense emotional reaction as a kid to seeing
your parent like that. But I couldn't let myself feel
that because if I the worst thing I could say
was something about how it affected me, like that would
(05:32):
be the most triggering thing for her. So that was
really my first experience with navigating emotionally tumultuous moments was
having to channel my full emotional experience through an intellectual
lens to make sure I said things in the right way.
(05:54):
And I think that did two things to me as
a young adult. It honed my ability to articulate my
emotions even when they were very intense. It also made
it very very hard for me to have any sort
of honest emotional reaction without intellectualizing first. So that's like
one of the challenges of my life. But it's also
(06:15):
one of the blessings in my life because I think
it frames my entire profession as a.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Songwrit Yeah, and one, thanks for sharing that. I really
appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
And also thank you for sharing that just in the
sense that there I am have as a therapist, assuming
something about somebody and thinking that it comes from one
space when we really have no idea the experiences we've
had that led us to be the humans that we are.
And so you have this amazing skill of being able
(06:47):
to write and articulate feelings that people can also then
you know, feel with you and feel connected. But it
comes from this like actually, I'm going to use this
word and I don't know if it's going to fit,
so if it doesn't, just let me know. It comes
from the traumatic experience. So it comes from a situation
that we might not have chosen and talk about like
(07:08):
a weird dissonance. That's a weird dissonance.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
Yeah, I mean so to speak to the rest of
your question also about like how that ties into masculinity,
I think, well, firstly, I think people falsely equate being
able to express your emotions in a song with vulnerability.
I don't personally think there's anything that vulnerable about the
songs because I have spent months crafting exactly how I
(07:34):
want to present those emotions. And to me, my definition
of vulnerable is allowing yourself to exist without all of
the editing, and that is highly highly edited emotional content.
Like I spent months crafting exactly how I want to
(07:54):
articulate the emotion that I am fitting into a song.
Now as a person like that absolutely is rude. In
I had to when I was, you know, in my
early twenties, in trying to unlearn the conflict resolution that
I had developed through my mom. In order to feel
really anything, I needed to figure out how to describe
it to myself. I need to describe it to myself
in order to feel it. So yeah, now I describe
(08:17):
my emotions too through songs in a way that then
allows other people to feel it. But it's really just
me trying to show myself how to feel it, and
other people feel their emotions similarly to the way I do.
So that works in people who listen to my music,
But the area in my life where I'm vulnerable is
definitely not my music, because even though they are about
(08:38):
sensitive things, are about personal things. I've been so thoughtful
about how i want to craft it that it feels safe.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
It feels intentional.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I was going to ask you, like, is there any
like regret in like writing a song about something and
then you have to like sing it all the time,
and maybe it's about a time that you don't want
to go back and be in. I can make the
assumption I might be wrong that, like maybe not, because
of what you are just expressing of, Like, this is
a pretty crafted thing, and I'm I'm sharing this in
a way that actually doesn't feel that vulnerable to me,
(09:06):
although I mean not that it's dishonest, right right, Like
it's difference dishonest.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
It gives me anxiety because I know, I know that
I'm that not just for other people, but for myself.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I am time capsuling.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
An emotion, a feeling that is going to represent for
me personally, like an era of my life, on an
era of what it felt like to be myself in
a moment. Yeah, so I want to accurately depict that
for myself.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Where do you feel the most vulnerable? Like when do
you feel the most like? This is the hard, tough stuff.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Yeah, it's the moments that I don't get to that
I have to exist without really thinking through how I'm
going to exist yet just allowing myself to be unedited, unfiltered, unprepared.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
What about it like live shows?
Speaker 4 (09:57):
I mean I love live shows. I find the very stimulus.
It's like a conversation, but you know, you get the
added charisma that you're given by the how stimulating it
is to be on stage in front of a lot
of people. Okay, Like there's a personality I get to
have on stage that it's very hard to stimulate anywhere
else because of just the chemical implications of being in
front of that many people.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I was going to say at the Nashville show that
I was at, I don't know if you remember this,
because I don't know if you remember everything that happens
on stage, But I don't remember what song it was.
But there was a song that like you had like
the audience sing part of it, and then you ended
up singing like the same verse a couple of times,
and I wouldn't even I don't even want to call
this a mess up because the way that you orchestrated
(10:39):
it was like, well, this is kind of like the
coolest moment of the show. Like everybody was laughing. It
felt like everybody was in it together. You felt like
a real person, even though that was like you were
closer to us than some venues that you might play in,
but like you actually felt like a real person.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
You weren't robotic.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So does that feel vulnerable or is that a space
where you like, I feel like I'm alive and I
can be myself and I can be messy even though
I'm performing.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
To be honest, I don't exactly know.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Maybe I falsely equate vulnerability with discomfort, So it feels
weird to call that vulnerability because I feel very comfortable
in that space. But maybe that's like a false pretense.
I love that stuff, like I love when the shows
are spontaneous, indifferent and exist in a way that they're
not going to exist in any other moment.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And I remember the moment you're talking about because it
was in three minutes.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
Okay, yes, yep, And there's the end of the verse
is the I'm afraid you won't meet me halfway, and
I like chuckled, and I was like kind of went
down like that, and then the next line and You're
afraid I won't know how to stay, And then I
also chuckled because it also went down like that.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
And it just felt like there was this sad prophetic
nature to that moment of that song. And then as
I continue to perform the song, kept thinking about that
moment and then forgot all of the words to the
second verse, and luckily people in the audience knew it
and helped that.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And I feel like you don't see that a lot,
and I don't know what that means or if that's
even important, but I was like, well, this is actually
one of the most memorable parts of the show, and
I'm remembering in a good way. Let's actually go back
to that and just maybe you were talking about more
of like why your emotions really came about, But I
(12:20):
actually do really want to know, even if you don't
feel that way, even if you don't feel like you
have the access to your emotions, the wapes people might
assume of you, what is it like, because I feel
like a lot of the conversations around masculinity happen without men.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
It's women talking about men. And I'm very.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Interested in what is the perspective of the man, because
while while women are all genders really are affected by
just patriarchy in general and masculinity in general. We're affected,
but you guys are affected by it too, because there's expectations,
and how do we actually show up as authentic and
love that part of us if it doesn't meant expectations.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
So just tell me what it's like to have feelings
as a guy.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
I mean, I think the stereotype that men are not
emotional is so absurd because I think it acts as
if some feelings count as emotional and some feelings don't,
as if, like, you know, you picture your stereotypical like dude,
(13:26):
like you know, cis gendered straight dude punching through a
wall in anger, and but that's just him like being
I don't know, manly.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
As if like that's not that's not emotional.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Being emotional, but like a woman can shed a few
tears in her car listening to a song and she's
the hysterical. One quote unquote Big Air quotes on that
one for those people listening. But like as if, like
we've we've established that some emotions can be quote unquote
manly and some make you any version of the derogatory,
(13:59):
sexist words that we call men. So yeah, that spectrum
is odd to me. I think, regardless of your gender,
whether you're non binary, whether you're a woman, whether you're man,
we live in a society that teaches us that some
emotions are more allowed than others in our identity. And
also I think the idea that like emotions and intellect
(14:23):
are separate is just absurd as well, Like they're a
very intertwined experience of ourselves, and there's all kinds of
information in your emotions that you get to then think about.
I live in a world where, like most of the
most of the people around me are emotionally literate, big feeling, articulate,
(14:45):
people who are very rarely in this version of their
life told that they're being too much. But you don't
live in southern California, you know, you grow up in
any kind of small town. The version of what it
means to be a quote unquote man is a pretty
limited thing. But I also think that expanding on that
(15:06):
doesn't mean rejecting yet because you know, maybe like you
saw your dad your uncles in a certain way, and
there's things about who they are that you want to embrace.
I have like a bunch of non binary friends who
have not just rejected the stereotypes of what it means
to be a quote unquote man, they've rejected the identity
of man at all. But that doesn't mean that there
isn't things that about who they are that they've taken
(15:28):
from their dads or their uncles or their grandfathers.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Like it's not a one or the other thing.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
It's not like, you know, you're either this super masculine
human in the way that you grew up learning you're
supposed to be, or you become this like sensitive, crying
all the time, like weird stereotype. It's just all deeply whack.
The truth is, there are just so many ways to
be a person that live on a spectrum that's a
lot wider than the parts of it that we limit
ourselves to. And figuring out what part of that feels
(15:57):
the most honest without the limitation of the perceived judgment
of certain emotions more than others is a really freeing,
really wonderful thing that I think makes you stronger as
a human being if you can embrace the individuality of that,
not weaker because you're not being a quote unquote man.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
There was a million things you just said, but one
what did you say? I need I needed to repeat
that because I liked it. Something about you can was it?
Like you just you can disagree with it without rejecting it,
like you can keep parts of it.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
I like that idea that like, we don't.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Have to completely like abolish masculinity to not live in
this like one or the other world.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
No exactly. I mean, that's that's the exciting part of it.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Yeah, it's not like like, well, toxic masculinity, fucked, masculinity fucked.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
You know, I'm abandoning all of that. It's not like that.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
It's it's it's finding the parts of your emotional experience
that feel the most authentic to yourself and not limiting
that to the boundaries that you know you have been
taught growing up.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Now.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
That's not easy to do, right, especially you know, if
you know, for better or worse, I have the blessing
of not being tied to too many expectations of my
very small family. So it's I recognize that there's a
challenge to existing in opposition to the expectations of a
lot of people around you.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
There's a freeing component that you're talking about, and then
there's a grief component too for a lot of people
because leaning into this idea that we don't have to
be one or the other, we don't have to be
two things, this isn't right and that's wrong.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
By finding freedom for that, you might be grieving.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Certain relationships, certain expectations that.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
You might even have for yourself.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Ideas like means to an ends for certain things when
we are not groomed isn't the right word, but when
we are brought up in a culture where there are
these two things that feel really stable, and then we
realize because these two things don't neither feels like right
or safe, we still feel really uncomfortable in the process
(18:12):
giving out of it. Right, So like, I can feel
actually safer in this place where I don't have to
live in these lines drawn for me, but it also
might be way more uncomfortable. And I think a lot
of times people get those confused where if I'm uncomfortable,
that means I'm not safe, but actually this is safer
it just feels weird and there's some loss in that,
(18:33):
and loss is uncomfortable. So for you personally, not everybody's
experience is going to be like yours, and so I
don't want you to feel like you have to qualify it.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
But what do you.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Think were the things in your system and your community
that let you kind of move outside of those lines
that society kind of draws or definitely draws.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
I am very lucky to be to be rewarded for
embracing my emotional experience of the world. I also get
to think about my feelings all of the time, like
it's my job.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Because it is. I mean, just like you do.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
We live in a world where we get to think
about our feelings twelve hours a day if we want to.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
That is not the reality for most people.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Most people go to a job that doesn't leave very
much room for them to be thinking about their emotional
experience of the world because they've got shit to do.
And therefore, you have a couple hours on either side
of a job where there is space to explore your emotions,
and it's also exhausting, and you're coming home to a
couple of hours where you probably still have all kinds
(19:39):
of things to do, whether it be the roles of
your family or any number of things. All that to say,
the amount of time of the day where there is
left to be analytical about your emotional experience is pretty small,
and it's probably parts of the day where you're already
exhausted from everything else you had to do to just
exist in that reality.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Is where I.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Think artists provide value because we get to spend we
have to spend a lot of time analyzing our emotions,
so we can distill it into something that becomes a
little window for someone to get to those parts of
themselves a little faster. So maybe I spend months thinking
about a feeling so I can capture that feeling in
a three minute song. So when you get home at
(20:23):
the end of your day exhausted, you can sit in
your bedroom or listen to that song and access that
feeling in yourself with a little bit more ease, without
having to spend all that time to get there, because
an artist spent all that time to get there for
you and help you get there. That is like, if
I were to romanticize where I feel purposeful as an artist,
(20:44):
it's in that process.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Well, I don't even think that's romantic. That seems pretty
factual to me. You are providing a really valuable service
to a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Thanks.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
I'm grateful I get to do it. I think I
think poets do it. I think filmmakers do it. I
think writers do it.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Think.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
I think that's why it's important for artists to face
the more difficult elements of their emotional experience. You know,
I think it's why you know when people ask me, like,
is it hard to write about the most difficult parts
of your life? Is it hard to write about these
difficult feelings? It feels the most purposeful when it's more difficult.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Oh, I really like that. It feels more purposeful when
it's difficult.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
If this was like no big deal, would be like, oh,
I could do this with my eyes closed, Like what
does it matter? I want to go back though, to
what you said in the very beginning of about you
think it's kind of silly that people say mental have emotions,
because I agree with you, and I think we've categorized
certain emotions as masculine and femine, that that one's okay
(21:44):
to have, that one's not okay. But you're right, and
if we actually opened up space to look around us
and see things more clearly. We would see that every day,
but because of the boxes people get put in like
think about fear or or I think not any feeling
and in to me, the way I view emotions is
that feelings are guides and they kind of like lead
(22:06):
us to what we need. So if I'm feeling something,
it's saying like, hey, hey, there's something going on, there's.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Something that you need, let's tend to it.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
And so if we only let men feel certain things
like anger, it can even be seen as like cool
or like oh yeah, like he's protective and he's this,
and there's a whole thing about men and protection that
I won't go down. Well. If men are only allowed
to feel that, they don't get to explore like what
the actual like what's underneath any of that, while women
(22:36):
can sometimes And if you're not in one of those boxes,
then who knows what your rules are? And maybe there
are like a mixture of them, and that makes it
even more confusing. But what happens if I, like, for example,
if I am having road rage.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I use this example all the time. I want to
know your thoughts on this.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
If I am driving and let's say, for the sake
of this conversation.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I'm a dude.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Somebody who cuts me off and I'm like pissed, and
I honk my horn, I flip them off.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I'm like fuck you man, and blah.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Blah blah blah blah blahah whatever. Okay, most people that's
road rage.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
That's rage.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Most people would say like, oh okay, like rage anger,
Like okay, that's where it stops and there's nothing else
going on there. But what I actually think if we
were to boil that down and if feelings were like
equal and free for everybody, is it really anger that's
there or is there something else? Because when somebody cuts
you off, what happens is you maybe you almost gotten
a wreck, or maybe you like almost spilt your coffee
(23:32):
or like who knows what happened. But a lot of times,
underneath that rage is fear. And fear is an emotion
that is like so wonderful because it one it can
protect us, but also it shows us what's important to us.
And sometimes that's just basically our life is important to us.
But what we do is like men don't get to
go down that like ladder and see like okay that
(23:52):
actually I was scared, and what do I need? Well,
if I'm scared, do do I need protection? Do I
need care? Do I need comfort? No, you can't need
that because you're supposed to protect and you're supposed to care,
and you're sppitialian stuff, And so all of that to
say is it's not that personally that I see. It's
not that men don't have these emotions, that men are emotional.
(24:13):
When anybody says like, oh, I'm not very emotional, no
you are, you just kind of like stifle yourself and
you put all your emotions in this box and then
everything else is living underneath a rock somewhere that might
explode at any given moment.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
I have a couple thoughts on that, and I want
to speak specifically to the protectiveness you mentioned, because we
were talking about it a bit earlier too. In my
own experience, whether you're a man, non binary woman, I
think all of us feel protective of the people we love,
but in the context right now of cisgendered man, there
is absolutely that stereotype of we are the protector. I
(24:50):
actually don't think that's one that if you feel, if
that comes naturally to you, you feel you want to
protect your family. That's a beautiful thing. I don't think
anyone suggesting you should not feel that way. I think
the exciting part of the conversation is it's just maybe
expand what that means to protect the people you love.
You know, sure like that occasionally will mean you are
(25:13):
physically protecting the people you love. Depending on where you live,
probably not very often. But why can't your desire and
in your nature to be a protector, Why can't that
apply to protecting someone's emotional safety, someone's safety in themselves,
(25:35):
you know, because that's where we live on a daily basis.
You know, you're a man in a relationship with a
woman and you want to make that woman feel safe.
Isn't that safety, like a safety to be herself? In
making her feel safe to be herself means showing up
to her as a good listener, showing up for her
with consistency, with affection, Like that's being a pret So
(26:00):
I don't think it's about like when we talked about,
you know, we're not throwing out the baby with the
bathwater on some of these stereotypes like it's not all bad,
it's just a little bit of redefinition of like how
we shape protector.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
It was about a year ago, maybe actually probably a
year and a half ago. I had a conversation with
Justin Baldoni, who wrote this book Man Enough.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
I mean, his podcast is freaking incredible. So I was
asking him.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
I don't remember what I asked. He kind of like
gave it to me straight. He's so great and he's
an expert on this. It's what he's spending his life
work on. And I don't know what I asked him,
but he went on this kind of like it wasn't
a ramp, but he just said it was so much
like h that I was like, yes, But I think
I was talking about how like, if I'm dating a man,
(26:47):
I want him to be emotional. I want to be
able to have emotional conversations. And there also is that
part of me that's like, well, he can't be too emotional,
so I want him to cry, but like I want
him to cry at certain things. And it's the whole
thing that I've had to dismantle myself. And he was like, yeah,
because there's this experience that we're all going through, and
(27:07):
we're all all kind of working through some most some
of us are where like a woman feels like she
needs to be protected, and so when we see something
that is in our society deemed as weak, which is
again emotions are seen as weak, where I see them
as like these are tools, these are guide, these are
(27:27):
amazing things. But if you show too much of them
or you can't control them with air quotes, then there
becomes this fear of the woman that the man can't
protect me. And he went down this whole rabbit trail
around like, well, why do we actually need to be protected?
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Because there are there's other.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Men out there that we do feel we need to
be protected from. So I say all that because with
the idea that wait, there's other ways that somebody can
protect me. I might be in a relationship with somebody
who could like literally take anybody out. If somebody tries
to like hurt me in any physical way, he can
like karate chop, you know, like figure that out. But
(28:09):
I have haven't told them huge parts of me, Like
I don't feel safe enough to like actually share with
them experiences I had or beliefs I have about myself,
or I still feel like I have to perform to
be wanted by that person or I can't. I can't
show certain emotions else this person is going to think
ex of me. So you're bringing in this amazing idea
(28:32):
and I'm so obsessed with looking out words and really
digging into their meaning, Like protection, Why are we thinking
about that in this one way? When if you don't
feel like you can be yourself with your partner, no
matter what gender they identify with, you're not protected, right,
I mean, I agree completely.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
And if you're you know, if you're listening to this
as someone who feels a sense of you feel a
desire to be a protector for someone you're in a
relationship with, which I definitely do, what does that mean
other than make your partner feel safe? That's what that means.
To protect someone means make them feel safe. What is
on a daily basis it mean to make your partner
(29:13):
feel safe?
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Right?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Like?
Speaker 2 (29:15):
That can be so very many things.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah, it doesn't mean beat up the guy down the street, Like,
that's not what it means at all the majority.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
I mean, maybe once a year, if you live in
the right neighborhood, it means that. But like on a
daily basis, it probably means emotional things. It probably means
being in touch enough with your emotions that your partner
isn't going to feel judged when they share theirs with you.
And to just to what you're saying with Justin Baldoni,
(29:45):
I mean I love him, big fan, like cannot wait
to meet.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Him, would love to talk.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
You need to be on his podcast. I would love
to be on his You would be a perfect guest.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Like when he you know, cries on that podcast, Like
there's something revolutionary about that. But also I think there's
a nuance to that that like being in touch with
your emotions as a quote unquote man doesn't just mean
like every time you feel something you cry. It means
when you are in a setting where it is safe
to do so, you aren't stopping yourself because of the
(30:18):
way you've internalized what it means to be a man.
No one's saying that, like, you know, you should, you know,
someone should say something hurtful to you on the job
and then you should just start crying, you know, Like that's.
Speaker 6 (30:32):
That's not that's not what anyone's fighting for, right It's
why like even when you hear athlete like you know
this might be like slightly controversial amongst the community around
reshaping masculinity.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
But like you know, when athletes.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
Say, like, you know, you don't cry on the court,
that's a different like we can be discerning about this, like, yeah,
maybe it does show weakness to cry on a sports field,
like that doesn't. But that's a different fucking setting. Then
you get home, you have it, you're with your family
or your partner or your children, and something really sad happens,
(31:05):
whatever it is. You're having a conversation about trauma, you're
having a conversation about, you know, issues in your youth,
you're having a conversation about someone who's passed.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
In that setting.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
Strength can mean crying in that setting, because it's weak
to think you can't be seen that way. It's weak
to not be secure enough to let the people you
love be seen that way. Like redefining masculina doesn't mean
we're just walking around sobbing all the time.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Right, which we have to be disserving.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Right Again, that goes to we're not getting rid of it,
And I you're opening up a whole other conversation which
I won't take you completely down, but I have this
real like thing about intimacy and vulnerability, and like, yeah,
we have where there's a movement and Brene Brown is
leading the pack and we need, yeah, we need to
actually like access that part of us.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
And it is very important.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
And I don't need to tell my trauma to every
single person I meet or go on a date with,
or or think is nice or or find funny. Like
that's first of all, that's not intimacy and vulnerability. That's
just information sharing. That can be trauma dumping. That's trauma dumping.
Is not intimacy. And so I think that we have
(32:13):
as we are like redefining a lot of things right now,
which is so important. What we're doing is we're taking
out that discernment part. We're just putting We're going from
over here to overhere. And first of all, that's terrifying
for a lot of people, and so some people are
just like.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
No, not doing that.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
You want me to cry everywhere I go. No, I'm
not doing that. Well great, because we're not asking you to.
So thank you for saying that, Because you're right, there
are spaces where actually, if I want to like access
that part of me that I feel like is shut down, I.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Have to do it in places that are safe.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
So if it's not safe to do it like literally, like,
if I want to learn how to be vulnerable, I
need to do it in places that are safe, because
if I'm vulnerable to every person I meet, I'm going
to have a lot of experiences that say, hey, don't
do that anymore. And then I'm going to create, whether
it's a trauma bond or a belief about myself. And
it's the same thing with masculinity of maybe one day
(33:11):
will there will be a space where like we don't
even have to have these conversations and everybody is just
like a bubble of love. But that's not where we
are right now, and so because of that, we have
to actually like track and say, Okay, this is a
space where like this is welcome. And maybe that's even
stretching it too far. Maybe it's sometimes it's not welcome
(33:31):
and I still can be myself and there's work to
be done around that.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
But I have to have.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
The ability to say, wait, I believe that this is
an okay part of me, but this isn't the place
to do that because it would be harmful to do
it here.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
I have to have.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
The ability to say, wait, I believe that this is
an okay part of me. But this isn't the place
to do that because it would be harmful to do
it here.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, and that's hard.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Oh yeah, that is a hard thing to go about
doing because being able to differentiate between good discomfort like
uncomfortable but pushed through discomfort and no discomfort, don't do
that anymore bad that's hard.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Knowing the difference is hard, and you make mistakes in that,
oh totally.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
Also, being discerning is hard. Being not looking at things
in the binary is hard because sure, it's it's simpler
to be like, okay, this is what I was taught.
Being a one of the two genders means growing up
in whatever framework of a mentality I've grown up in,
it's easier to be like okay, Like living a life
(34:43):
correctly means just doing that, But dismantling that means there's
now a lot more options, which requires a lot more
thought and fitting into you know, what does it mean
to be myself separate from the things that I've learned
to be myself within right, but not completely separate? Like Also,
what do I still want to take from that? Like that?
(35:03):
That's just that's a lot of work. Yeah, and I
think that's why, you know, I don't really have all
that much judgment for people who you know, haven't found
that or are like a little bit adverse to it
because it makes sense, like it's challenging, it's not an
easy it's not like you.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Just do it thing.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Yeah, I wish that it was that way, but it's
not at all.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
And as we go through those spaces, what people maybe
don't talk about as much is that the more you
open yourself up, the more I've opened myself up, the
more people are going to open themselves up to like
expanding their view of what they can be and how
they can be. The more you're also opening yourself up
for criticism and judgment and speculation and all the things
(35:46):
that don't feel great. And we have to learn and
it's a process. We have to learn that like people
agreeing with us or people under even understanding us, isn't
like a measure of.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Like doing it right, like totally.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Just because somebody understands me, they might have the wrong idea.
And I have to stop basing my actions and the
way I go out and experience the world on other
people's understanding of how I'm living, because you're never and
there's no way to get a one hundred percent accuracy
on people understanding you and agreeing with you.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
There's no way.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
But the more I'm going to kind of color outside
of those lines, the more people won't get me right now.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
And that's tough.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Yeah, I mean, even like calling back to something we
were talking about a while ago, like the subject matter
of my new music it's a little bit a tad
more controversial than the subject matter of.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
My last album. This is true because.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
The nuances of being left are far more explored in
songwriting than the nuances of leaving.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
I want to say, like you're doing the Lord's work
because like, no, people aren't talking about that.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
That's an exaggeration. But like when I listen to your
new song.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
The first time I listened to it, I literally texted
my friends and I said, well, if somebody's going to
break up with me, this is how I would want
them to do it right. And I know it's like
not that simple, because again, I might be that person
on the other side that's like this doesn't make sense,
Like I might not have learned this idea that you're
placing out there yet, and it's not an idea that's
(37:20):
talked about and for people to actually understand it, we.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Have to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
And I understand why it's not as talked about or
explored because we villainize the people who have left us.
Not all of us do, but a lot of us
villainize the people who have left us. And I understand
why because anger is I think easier to feel than sadness.
(37:44):
It's very hard to be sad at someone. You can't
be sad at someone, you can be angry at someone.
So if you're if you have a meant sadness, I
think you because you can't be sad at you convert
that sadness into something ellis and that's what we project.
That makes sense, But it's the vantage point that I
(38:04):
have right now, and I do feel creatively purposeful in
exploring it right now because it does feel under explored.
But that doesn't come with any that doesn't come with
the lack of recognition that being on the other side
of things is fucking horrible. It's fucking horrible, and it
does I have no lack of empathy for how horrible
it is to be on the other side of these songs.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Do you feel less supported in the music you're making
right now because.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Of that it's a really good question.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
I do feel it's been a bit polarizing, you know,
the response is to I mean, I've put a one
song from this body of work, but there's quite a
lot more that explores the nuances of the emotional experience.
But on this song on when you think of me,
you know, it's kind of either been like fuck you,
(38:51):
fuck this, or it's been this helped me understand the
end of relationship in a way that he would have
never been able to explain to me, and I'm so grateful.
Or actually, one of my favorite ones was this helped
me forgive someone who I don't know if he deserved it,
but I needed to forgive him for myself. And these
are the words he never would have said to me,
(39:12):
you know. Like that obviously as feedback is like really meaningful.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah, but you know, I get it, and I my
goal is not to be defensive. My goal is not.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
To be like, hey, like you, you know, you're demonizing
the person in the role of walking away, and here's
all the reasons why you shouldn't. I'm not even trying
to say that, but I guess I am saying too.
I just I don't know there's not even like a mission.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Statement in It's just I think that there is maybe
not a mission statement, but there is a lot of power.
And again, I've only heard this one song, so I'm
very interested in hearing more. But there is a perspective
that again, like I have not heard and it doesn't
necessarily apply to my situations where I've wanted to hate somebody,
(40:01):
but I can totally understand and sit in a space
where I'm like, oh my God, like maybe he isn't
this horrible, bad, terrible guy that needs to do whatever,
or a girl that needs to do whatever, or maybe
there is this space that can that somebody can coexist
and live. And maybe that doesn't make it easier for
(40:21):
me to feel, but it actually leads me to healing
a lot faster.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
If a relationship bends and there isn't abuse, like setting
aside when there is abuse, because that's different. So when
a relationship bends without abuse and there isn't infidelity, there
isn't you know, any of the ugly ways of.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Relationship can end.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
There's just two people tragically growing apart, tragically growing apart
in a way that neither of them wanted, and one
person recognized that recognizes that in a way that the
other doesn't want to or doesn't want to accept. It's
an extraordinarily painful thing. And I don't know very many
(41:07):
songs that recognize that love can be over and also real.
And for me, that is a more peaceful place to exist.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Now.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
I know, it's a lot easier for me to exist
there having it been my decision. And it's a lot
harder to come to that awareness when it's something that
happened that you didn't want to happen.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
And I recognize that, and I have empathy for that.
Speaker 4 (41:31):
But for me in either of my last two relationships,
like I have no interest in looking back at those
relationships and in trying to write over beautiful memories with
you know, the filter of disdain, like I don't want
to do that.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
It makes me sad, well, yes, because I think a
struggle that I no longer have is that in a relationship,
even if when it did end poorly, I still had
so many good moments, like so many good memories and
so many good experiences, and I felt the need to
tarnish them all and say.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
That they were all alive.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
But like, wait a second, we did really care about
each other when we went on that trip, and really
we did laugh a lot, and we did do that thing,
and we did make that and we did go to
that place. And I don't have to ruin all of
those memories because that was me living my life and
that was a part of my life I really liked.
And that's really hard for people. And I think there's
like so much freedom in this idea you're putting out there.
(42:28):
We're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, you don't have
to do that. Those things can still all be really
really good, and those can be memories that you hold
on forever. Maybe you can't feel maybe you can't sit
with those right now, maybe you need some time, but like,
you don't have to throw those away, And it's easier
for us to say I need I remember saying going
through a breakup, like I wish you would have just
(42:48):
cheated on me, or I wish you would have done this,
because I just want to hate them so much because
it would have been easier for me to throw everything
away than realize that parts of that were good and
it just wasn't gonna work.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yeah, I think that's exactly it. I think that's exactly it.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yeah, but you hadn't written this song yet, so I
had to figure that out on my own.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
I mean no, I mean it's exactly what you said.
Speaker 4 (43:09):
It's just it's easier to tell yourself that it was
all a lie than it is to come to terms
with something that was really beautiful and you don't get
to have it anymore.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yeah, but you did have it.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Well, we're just going to end this one on a
sad happy note, a mixture that's the both and that,
like there's good and there's icky and all of this,
And I think that is like the great risk we take, right,
that's the great risk we take with any relationship, that
any relationship can end or change or shift, and we
get to make the choice do we want to risk
(43:41):
that or do we want to live with this like
pit or this desire or this longing that we just
refuse to let ourselves follow.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
We get to make those decisions.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Yeah it's Thomas. Yeah, Hey, this was so nice. Thank
you for having me.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Oh this was amazing.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
I feel like I could talk to you for ten years,
But I assume you have things to do and I'm
have another things to do as well. M
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