Kings Unchained: Black Love, Unfiltered-Healing Wounds & Embracing Growth

What happens when a Black Man dares to heal out loud and speaks on love from a place of that healing—not ego, not survival?

What you are about to hear is a conversation we don’t get to hear enough. One that jumps down the rabbit hole of Black Love—Unfiltered. No scripts. No ego. No performance. Just truth, healing, and hard-earned wisdom from a man who’s done the work and continues to do it.

In this episode of Kings Unchained, I chop it up with certified healing journey and relationship coach Derrick Jones for a real, unguarded look into what Black love looks like when it’s no longer rooted in survival—but in intention.

We talk about the emotional damage passed down through generations, the pressure on Black men to be strong but never soft, and what it takes to lead with love after years of being misunderstood. 

We’re not tiptoeing around the hard stuff. We’re diving into it. Because too many of our brothers were taught to shut down instead of open up. And too many of us are out here trying to build something real with pieces that were never allowed to heal.

This isn’t about gender wars and finger-pointing. It’s about reflection. It’s about being honest enough to ask: What have we learned about love—and what do we want to unlearn together?

If you’re tired of surface-level talk—this is for you.

If you’ve ever loved or been loved by a Black man—this is for you.

If you are a Black man navigating love and healing—this is definitely for you.

And If you’re ready for a conversation that pulls back the layers and goes deeper—press play.

This conversation is honest. It’s necessary. And it’s happening now.

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🌫️🐇 Follow Derrick Jones of Sit Down and Heal Coaching:

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Sacred Black Love
• 4:15 Derek's Path: From Trauma to Healing
• 12:14 Understanding Manipulation and Connection
• 21:36 Defining Real Love Beyond Attachment
• 33:54 Breaking Cycles: Mental Health in Relationships
• 47:00 Finding Balance: Self-Care While Helping Others
• 1:06:09 Navigating Black Love Amid Cultural Challenges
• 1:19:29 The Power of Creating Healing Communities
• 1:54:12 Closing Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:08

AM Radio.

SPEAKER_01: 0:25

Kings and Queens. Thank you for tuning in and for sticking with me through all these recent technical difficulties I've been having. But you know what? Albeit late, I'm always on time. And today's message, it's right on time too. If you caught the prelude, the introductory episode to Kings Unchained, you already know what this season is about. Real conversations, real kings, real love, and real healing. And today, we're diving I'll see you on the other side. Peace. There are certain conversations that don't just feel the air. They feel the spirit. And this one right here, this one is about love, but not the filtered soundbite version the world likes to market. Not the trauma-bonded, toxic, tit-for-tat version so many have come to expect. No, this is about sacred black love, the kind that can heal bloodlines if we let it. My guest today is a man who holds space for that kind of love. He's a relationship coach, a truth teller, a mirror, helping men and women unlearn the noise and remember how to love again. He's the founder of Sit Down and Heal, a platform rooted in truth, vulnerability, accountability, and emotional liberation. That name alone tells you what time it is. And today, we're going there. We're talking about what love looks like when it's been battered by generational trauma. Heartened by heartbreak and distorted by survival. We're unpacking black rage, spiritual alignment, love after abuse, and what it really means to rebuild from the wreckage. This isn't a debate. It's a dialogue. One rooted in care and truth. And whether you're single, healing, loving, or learning to love again, this conversation is for you. Because what's missing in this world, and especially in our community, isn't sex, attention, or even connection. It's love. Real, radical, healing love. The kind that feels safe, especially for Black men and women. So let's get into it with the brother behind Sit Down and Heal, Derek Jones. Welcome to Mamba Ron and Filter King. How art thou this day? I

SPEAKER_03: 3:17

am fantastic. How are you?

SPEAKER_01: 3:19

I am... Look. When people ask me that question, I actually try to reflect, take a pause for a second. Who am I feeling? Because we answer by rote. Oh, I'm fine. I'm great. I'm okay. And really, you're not. So reflecting here briefly, I think I'm doing pretty good. I'm excited. I'm excited to finally connect with you here for this conversation. And I appreciate you for asking. Thank you. And

SPEAKER_03: 3:43

I appreciate you having me here. This is going to be fun.

SPEAKER_01: 3:45

No doubt already. We've had our meet and greet and that was fun in itself. Look, we're going to make some content out of that. I'm going to send it. Well, I'm a guy who...

SPEAKER_03: 4:19

Just like a lot of us have gone through a lot of trials and tribulations in life, and sometimes we carry our own issues and trauma. And so with me, my trauma caused me to be in a ton of different situations when it comes to romantic relationships and had a lot of tragedies and some wins, a lot of losses. And realizing that I was able to kind of, with my analytical brain, kind of analyze my own journey heal from a lot of the stuff still ongoing because healing is a lifelong journey but I healed and when I healed because I actually like really dug into the why of things and I realized that I was able to look at other people's situations and analyze them and kind of figure out solutions and help my friends and family and I was like you know what I'm good at this relationship stuff let me see what it would take for me to become a relationship coach so I became that and I was doing it successfully, but I realized something deeper is that when you give people the tools to date better, relationship better, online date better, if they still have their own personal traumas and wounds, it will still resurface no matter how many relationship tools I gave them. That gave the birth of Sit Down and Heal, which is a moniker that I chose because that's exactly what I had to do. I had to stop the behavior, sit down, and work on myself and so I realized that it's better served for me and my purpose to help people heal first And then we can talk about the minutia of the dating world after we know that you're a better version of yourself and a more healed version of yourself. So

SPEAKER_02: 6:00

I

SPEAKER_03: 6:01

made that 90% of my platform now. And then the rest of the stuff where, you know, where to meet better people and all that, we can put that on. That's the icing on the cake. But we got to get the main thing is the main thing. So that's kind of where I am. That's what I do. I'm an engineer by trade. So my mind works a little differently than a lot of other coaches. I really... Right. Thank you, Derek.

SPEAKER_01: 6:45

Right. Right. I always say when that's the case, let the content speak because how somebody shows up in their content, that tells you everything you need to know. And what I saw in yours was someone who's building, building people up, Building bridges and relationships, building truth. And that aligned perfectly with this platform because Mambaran Unfiltered is all about the same kind of building. So I knew the moment I came across Sit Down and Heal that you make a powerful addition to this season of Kings Unchained. Because connection, to me, that's the lifeblood of community. And if we're not connecting, we're not growing. So I want to thank you again for building with me today. Now that we've set the table, let's get into your story. I always like to start at the beginning because before the coaching, before the platform, before the work you're doing now, there was a boy becoming a man trying to make sense of the world and where he fit in. So, Derek, tell me about that younger version of you. What was the foundation? What shaped your voice, your perspective, your sense of love and connection? This

SPEAKER_03: 8:22

is a good story to tell. If you would have caught me five years ago, I probably would not be able to tell it so eloquently because there's a lot of work that has been done. Even after I worked on myself, you know, you always find new areas. Right. You haven't touched.

SPEAKER_01: 8:37

Exactly. It's amazing how our testimony can be shaped and formed over time.

SPEAKER_03: 8:42

But I would say as a boy, I didn't have a voice because I was very like shy, very non-confrontational, trying to find my way in the world, but also shy. you're having parents that sheltered me and then be also self-imposing my own shelter as a awkward child. So I didn't make a lot of connectivity, even growing into a teenager, close emotional connections with people, male or female, because I didn't have that as part of my toolbox. My parents were not outwardly emotional, present, not the type that would hug or Tell you I love you or give you the affirmations that you probably needed to hear as a kid. It was like we're doing what we're supposed to. They were great parents. They were there. They were present. But I was missing that piece. So I grew into a teenager who did not have the capacity for that. So hence, no girlfriends in high school or anything like that. Plus, I was the bankie, right? Like back in the 80s, nobody was checking for nerds.

SPEAKER_01: 9:43

Man, I promise. Probably not until American Pie.

SPEAKER_03: 9:47

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 9:47

I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_03: 9:49

Not until Revenge of the Nerds, maybe. I don't know. It was an awkward time, even going into college, still being that guy and trying to find myself and building real friendships, because now I had the ability to not have the reins of the parents. So now I was able to try to foster friendships, but they still weren't. tight. They were just present, right? Because I still didn't have that until I started really dating. I was probably like 21. And this is when the emotional side starts to come out because now you got a girlfriend and all of that. But still, you don't have the experience that some of your peers have because they was dating since high school and having girlfriends and stuff. So this was all new to me.

SPEAKER_01: 10:28

Right. And even that, there were people who poured into them emotionally and modeled that for them in a healthy or not healthy way. And you're figuring it out on your own.

SPEAKER_03: 10:38

Yes. I was a late bloomers so I started delving into those but I went into it from a childlike innocence some naivety and the women that I chose or at least the first few they destroyed that because they took advantage of it and I thought that you know if I'm a good person and if I honor them and I do this or that then they'll love me but that's not what they wanted they wanted backbone they wanted alpha So I'm like, why would you choose me? They chose me because they also wanted the other stuff too. They just didn't get it all in the same guy, right?

SPEAKER_01: 11:14

Right. What's that they say about women and their friends and having different types of friends to feed those different emotional aspects?

SPEAKER_03: 11:23

Yeah. They got high off of the treatment and being honored, but they still wanted that other side that I just I hadn't found myself yet to even know what type of man that I really was. I was just happy that I had someone that I loved and that wasn't enough for them. And ironically, I picked the first three women who created the monster because all three back to back cheated.

SPEAKER_01: 11:47

Oh, wow. That's so horrible.

SPEAKER_03: 11:49

They cheated with the other type of guy. You know what I mean? The one that doesn't treat them well. So my first few experiences changed me. Yeah. Right. And this made me bitter. It made me not want to give all of myself to anyone ever again. You know, all of those feelings. But I also empath. I'm also a person who loves love. And so I knew that I wanted to have connectivity with But I didn't want that to be the result. Right. What I always tell people in coaching is our few anecdotal experience sometimes becomes our

SPEAKER_02: 12:22

worldview. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 12:24

And we think everybody's like that. So I became this person that vowed to myself back then that I would never let anyone hurt me like that again without me seeing it come to birth. Right. So I and again, you have to also understand I have a like. insanely like analytical mind. I get it from my mom. She was the type that when I was in grade school, where if I got a paper that I had to turn into the teacher and the teacher would mark it up with the red ink, then come and find the mistakes that the teacher made and tell me to do it all over again. And then I would do it all over again. And she would like find the errors and then I would have to do it again. So you have to understand the conditioning and how my mind was trained to always find the flaws, to always look for the inconsistencies. And so I took that with my pain. And I said, now I have to make sure that they can't hurt me again. So now I'm looking at things at a granular level. Right. Voice inflections, word choices, sentences. I

SPEAKER_01: 13:21

thought I was the only one. I thought I was the only one who puts that much stock in the words people use, the way they structure their words, how they use their words. People don't recognize what it says about them. Yeah. Especially in social media. And we'll get to that later on. But especially in that echo chamber of social media, how we give ourself away through word choice.

SPEAKER_03: 13:44

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very powerful. And I learned to be better at paying attention to nonverbal communication and things like this. So I'm looking at everything. And once I realized how powerful it was to garner that information, then I used it for evil.

SPEAKER_00: 14:04

Oh, no.

SPEAKER_03: 14:05

I used it to manipulate.

SPEAKER_00: 14:07

Yeah. So that I can.

SPEAKER_03: 14:08

Yeah. I can achieve the connection without having to dive all the way in. And I knew that

SPEAKER_01: 14:16

they would serve protected from getting hurt.

SPEAKER_03: 14:18

Right. They would serve my needs, even though they didn't even realize what was going on. Because if you and you know this, if you can parse out things about a person's character, then you can deliver what they need without them telling you.

SPEAKER_01: 14:30

You tailor it. You start modeling what they think you want in order to make them appear more desirable in order for you to choose them. And that's not even really them. It's a facade. And you can't maintain that. And

SPEAKER_03: 14:43

I tell the people that I coach all the time, you think people always talk about the blueprint. Just don't tell them too much and they'll use that as a blueprint. And I'm like, Your words are the least of my worries. Right. I'm watching everything. Right. And I tell them that the people who prey on you, whatever you want to call them, right? They hone their skills of the nonverbal cue. So while you're worrying about paying attention to the words, they're cataloging information about you that you're not aware of. And I say, that's why you have to look at all of the cues so that you can create your own character profile to see if you even need to be there. They're also doing the same thing. You have to be aware that that's where the boundaries come in. Because once they see a way in, you still have the option to say no if it doesn't feel right. And that's where a lot of people fail. So for my story, I, person who lacked the emotional connection to parents, now giving 200% of that to these three women, And then destroying that version of me doesn't mean that the need wasn't still there.

SPEAKER_02: 15:49

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 15:50

So I use this analytical tool that I had developed to almost shortcut my way into feeling emotion from someone without having to wait. I would make it feel like that in a week.

SPEAKER_01: 16:03

Fast food version.

SPEAKER_03: 16:04

So that way I got speed to feed my trauma. But then, of course, at some point they're going to be like, I want you to meet. my best friend. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa,

SPEAKER_01: 16:14

whoa, whoa, whoa. Now we're talking about connection. We're getting real.

SPEAKER_03: 16:17

Yeah, this is I need my drug. I need my drug. And that's it. My drug of choice wasn't sex. It was it was the feeling of love.

SPEAKER_02: 16:25

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 16:26

So I rinsed and repeat, rinsed and repeat person after person didn't care. I wasn't malicious. Right. Because what my go to was I didn't make you do anything. Right. Like I didn't make

SPEAKER_01: 16:39

you do anything. That was the irrational rationalization for what you were doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 16:44

Even with intimacy. If I create a stage that turns you on. Right. And then you then become the initiator. I didn't do anything. You initiated it. Everybody got choices. You don't want to ask me for it.

SPEAKER_01: 16:57

You know, something my father told me growing up as a young girl and. And, you know, when you're feeling fresh and, you know, you see boys and boys see you and you're navigating those things for the first time. He always told me, don't put yourself in compromising positions where you have to now battle your chemistry, your chemical reactions, overriding your logic, that emotion. We start operating in the feeling, you know what I'm saying? We lose all sense. It's kind of like a possession in a sense. Especially when you think about intimacy and your Netflix and chill sitting on the couch and all it takes is a touch. All it takes is a kiss. All it takes is a rub. And then, you know, the next thing you're doing, you're manipulating. You're using that and their emotions, their chemistry against them.

SPEAKER_03: 17:50

What I found out in hindsight as I became a coach was I was picking specific people during this time. I was picking people that I knew were broken. I was picking people that had the most desperation, the lowest self-esteem. They're very easy to pick out because of Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I can't

SPEAKER_01: 18:43

imagine what that did to you spiritually as a man.

SPEAKER_03: 18:47

It destroys you on the inside.

SPEAKER_01: 18:48

Eventually, I'm sure you fell in love and you're carrying all that.

SPEAKER_03: 18:52

Of course. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. You fall in love, but they'll never get all of you because you're still being cautious, but you're also trying to show up, but they never get what they should get from you. Yeah. Because what you have to do for them pales in comparison to to what you really have to offer, but they're okay with the little piece. Pieces. They're happy with getting 50% of you because they think that it's 100 and they're like, cool.

SPEAKER_01: 19:20

Exactly. Because your

SPEAKER_03: 19:20

50% is probably better than all of the other men that broke them before you. So you look like a superhero now and you're like, you... You're not getting all of it because I'm afraid to give you my all. They're like, you know, subconsciously, they're like, this is all I need because this is better than nothing. Let me

SPEAKER_01: 19:35

take care of it. And generationally, especially Black women and what we've seen over time historically in relationships where people stay together. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? People want to focus on the people that stayed together back in the day. Yeah. We don't know what it took for them to stay together. And Black women were often living life thinking that a piece of a man is better than no man at

SPEAKER_03: 20:00

all. I've heard it many times from women that they would rather have a piece of what they think is a good man than have nothing at all. And that is a recipe for disaster.

SPEAKER_01: 20:08

It really is.

SPEAKER_03: 20:09

You deserve the whole cake.

SPEAKER_01: 20:11

Right. That too. How did you break away? How did you find yourself breaking away from that villainous role you were playing? What

SPEAKER_03: 20:18

happened... is I wasn't your typical quote unquote villain. I was a nice guy playing a villain. So I knew how to dip into each side so that it would look sincere. Right. Because the villain only represented itself to feed the need from the trauma. And this is the story of a lot of men and women. You show up in your life. Amazing. But in the areas where you're feeding the trauma, You got to be a little bit of a monster to get it right. Right. So the monster isn't always front facing. So the person that you're dealing with, they think that they have this amazing son, this community leader, this all of these things. And they're like, there's no way they could be like that. So for me, coming from a place of innocence, they would never tell because there was nothing egregious or like abusive about the nature. It was very loving. It was very there was no angry, none of that. So you would be like, this feels amazing. The problem with it is that I went into it not looking for a wife, but because I'm finding a broken person that needs love, they think it's going to be a husband, even if I don't say so. So they're falling in love in seven days and I'm getting all of the love and all of the attention and the hugs that I've missed when I was a kid. And I was like, this is amazing until it gets too close. And then you're like, now you got to ghost them. You got to be like, Hey, this ain't working out for me.

SPEAKER_01: 21:46

It's not you. It's me. You got to do all of

SPEAKER_03: 21:49

that. So, so to answer your question, The irony of the timing is that this happened mid 90s. So we're talking about Internet. We're talking about online dating, Yahoo personals, chat lines, AOL.

SPEAKER_01: 22:05

Nice, then opened up for you.

SPEAKER_03: 22:07

So I'm able to meet an unlimited amount of people to validate me. So we're talking about hundreds of interactions.

SPEAKER_01: 22:15

Right. The options.

SPEAKER_03: 22:17

Yeah. Because this was a time where people weren't like, oh, people on the Internet are crazy. People was coming outside to meet you. So

SPEAKER_01: 22:24

we were parking lot pimping. I was able to.

SPEAKER_03: 22:26

Oh, my. Tell me about

SPEAKER_01: 22:27

it. Let's not talk about the parking lot pimping.

SPEAKER_03: 22:30

We're not even going to go

SPEAKER_01: 22:31

with.

SPEAKER_03: 22:32

Yeah. I had a lot of parking lot meetups. Yes. A ton. Because I was obsessed with. the connectivity, because remember I'm introverted, shy person. And people was like, I think you cute. And I'm like me. So everybody who wanted to date me got a date. Right. So I'm rinsing and ripping. So I fed up the process by this. And I had so many, many, you know, meet you one time and never see you again. And I had a lot of these. And so what this did for me subconsciously, is it started to hone a skill because now all of the things that I learned about human behavior, I got to test it out times a hundred. Right, right. Now you're talking about someone who can look at the average person and I can kind of catalog things now because I've had so many case studies, if you will,

SPEAKER_01: 23:19

right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 23:20

So now I'm like, okay, I've done this. But am I happy? Is there happiness at the end of this behavior?

SPEAKER_00: 23:26

It

SPEAKER_03: 23:27

took me a long time to get there because that trauma was leading the charge. And what it is, it's almost kind of like a duality in your personality. It's like the person that your parents raised are looking at you like an out-of-body experience. Like, is this who you are? Is this who you were raised to be? And are you happy? I

SPEAKER_01: 23:43

think we forget we're multifaceted. We're not just one thing. We're not linear.

SPEAKER_03: 23:48

And the way that I explain it to my clients is when you have a trauma, when that inner child is picking your dates for you, it's almost like that part of your personality is separate from you. the other side of you that knows what to do

SPEAKER_01: 24:01

yeah that makes sense and it overrides

SPEAKER_03: 24:04

right and so it overrides you because of the trauma because it's been with you forever and it's it's a part of your nature and who you are until you learn how to manage it better right right so when I had that kind of out-of-body experience and I'm looking at myself doing this stuff and I'm like Dude, you can't even sit at home on a Friday by yourself without having to jump up and go to the club and get another phone number. Like you can't even be by yourself for a weekend. Like this is almost like an addiction because you need to keep feeding it. Right. And I said, I am not happy. Yeah. But it's like it's on autopilot. So I was like, you have to stop. Like at this point, I didn't know it was a healing journey. I just knew that this was not because here's the thing. Here's the sick part of it. Right. I had to inadvertently hurt people. while also being an

SPEAKER_01: 24:51

empath. And that's hurtful. And

SPEAKER_03: 24:53

then I had to do it again.

SPEAKER_01: 24:54

It goes against your spirit. You know, that transference, it sits there.

SPEAKER_03: 24:58

You have to absorb their pain on the way out. And then you've got to go do it again because you're hungry for the connection and you've got to keep doing it again. And you carry all of that with you. And that's why I was like, I'm not happy. Like, this is really destroying me. And I'm the one that's doing this stuff. It's destroying me too. And so I said, you know, I'm going to have to like really This is where the sit down and heal comes from. I had to sit down. And even when Friday night came and I started shaking, stay home. Don't go outside. You got to just be still and really figure out what's going on. And that's when I really started looking at my life, looking at the behaviors and trying to figure out how do I emerge better. And I really got to a point where I was like, not only do you have to stop, but you have to create boundaries because you have an appetite for certain things. Even if it's just emotionally, like you gotta be able to tell yourself and or the person no. And I got to a point where I was like, okay, I think I'm better now. I understand myself a little more. And there's certain things that I just can't do. And so the next time I started going out, here comes temptation. Temptation's like, hey, I know you like a certain skin color. You like them to be a certain weight. That's the one that's going to sit next to you at the bar, smiling like,

SPEAKER_01: 26:16

hi. It's like the car you want to buy. You start seeing it everywhere all of a sudden. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 26:20

So I was like, somebody's testing me. And I was like, you know what? Here's the time to kind of put up or shut up. When those opportunities came, I was just like, no. Because even dialoguing with somebody, a little bit of dialogue, sometimes you could tell like, yeah, this one right here is going to be blowing up my phone next week. No, I'm not. And

SPEAKER_01: 26:41

you have to be careful just knowing who you

SPEAKER_03: 26:44

are,

SPEAKER_01: 26:45

especially as a wordsmith and you know how words hold power. You know, even if the world don't, you know how you can use your words well we can call it what it is to finesse to manipulate to influence people to go in the direction that you want to go just simply with a few words yeah with that kind of power you do you have to be cognizant of what you're telling women what you're what you're saying to them because honey they listening like you said not at your actions they listening to your words

SPEAKER_03: 27:16

yeah I got to understand the power of no. Even as a man, we know men normally don't really have a whole bunch of boundaries when it comes to that. So for me to say no as a man was hard in the face of these things and even with being intimate or having relations, when you detach yourself from it, you realize mentally and physically that it's not a need. And when you realize that it's not a need, then it does not become part of your motivating factors when you're outside. And it's easier to say no once you have detached hints to sit down and heal. Like you got to sit down and breathe and figure out how to detox yourself from the behavior. You can't just stop it today and tomorrow. Because I always coach people it's mostly women because men don't ask for help. They be getting better at it. So they would come and be like, I broke up with my boyfriend and I've detached from him and I've done the whole, you know, no contact and all

SPEAKER_00: 28:13

of that.

SPEAKER_03: 28:14

But I just can't be by myself. I need somebody. And I'm like, you don't need anyone. This is still fresh. Like you still going to have those withdrawals. But if you push through them, your decision-making ability increases to give you something that's a more logical decision. And so when I did that and I was able to say no, and I'm patting myself on the back, like, dude, you know, you, you probably would have talked to that one, but cause now I'm able to see the potential of what it could be. Yeah. This one, this one got some things going on that I'm not willing to, They be, you know, trying to come to, can I come to your house? I don't know you. You see

SPEAKER_01: 28:51

the red flags in them ahead of time and can avoid the future drama. You

SPEAKER_03: 28:55

start to see the world differently when you have more healed eyes and ears. The sense is changing. And when I did that, I was like, wow, like this sitting down and working on yourself works. And I didn't know that it would in the future become the basis of how I help other people heal.

SPEAKER_01: 29:12

Man, that's a beautiful thing. That's a beautiful thing in itself.

SPEAKER_03: 29:16

Yeah. So when I got to the other side, of course, you know, you get you still want to have triggers and being tempted and all of this, but you're in a way better space. And when I got to the space of a lot of those toxic behaviors, not even being a part of my thought process, not even prompting the behavior anymore. And I was at peace. That's when I met my wife. my now wife.

SPEAKER_01: 29:41

Wow. Before I step into that, you know, we're talking a lot about love, but before we go any further, I want to pause right here and ask you something that seems simple, but really isn't. What is love to you? Not what we've been taught, not the means or the quotes or the buzzwords, but in your own words, how do you define love based on what you've lived, what you've lost and what you've healed?

SPEAKER_03: 30:08

This is a good question. So I'm going to answer it with Derek's definition.

SPEAKER_01: 30:13

It's so nuanced, so nuanced.

SPEAKER_03: 30:16

Yeah, there's nuances depending on the individual. I know we try to put it in a box, but I think what I have learned and what it means to me is choosing it daily. It's not always going to be a 10 level. Right. Although people believe that that's how it should be. Yes. It's constant, but it fluctuates, right?

SPEAKER_02: 30:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 30:38

And I think that choosing it means that all of the minutia of the other things that happen in a relationship have to be working in concert, like even during conflict, even doing the I don't like you days. Right. That there is resolve. Right. There is commonality. There's the love to me encompasses all of the things that have to work together in order to keep that love going, even if that love is a five this week. It's still there. It's not going anywhere. Right. The actions that come along with it. It's a symbiotic relationship between the two things. They have to be present simultaneously. Right. Right. Good or bad. The actions, the feelings, the depth of it. Because without the actions, you just have emotion. Right. And you don't want to have a relationship that's solely based on emotion. We've seen this happen too, right? Yeah. And this is why people say love isn't enough to sustain a relationship. It's true. It is. You need both in order to sustain long term because it's not always going to be a 10. And when it's not a 10, what else do you have foundationally to keep it going? Right. And that's the respect. That's the all the other things that happen, you know, the love languages and all of that, right? Yeah. We can talk about love languages without talking about overarching love. Right. What am I going to make you feel safe? What am I doing? Now we're under the umbrella. If that stuff isn't present, the overarching love means nothing.

SPEAKER_01: 32:09

Exactly. Because everybody's out here talking about love. But what I've found is most people can't even define it for themselves. We confuse love with need, with control, with pain, with attachment. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 32:20

Some people lose all of it, but stay in a relationship. That's dangerous, right? It's not just the feeling, the actions that come along with it. It's a symbiotic relationship between the two things. They have to be present simultaneously, good or bad, the actions, the feelings, the depth of it. Because without the actions, you just have emotion.

SPEAKER_02: 32:44

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 32:44

You don't want to have a relationship that's solely based on emotion. We've seen this happen, too. Right. Right. And this is why people say love isn't enough to sustain a relationship. It's true.

SPEAKER_02: 32:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 32:56

So you need both in order to sustain long term because it is not always going to be a 10. And when it's not a 10, what else do you have foundationally to keep it going? And that's the respect. That's the. all the other things that happen, you know, the love languages and all of that, right? Yeah. We can talk about love languages without talking about The overarching love.

SPEAKER_02: 33:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 33:20

What am I going to make you feel safe? What am I doing? Right. Now we're under the umbrella. If that stuff isn't present, the overarching love means nothing.

SPEAKER_01: 33:28

Yeah, exactly. Because everybody's out here talking about love. But what I found is most people can't even define it for themselves. We confuse love with need, with control, with pain, with attachment. Yeah. I want to know how has your definition, Derek's definition of love changed as you've grown? Like, I know you don't look at love the way that you used to, and I'm sure you see it differently now.

SPEAKER_03: 33:52

So in the past, I thought of it as emotion only.

SPEAKER_00: 33:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 33:56

Right. And because, again, remember where I come from. The emotion is bigger to me. Yeah. The emotional attachment is bigger to me because of the lack of it growing up. So I took the emotional attachment as 90 percent of. What would be love or even connected in a relationship and the rest of it, we just figure out. But now today it's different because now I have proof of concept because we're going on 16 years married now. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 34:25

That's beautiful. Look at you. The nice villain. 16 years in the game.

SPEAKER_03: 34:30

The daily stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 34:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 34:32

Yeah. The daily stuff. means a lot. So if you're not able to function through that, then forget the emotional stuff. We ain't even going to be here. Right? That's why now I say they have to work in concert because even just conflict itself can bring life or death into a relationship depending on how you use it and so what I do as a healing journey coach is I help people understand why they show up even there the way that they do and a lot of times it has nothing to do with the partner in front of you it has to do with something that's been in you before you met them so like if you're and this is what I always like to illustrate to people because it's my story too but it's a lot of people's story You normally have one partner that wants to resolve now. Right. Then you have another partner that needs time.

SPEAKER_02: 35:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 35:23

If these two people don't understand each other, they will fight forever.

SPEAKER_01: 35:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 35:26

And then when you do the deeper work, you find out that one of them has an anxious attachment style, one of them has an avoidant, and they always end up finding each other. But the lesson that it is, is that the universe, God, whoever you want to call it, right? They put people together that are uniquely different. designed to trigger you into growth. But if you do not understand that that's what it's for, you will take it as an offense and you will fight.

SPEAKER_01: 35:53

Right. And you missed that growth lesson and that blessing.

SPEAKER_03: 35:57

Because I took the need for her to take time as abandonment. And it would piss me off because I'm like, so you don't want to solve it now? Right. And she's like, no, I need time before I could come back to speak to you logically and not. And I should be like running after her. Like, where are you going? And she's like, you're making it worse.

SPEAKER_01: 36:16

And then it becomes about everything else and not about what it was originally about. Now you start unpacking and nitpicking and it's death by a thousand cuts and we're never even getting to the most egregious

SPEAKER_03: 36:28

wound. And then you carry it because most people, especially men, aren't going to tell you that hurt me. You're just going to be like, you know what, you got it. And you're going to carry that for so long that then you're going to have to find somehow a to cope with the feeling and it's not going to be inside your house. That's why I'm like, now when I talk to people, I'm like, wait, wait, wait, you got to know because I know where this goes. That resentment runs deep.

SPEAKER_01: 36:52

It does.

SPEAKER_03: 36:52

It's self-imposed.

SPEAKER_01: 36:53

It is.

SPEAKER_03: 36:54

Right? Because I'm choosing not to speak up for myself. Right. So the other person doesn't even know that I'm hurt.

SPEAKER_01: 36:59

Right. But we expect them to know and expect them to see why through our actions, through our silence, the silent treatment, through holding your affection hostage and not giving it you know, that love and affection that most men, you know, love that physical touch, need that physical touch like you once did and you were missing. A lot of boys didn't get those healthy models of love or affection growing up. I got girls who are, I'm so uber affectionate and sometimes, you know, curse myself like, why? Why did you create such affectionate children? Because now you're sending them into the world that's affectionless. You know what I'm saying? You know, and I worry about them looking for that connection looking as a woman looking for that affection and man that opens these are why these conversations are important and so nuanced because I have so much I want to unpack and it is still never be enough because even then you have the nuances of that how you can even take that alone and have a whole conversation about black women looking for love and the fathers that they didn't have or the fathers that they did have or the men looking for the type of moms that they have whether they were toxic or whether they were good or a lot of men were raised by their grandmothers that's a whole conversation by itself. I find men who are raised by their grandmothers come out a little differently, too, when they come into adulthood. It is so, so, so much. I'm going to tell you my definition of love, and I want you to tell me how you feel about it. My definition of love is just one word, agape. And I feel like love starts there. That is the whole source. If it's not agape, is it really love? How can people who've never experienced Agape love. And when I say my definition for agape love is just that love that we give without conditions, without judgment, that's just pure, that you're doing it solely out the service to see people smile, to uplift them, to build them, to help them, just to be a service of human because you simply love love. For those who are spiritual and believe in the word of God, it tells you your greatest commandments is to love God and to love your neighbor. Right. Period. If you take everything out of the Bible and you're just left with that, what does that tell you? How you love God's people is a direct manifestation of how you say you love God. And how can you really love God if you don't love his people? And yeah, that's just how I leave it. So how I love on people is how I show not only love for my creator, but love for the world that we live in. I don't know if that's a good thing or... Or bathing. But that's that's how I treat love.

SPEAKER_03: 39:43

I'm going to tell you how I see it from what you said.

SPEAKER_01: 39:45

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_03: 39:46

Your definition of it is correct, but it is very rarely practiced. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 39:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 39:53

It's a very small percentage of the population who loves that way. Right. And mostly because of trauma.

SPEAKER_02: 39:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 40:00

Right. The trauma blocks the ability for people to really be free to love in that way. And a lot of people's motivations, even to even use the word love, come from a place of manipulation. And we're not talking about bad people. Right. If I am greedy for affection. Right. Let's say I'm a people pleaser. I'm a people pleaser. Right. So when I meet someone, I'm going to do things for you, for me to feel better about myself. It's not even a genuine love. It's really transactional. But to the person, it feels like love. They want to say, I love everything that I am. But you're really. loving them from a place of trauma where you feel like you have to overdo just to keep them.

SPEAKER_01: 40:40

Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 40:41

And that isn't It's not a reciprocal type of situation. So that's why like this whole thing of even therapy and just trying to figure out the why. Like even if you took therapy out, just be curious about why you behave the way you do. Most people don't do that.

SPEAKER_01: 40:54

Right. Because that's self-reflection. That's looking inward and scary in there.

SPEAKER_03: 40:59

So now you have most people don't do this because they have created a life that functions in society, whether it's healthy or not. You wake up and you go to work. You take care of your kids and you're functioning, but you're really not looking at your higher self. You're really not looking at how you connect with people. You just worrying about getting out of survival mode. Right. This is mostly the country. So when you talk about agape type of a love, people don't even make time to even feel that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 41:24

Yeah. It's

SPEAKER_03: 41:25

unfortunate.

SPEAKER_01: 41:26

How do people recognize the difference between agape love and people who are, like you said, just using that to heal something inside of them, that people pleasing thing? Because, you know, at the end of the day, I feel like that's exactly what's missing in the world is simply love. People, the definition is obscure, is nuanced for people. People look at love differently. I mean, there's so much that comes under that umbrella.

SPEAKER_03: 41:51

Well, you know, it's unfortunate that we, society, has so many, so much conditioning, so many experiences that we have, whether it's childhood, whether it's friends, whether it's church, whatever it is in your life that builds you into who you are. There's so much in there that creates you. that sometimes people get so lost in that that they don't even look for the agape love. They feel like their functioning life, even if it's dysfunctional, is what life is supposed to be because they don't have anything else modeled for them. And that's why your podcast, my show, and people who are willing to hoist, whoever's willing to be hoisted up on their shoulders and say, hey, you can be different. This is an example of how. And then a lot of times, even with me, with men, When they see me be vulnerable, then they're like, maybe I can too. Right. But if you don't have people that are willing to be some type of an example to give you some type of hope.

SPEAKER_01: 42:49

Give them those tools in the toolbox you mentioned.

SPEAKER_03: 42:52

Yeah. So it's a tough world. But what I tell the people under my covering as a coach, my folks, when they graduate from my system, the eyes and the ears that they have are more healed. Yeah. And they will not allow people in their energetic space that does not belong. Yeah. And so what that does is if let's say they're single and they're looking for their partner, their life partner, they're more apt to meet another person who has worked on themselves because they know what the other thing looks like more than they ever have, which means the type of love that you are talking about increases for them to find because a healed person can find another healed person.

SPEAKER_01: 43:33

Right. Energy is everything.

SPEAKER_03: 43:35

Yeah. Without that. You will keep picking the heel person if they don't use the tools. A

SPEAKER_01: 43:41

cycle.

SPEAKER_03: 43:41

They will still be attracted to the same thing and they'll go over there. And that's why the whole boundaries and all of this thing is very important. Right. And most of the people that come to me in this state, I tell them you're under my covering now. And as your coach, you are not allowed to go date anyone until I tell you you can go back outside.

SPEAKER_01: 43:58

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 44:00

And you know why I do that? You got to sit down, right? And they're like, can I just have a friend? Can I just somebody who's in my DMs? No. Don't talk to nobody until you know. And they're like, they get mad at me. And I'm like, no, you cannot. Your body and your mind are trained to desire this. It's not working for you. And the reason why I can tell them this with a certainty is because I was the dude that you're afraid of. Like I understand what that person would see in you. So let's say you take five of my workshops and you're like, okay, coach, I took the workshops and I think I'm ready. If I smell it on you, just like I would if I was outside analyzing behavior, I'm going to tell you, you're not ready yet. If I can smell it, they will too. Because I was a damn good one because of this mind my mama made me have. I was able to pick out the little crumbs of the cookie. Like, wait, no, she said that one word. Like, so if I see that in you and you're under my covering, you're not ready yet. So I have people that have graduated my system where they will unapologetically tell you, that they are good.

SPEAKER_00: 45:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 45:03

They be talking about going on solo trips and doing all this stuff and I'm not afraid to do this and I'm like, that's the whole point. Exactly. Be okay by yourself so you don't have a need to give people control of your self-worth and your self-esteem because you don't have it.

SPEAKER_01: 45:17

Right. Right. I appreciate you for that insight. I ask all this Because I believe in love. Real love is missing. It's been mutated, especially in our community. When you look at how love shows up in Black families, Black partnerships, Black spaces, what do you see that's been passed down that maybe we never questioned? Like the patterns. What patterns do you notice that aren't love, but we've been calling it that? I

SPEAKER_03: 45:46

think that when you talk about Black love, love and the things that have been passed down, I think the unfortunate tragedy is that and I don't like to be the guy to be like, oh, the government did this or that.

SPEAKER_01: 46:00

No, but it's valid. It's a valid conversation.

SPEAKER_03: 46:03

It's a part of it, but I like to look deeper.

SPEAKER_01: 46:06

Right. You have to get to the root of things in order to.

SPEAKER_03: 46:10

Yeah, so what I typically see as a pattern is that by however it happened, right, you have generation or two where the Black man, by whatever struggle, whatever you want to call it, had been conditioned, whether self-imposed or not, Right. Of course. Right. or some men who treat you in an abusive way or treat you like you're not even human because we're conditioned to acquire you, not love you, right? So when you take generations of this, you give birth to a population of women that say, men ain't bleep. Get it by yourself. We don't need them for anything. It disrupts everything energetically. And you can't fully blame women You can't fully blame men, but the minutiae between it creates chaos because now the natural order has been destroyed. And so when you have women, women are human. So you ultimately, no matter what comes out your mouth, you really want and desire to have someone to have your back, to love you and all these things. But your defense mechanisms are so high that now even a man who is willing to give you that, you're going to push him away because you have to defend yourself. Right. Right. whatever superhero you need to be. And you got to show up in your relationships and be demure and be this and be that. It's hard for one human to do all of that. And so when you have that sentiment, you may have a man that say, why aren't you softer? Why aren't you? And she's looking at you like, do you see what I'm doing? When you do all of that, It's hard to breathe and be agape love. Right. You got all of this. And so it's hard to carry just the relationship stuff on top of the contention between black men and black women and deal with the world to be parents. Yes. Yeah. It's tough. It's tough for both.

SPEAKER_01: 48:41

And it feels impossible sometimes. And people give up because of that.

SPEAKER_03: 48:46

Yeah. And then which happens as a human. You're the hero in your story. So who are you going to blame? Right.

SPEAKER_01: 48:51

That's true.

SPEAKER_03: 48:52

Now you have all of these live streams going back and forth, going crazy on each other, trying to figure out who's wrong and who's right instead of trying to figure out how we fix it. And that is also a problem because a human and it doesn't necessarily have to be race specific, but you want to find a reason why you're in the position you're in. And most of us don't want to look at ourselves. So. We're going to fight the person in front of us.

SPEAKER_01: 49:13

Right. How do we entangle all of that? That generational stuff, the wounds, those patterns, that survival mode love that starts showing up in our relationships because it always does.

SPEAKER_03: 49:25

Yeah, it's it's a lot. It's a lot to digest. But I think that we see pockets of hope. We don't see a community of hope, but we see pockets of hope. Like you're part of the pocket. I'm a part of pocket in championing love. genuine agape love is the goal, right? Even if we don't achieve it all the way, but we want that. I think a lot of it comes from people seeing other people like yourself, myself, and a lot of others not being afraid to speak about it instead of just existing in it to say, hey, here's something different. We got to look at ourselves a little bit. And then when you actually, what I try to do, and even what I've done on this podcast today, is to be unapologetically vulnerable about my experience so that when I tell it, then people can say me too. And if they can say me too, then we are now connected in that way. And you can also possibly see that there's a way out because I found a way out. You understand? So it's like people give themselves permission to be vulnerable when they feel like it's safe to be so. And so I provide a platform where Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, I don't experience your life as a woman. I'll never know what it feels like, but I know what pain feels like. Right. I know emotion. I know devastation. And so I connect with them there and then we can talk about the rest of the stuff on the back end. But that's how I connect with people because to be a light for someone who may be in despair right now, it happens.

SPEAKER_01: 51:15

Yes. Yes. I say it too often. And you just mentioned that just women and what you help them with. I want to pivot there real quick because what I find to be just in my Yeah. Yeah. Hold it in no matter what. That once again, a piece of a man is better than no man in awe or love who loves you, even if that love is toxic. On the flip side, I see a lot of black men who expect their partners to be their healer, their therapist, their emotional translator, their peace. I hear that. Be my peace. Instead of doing the work themselves and learning that in order to receive peace from a woman, you yourself have to be peaceful. Yeah. Why do you think so many of us get caught up in the role of fixer in relationships? Is it love? Is it control? Or is it conditioning?

SPEAKER_03: 52:20

Here's the sentiment, right? And the overarching thing of what I'm about to say is we had a period of time where things were one way. Now things are different. And so we're in a period of correction. That's why everybody's fighting each other, right? So what tends to happen is, generally speaking, women tend to be more nurturing than men, right? A nurturer is a problem solver, a fixer by nature, whether a man is present or not. So when you enter in a man, a man who has not worked on anything, he shows up as broken because you're going to see his outbursts. You're going to see him not be able to handle things and keep it in. Women, you always see the pattern changes. You always see where the issues are, because that's a part of who you are naturally. Right. As you solve these problems of emotion, you solve these problems of nurturing and coddling and making sure because it's part of your nature. Right. So you're naturally going to want to do this for the person that you love the most. Right. The problem is, is that the person that you love the most don't even know what that feel like. There's nothing wrong with me. Stop. Leave me alone. What's wrong with

SPEAKER_01: 53:32

you? It's just the way I am. Take it or leave

SPEAKER_03: 53:34

it. We've been trained to not do it where you... You don't even have to have it modeled for you. It's innate for you to nurture. Right. Right. So you're going to see a lot of women who fix, who want to fix. There's a guy sleeping on your couch. I

SPEAKER_01: 53:49

call him the Bob, the builder.

SPEAKER_03: 53:51

Yeah. You got that. You got the hobo sexual sitting on your couch, not paying no bills because you hoping that they're going to become something greater. and you will destroy yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 54:01

Right. And before you even go to those men, because the offshoot of that, Derek, is once you build them up, now you're no longer, you know what I'm saying? You no longer fit into what you created because while you were busy fixing them, you were never growing with them. You weren't even fixing yourself and working on those things that you needed to work on.

SPEAKER_03: 54:21

You're actually deteriorating from where you were in the beginning. So it definitely will be unequal at this point, right? And so they're always surprised when he moves on and I'm like...

SPEAKER_01: 54:31

You left me for...

SPEAKER_03: 54:35

Y'all don't match anymore. Don't get me started. So now when you talk about men and the man's quest for what you said was correct, they're looking for a therapist. They're looking for somebody to help keep them calm because the trauma is so high, right? And it's unresolved. So they're thinking that if you are a person who doesn't give them any pushback, who lets them kind of just be That's peace to them. Right. Quiet. Just leave me alone. And if you do that, then we'll be OK. But that doesn't solve anything. Right. And so now the correction is, is that we know that men need to meet you in the middle. Right. And it's hard for a lot of men because this is not how we were trained. This is not our conditioning. We've never seen men go to therapy. We've never seen men say, you know what? I'm depressed right now. And I don't know if I could take the trash out tomorrow because I need to sit down. You're not going to get up. You're not going to get that from a lot of men. But women are screaming for it. Like if you just meet me here, I'm still going to be nurturing. But at least I know what to nurture. At least I know because now I'm going to come at you wrong because I don't know. I'm going to be like, why aren't you talking to me? What? What? What? And he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Now I ain't going to never talk. So it's that it's all of that. Right. So it's it's very. unfortunate because there was a time in history where men could be like this and it was OK.

SPEAKER_01: 56:02

Right. Right. And they could go to their queen and discuss. Exactly. And they value their insight. You know, the wisdom. They knew that if I come to you with something, you're going to help navigate and course correct. I could trust your course correction.

SPEAKER_03: 56:17

And so now that women don't have to depend on men financially, there's an open space of I don't need. I want you. I want us to build together, but I don't need you for that. So now what's left? All the emotional stuff, the minutia that I talked about, about love and then all of that stuff now is more important. And the man is like, what you talking about? Wait, I got to do that too now? I just can't pay the bill? Right. I'm a man. Oh my God, I have to now emotionally connect with you? I don't know how to do that. Right. And so it becomes this thing where now if a man says, I can't do that, then he's like, well... I'm not that's not what I'm supposed to be. So you're the problem. Right. You're the one who made me upset. And the woman is like, no, because you're not emotionally intelligent. She's like, you're the problem. And so now everybody's just like not trying to bend. Yeah. To meet in the middle with this new what they call modern era that we're in. Right. They don't want to. adapt to the changes, even though we adapt to the changes everywhere else in our lives. Yeah. This is the one place where we putting our toes, two toes down. Stay stuck. I ain't gonna change. But everything around us is evolving. Right. Even how we parent our kids. Yeah. We can't do that like how we used to.

SPEAKER_01: 57:33

We cannot. These kids ain't built like that. Right. So many people are traditionalists. They can't reconcile that the world will never be the same again. That each generation, each century, each timeline feels the same, but it looks different. And we have to be able to... Like you said, adapt, keep up with the changes in the world. And we have to restructure our perspective based on the world that we see in that and that we're living in. But if you're trying to stay stuck in the past and apply things that may have worked in now, that's just not. It's not going to happen. The

SPEAKER_03: 58:11

funny thing, real quick, real quick. The funny thing about, well, not funny, haha, but funny irony is that you'll have a population of women that will tell a man that he has to be more vulnerable, right? Then said man says, you know what? I'm going to start to share more. Then he goes outside and he's sharing more. And then you have another population of women that says you ain't no real man. Right. Why are you being so vulnerable? That ain't no man.

SPEAKER_01: 58:35

Right. Right. You sassy. You

SPEAKER_03: 58:38

sensitive. Then he's like, well, damn, I might have to go ahead and hide again.

SPEAKER_01: 58:43

Yeah. Yeah. So

SPEAKER_03: 58:43

it's not just men doing it to ourselves.

SPEAKER_01: 58:45

Not at all. There are

SPEAKER_03: 58:46

also women who buy into that philosophy as well. And they will push that man back down, too. Right. So from a man's perspective. You have to weigh the options of how you're going to be dependent on who you with. So the safest thing to do is to just keep being stoic. That way I cover all of it, but it's not healthy to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 59:07

Growth is a beautiful thing. I see nothing wrong with helping your people you love grow. Nothing is wrong with that at all. How do you know when you're trying to help your partner grow versus when you're carrying their healing for them? Because there's a difference between supporting someone and saving them. How do we draw the line, especially when the bond is deep?

SPEAKER_03: 59:29

Well, here's the thing that most people don't want to hear. When you're talking about healing, when you're talking about trauma, where you can see these things. Most of us aren't capable. What we want to do is we want to help cure it, right? We can't do that. You can be supportive, but we can't fix something that your mama did to you when you was 10. You can't do that. Like this is not, Unfortunately, not our job and we are not qualified to help them push through that. The problem is most people won't go seek help. So you're stuck in a house with a person with the issues. And so you try to like fight through it with them.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:04

You can't love the healing out of a person. You can care. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:08

You can support. Right. But once you actually realize that it's really trauma. then you have to understand that it's not you that can fully fix it. And you can't love trauma away.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:18

This will be trying to do is try to do extra, try to fix, try to do

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:22

love the hell out of them. The literal hell out of a man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:26

Yeah. Doing more does not help. And even if it does feel like it helps, it's really a bandaid. It's going to keep resurfacing. Yeah. It's just like somebody that I talked to, they were like, You know, they had dated this guy for like maybe under a year and they knew that he had anger issues. Right. They knew. And so he had anger issues and then they broke up with him because of the issues. Right. Then he kind of got himself together. Now, they wasn't living together or anything. And he showed her better. Right. Right. Until they moved in together because now he didn't have a place to escape. And the anger showed back up and it heightened from where it was before until it got physical.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:06

Because when they were living in separate houses, he could hide it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:09

Exactly. So

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:10

it never went anywhere. No matter how much she loved him, no matter how much they pretended. Yeah. Outside. His crutch was that he was able to go home and vent.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:21

When they lived in the same house, she got to catch all of it. And then they ended up breaking up again because she was like, oh, no, nobody's going to touch me. You know, so it's like, no, it's tough when you don't know the why. That's why this whole platform of mine switched to this, because if we don't tackle that, you can take what I always tell people, you can take two things. good people with two intentions, good intention that they will destroy each other because the communication about who they are isn't talked about. What

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:52

is that saying?

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:53

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:56

You can take good people and destroy each other just from them being one anxious and one avoided. They will destroy and hate each other in the end because they don't understand the motivation. What I always like to say Right. Exactly. Right. you will believe that you're right every time and you will fight for you being right every time and be totally wrong. Yeah,

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:38

exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:39

That little kid is like, nah, we need to go. They just yelled at us. That's your mama. Exactly. You got to treat them like how you feel. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. I didn't really raise my voice, but you perceived it as that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:51

Exactly. That word choice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:55

When you actually parse out conflict in people, you can literally see That little kid raising up and getting

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:03

triggered. Exactly. You can. You can. And it's easier to focus on that instead of the actual trigger. What is actually triggering you right now? My

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:13

trigger in my infinite wisdom is criticism of my character.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:17

Yes. I hate that too. Because

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:19

I still have some people pleaser in me a little bit, right? So I feel like I'm overdoing things to make sure you're good. So if you find, you know what? You never do. Never? Yeah. Whoa, whoa. Right. And I black out. Look how quickly you shift. I was like, you just said never. That means since you met me?

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:38

Because now we're not even getting to even the purpose of what you were even going to say. Yeah. The root of it, the meat of it, what you do, we take those little words out of context. All it takes is a word, a sentence.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:50

You say never and always will always send me somewhere. And so I had to really, 2024, I was like, why is it so intense?

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:01

Because I'm good everywhere else. I'm a damn coach. Like, I know these things. Why this one thing I can't control? And so I got into therapy just for that alone. I was like, I need to understand this because I can't control it. Right. And I realized the therapist does their job, but I'm a hell of an overthinker. So I figured it out on my own. Right. I realized that as a kid, I had to overdo things to get Mm. And I also... Yeah. Right. Right. Right. No way. Just yesterday, you said that I was the most amazing person in the world. And now today I'm the devil. How does that work? And I will literally spend time over explaining why I'm not that person to the point where the other person is like, damn, OK, I heard you. Right. You still nagging. Right. Now you're nagging. Yeah. So I had to. That's something that I have to actively work on, not just. At work, my boss used that word one time in the middle of a meeting with a bunch of people at the table.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:31

Like, oh, hold up. Just instant.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:33

I'm like, I've been here 20 years and you talk about I never do my reports right. Hold on, sir. Hold on. I was like, we're not going to do that. I said, one of our voices is elevated and one isn't. I'm going to need you to meet me here in front of all these people because we're not going to do

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:49

that. You're going to retract that. And

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:52

I'm the conflict avoider. So this was not my character to do this out in public. like that

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:57

right

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:57

but that trigger rant runs deep

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:59

right

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:01

I'm sorry I'm sorry

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:04

um you are hilarious now um you made me miss my next excuse me sir excuse me sir um the next question now look We've already touched on the wounds, the trauma, the fixer role. Now it's time to talk about when it ends and all the emotional fallout that comes with it, especially for people who've never been taught how to let go without losing themselves. So sometimes love doesn't survive the healing. Sometimes no matter how deep the connection is, the relationship ends. And that part, we don't talk about that enough. How do you guide people through breakups, especially the ones where love was present but growth wasn't? Because pain doesn't just come from toxic relationships. Sometimes the most painful breakups are the ones where you both meant well but couldn't meet each other where you needed to be. How do we grieve that and process the end of a relationship without becoming bitter, guarded, or emotionally shut down?

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:10

Well, see, so the answer to that is... It's the same answer to a lot of the other things we discussed is understanding the why. Right. And so you peel back the layers. Right. There's a difference between. And I think I might I think I might have to do a live about this today. There's a difference between moving on and letting go. There are two different things. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:35

Right. Definitely.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:36

And the letting go part is difficult because. A lot of times we are in relationships that are based on attachment and not alignment. Right. Right. Right. So when you attach to someone those hooks, it's like a hook when you fish and it has that little barb thing on it. It's hard to pull it away because you spend so much time attaching.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:57

Sometimes it feels better just to leave it in.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:59

This is why I love what I do. The healing space is because everything connects, right? Yeah. The reason why you attach comes from something from your childhood. So when you attach to someone, it's deeper than just love. It's deeper than you just being with them. It's something that you need. Right. Right. Which means you're going to sacrifice parts of yourself to achieve it. When you stay with a person long enough and you break up, it's not just you detaching from love. You're detaching from an attachment.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:27

Oh, you definitely need to do a live.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:30

That's why it hurts so deep, because it's not just you. It's the little girl to the suffering, because now you're That little girl doesn't get fed to make her feel safe. And safety isn't always pleasant. Safety could be abuse, could be safe for her. She's disconnecting from that, which she believes that she needs in order to feel loved. That's why it's so hard to let go because attachment. Because if you just love somebody, but they hurt you, you can detach from them. You're like, man, I don't want that hurt no more.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:00

But when you have an attachment... Let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:04

You can't even stop thinking. You got to call them back to make sure that they're okay and they're the abuser. You don't even know how to function without it because of the attachment. That attachment is big and that attachment goes back to whether it's conscious or subconscious. It's before you even met the person. It's why you chose them. It's why you stayed when you know it wasn't good. And to your point, even if You feel like the relationship was mostly good and there wasn't anything crazy. A lot of times your attachment style still plays in.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:35

Right. And so let's say you amicably feel like you both need to part. Well, maybe your attachment style or whatever it is that made you hook into them. It wasn't anything crazy or negative. Right. But the attachment is still there. Right. Because remember, my view is. of what love is was there before I met you. So when I meet you and everything is pleasant, my little kid is still happy. Right. Pleasant, happy. Right. Right. But that doesn't mean that we are aligned. Yeah. You could take two people that are wholly toxic and put them together. Right. So when they break up, they'd be like, we had no issues. We never argued. But the toxicity, the trauma binded you. This is how it feels. Right. When you are on the phone for the first time, and let's say you have an abandonment history, right? You get on the phone with this person for three, four hours. Y'all just going and talking. You will get off the phone and say,

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:38

I

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:39

feel like I've known you my whole life. I think this is the person for me. Oh my God. And you don't have any defining information to support your claim. Nothing at all. But you needed it so bad that your mind, Made it true. That's so true. So when you attach, even in that moment, you know how easy it's going to be for that person to manipulate you without having to even see your face? That

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:04

young Derek.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:05

Yeah. And so now when you get into a relationship, guess what you're going to do? everything you have to do to make sure that it don't feel like conflict. You're going to fix it, right? Here comes everything back again. Right. You're going to try to fix it. You're going to try to avoid the conflict so it looks like peace. So if and when the breakup happens, you're going to be like, everything was cool. No, you worked your butt off to make it look like that. Right. And so now when you detach, even though you thought it was good, you're still going to feel like the same person that dealt with verbal abuse. You're going to still go through the same trauma because it was a fake trauma Peace. You were never at peace internally. Right. So when you break up, there's a part of you that needed it too.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:47

Man, I love your mind. Listening to all of this, it's so heavy. It

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:52

is.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:53

Because love isn't just emotional. It's deeply mental. It is. It is. It truly is. And I want to take a moment here and talk about that mental health side of all this, the breakups, the trauma, the responsibility, the emotional labor of healing in real time with another person. That stuff takes a toll. But in your work, how often do you see mental health show up as that silent factor in relationship struggles, not just diagnosed issues, but those suppressed emotions, the burnout, resentment, anxiety, the anxiety Abandonment wounds, all of it. Do you find that people even realize how much their mental health is affecting the way they show up in love?

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:33

They do not. And here's why. The reason why you don't realize it is because you have taken your struggle, you have taken your trauma and you have in a human way. normalized it enough for you to function in the world and not feel it outwardly. Right. And even if you do, you have coping mechanisms like liquor or something else to numb the pain, go to a bar on Friday. And they're like, I'm just here to take the edge off. It's been a hell of a week. Right. Every week is a hell of a week. That means you've got something you've got to work on, bro. Like man, every week is the worst week you ever had. And you got to drink this bottle.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:08

Man,

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:08

something ain't right in your weeks. Right. Right. Right. But we, Like I told you earlier, because we wake up and do the schedule, we don't have to tackle the trauma because I'm getting a paycheck every two weeks. I'm a great parent. So let me, and you may not be as great a parent as you think you are because I coach those kids when they turn 50 and I'm like, yeah, something wasn't right. Right. And so most people don't identify with their trauma or the issues or the mental health aspect of it because they have to still get up every morning and deal with life and push through.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:40

That's

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:40

enough. Yeah. going to tackle it will disrupt your functionality, right? And so if I can create a life that functions and I'm surviving, just surviving is enough for people to not want to go back and look at how they can make it better because it can

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:56

stop. Some people feel like they don't even have the luxury of even stopping to check on their mental or focus on that because they're too busy surviving. They ain't got time for that. They're built to do this, do that. And they won't even check in with themselves.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:11

Nope. Nope. They can't because most of America is living check to check. Right. You can't afford to stop. You got to work two, three jobs. You got to make sure your kids have what they want. You got to make sure if you're married, your spouse is getting what they need. Something's going to fall by the wayside and it's normally you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:27

I would tell myself, you know, something got to give, but it's not going to be me. Something is going to break, but it's not going to be me.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:34

Because you can't put yourself at the top of the list because then everything else you feel in your mind I can't make time for myself because everything else will fall. Most people I coach, I'm in that number two. You put yourself last because you have so much dependent on you that you forget about you. You don't take care of yourself the way you need to. You might not even be showering every day. You've got to figure out how you're going to wake up every morning and smile and give your kids an example. You've got to smile and make sure your boss is happy at work and then you come home and all you've got left is the ability to pass out and go to sleep and wake up and do it again.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:06

I call it the piece of the pie. Each day, you've got to pie you have to divvy it up some days this person gonna get this big a slice some days tomorrow it might be a smaller slice either way it go you gotta pick and choose you know where you portion those slices those pieces of you out parcel them out as you say and at the end of the day there's nothing left but crumbs left in that pan and that's for you you have to set a piece of the pie and put it up like Thanksgiving before you even fix your plate fix your to-go plate and put it away

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:37

because what happens is that when you are living in this survival cycle and you're putting yourself last, it's like you don't even care about the piece of the pie anymore. You're serving so many other things and so When people get coached by me, we work very heavily on self-awareness, but we also work really heavily on boundaries, right? Because a lot of times the reason why we're in survival mode is because we don't tell certain people no, like our parents, right? We feel like we got to jump when they want us to jump and we got to jump to go through this. And we can't say, no, I can't do that today. It's like a part of your system. But if you say no on Monday, right? I tell them to take it in small chunks. You say no on Monday. Now you have time to take care of yourself for two, three hours. You didn't go run or do this. this thing and what you find in practice and you know this when you tell people no they feel like they're dependent on you the thing that they want it still gets done

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:29

right people find a way yeah because if I wasn't able to do it you gonna go find somebody else or find another way to go get it done if I wasn't here if I died tomorrow exactly you gonna find a way to get it done

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:41

so we put that on ourselves and we create a world where we feel like we can't breathe but there is space if you parse out your 24 hours there's space there right you just don't believe lead there is.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:53

For you personally, Derek, you're doing this work every day, holding space for other people's pain. How do you manage your own mental and emotional health while doing this work? Because I know firsthand healing other people while you're still healing yourself is no small thing. And even if you feel you are in a good space mentally and or are healed or healing, transference of all of this heaviness is really possible. So What practices, boundaries, or rituals keep you grounded and protected from others' pain? Okay,

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:26

this is a good question. And I've mostly solved this issue and I'll tell you how, what it is, right? So when I started coaching, even in the relationship side, you still are absorbing people's pains, right? And being an empath, right? So now what I realized in coaching the way Traditionally, you know, you would charge for our one on one session and I was doing these one on ones and I realized that I wasn't always OK after the session. Right. Because in this makeup of who I am, how many of these one on ones could I take in a week and still be OK? Right. And let's say your business starts to grow and you had to take on more clients. How could I as a human take on all of it and still be OK being an empath and absorbing their stuff? And the way that I help people because of all of my stuff that I've been through and all of my trauma, I have to take myself back to my own in order for them to trust me that I know about theirs. So I have to relive this in real time. Remember what the pain felt like and then get off the phone and have to take time. When I go live, I have to take an hour after I finish my lives because I'm talking about myself. They don't notice all the time, but I'm talking about myself. When I talk about survival mode, I'm reliving it in real time. So what I realized about myself, number one, I have to recharge myself and disconnect and really kind of get myself back to center. Actors have to do this too, right? When they get into a role. But furthermore, I realized that taking in people's traumas in the way that I was on the phone. Because, you know, when people get you on the phone, they throw up all of their stuff on you. They don't have a filter.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:16

It's like a goulash of just everything.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:19

Yeah, because for a lot of people, this is the first time that they have a nonjudgmental ear, right? So they want to give you all of it, right? They don't care about the hour. They want to just keep going. And then as an empath, you want to keep going too because you have an innate need to help them. And you're like, wait, I'm going an hour and a half. It's two hours. Wait, wait, we got to get off the phone. So what I realized, number one, I can't keep doing these one-on-ones without me kind of suffering from it. So what I did was Here comes the analyst, right? Thanks, mom.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:48

Shout out, mom. Mama.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:49

I said to myself, if I catalog what I have to tell people to help them and compartmentalize them into categories, right? Because in this human existence, it's not so but so many ways you're going to be hurt. Yeah. So I'm going to categorize what's the most popular things that most people need to in this space. And I, what I did was I created workshops, live workshops where I would talk to many about a topic instead of one. I record that workshop and then it lives on my website forever as a per purchase. So now when you come to me and say, Hey, I'm having a problem with a breakup. I'm going to send you to how to recover from a breakup workshop. Now I don't have to talk to you one-on-one and absorb your pain. You're going to go do self-study. And then when you have a question, I can now answer your separate little question on the side, but I'm not taking in the brunt because the video is going to step you through all of the stuff where you would have thrown up on me. You can be like, oh, my God, I got the answer. So now when they come back, here's the beautiful thing about this thing that I created. Right. So now I have a library of prerecorded workshops that speak to most issues. Right. And so here's the genius in the design. It wasn't planned this way, but this is the genius in the design. I have a three tiered approach to helping people heal. So imagine like a pyramid that's sectioned into three pieces, right? The top part is your complaint. This is where you throw up about the stuff you've been through. Oh my God, the narcissist. Oh my God, I'm hurt. Can you please help me, right? The middle tier are the negative experiences that you experience that create the top layer. The bottom layer, the biggest foundational layer is all the stuff that you never worked on, right? So then you dare step yourself back up The stuff you didn't work on helps create the negative experiences. The negative experiences create your complaints, right? Right. Notice the math in this, right? It's all about math. Right. So now if I eliminate you complaining in my ear for an hour and I say, give me the gist of what you think you need to work on. Right. Okay, cool. That fits in a certain category. We're going to skip talking about your experiences and we're going to start talking about your childhood wounds at the bottom. We're going to work on building you up.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:08

Yeah. Let's get to the foundation. Right. We're going

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:11

to build up your healing. We're going to build up your healthy boundaries. We're going to make you a better person. And then the middle tier starts to change. Exactly. Now you start to have more positive experiences because you're not sitting in places you shouldn't be in. And guess what happens to the complaints at the top? They disappear. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:29

Right. I love that. So

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:30

you're not going to waste my time on the phone. Are you going to be mad at me? I just want to tell you that my boyfriend, I don't need to know the details. Yeah, we're going to get to the bottom of it and you're going to figure it. Here's the other genius part of it. I don't have to absorb it, which means I'm OK to help more people. Right. It's very scalable. I can take a thousand people tomorrow with my system and not feel it. Right. Right. Number two, I don't do the work for you. Right. You have all the material. You have me talking to you through video that you can go back and replay six months from now if you need a refresher. Yeah. So you are driving the car. I'm just the guardrails to make sure you don't get off path. Now, if you are not convicted in your healing journey and you stop, I don't you got to come to me. I'm not going to come find you. So some people don't take a couple and they dive off. They're not ready. But guess what? They can always come back when they feel like it, when they feel like they're ready. I coach the coachable, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:25

Right. The ready.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:25

So while you're going through self pacing, it's your pace. You have all the materials. You need to call me. Hey, coach, where do I go next? Cool. Hey, coach, I took this workshop and I have a question. Cool. I'm taking little increments of you instead of the big thing that's going to make me pass out. And I can't.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:42

Exactly. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:44

So now. My system works when I'm sleeping. Yeah, I still get to be an empath. I still get to be This is my sister. A lot of people, when they come in, they're like, I don't want to do it that way. I just want to get on the phone with you. And I'm like, that's not how this operates.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:57

Right. Because that goes back to that abandonment. You just want somebody to talk to. Are you really interested in your healing? So

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:03

if you are not convicted enough to watch one video, you don't deserve to get on the phone with me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:08

I know. That's right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:08

That's how I filter people.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:10

That's right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:11

Some people you need to get on the phone. This stuff is a little nuanced, but 99 percent of people who are come to my system and they go through it and I offer myself to you. If you are under my covering, you can come to me for questions.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:25

Yeah, right. Because you can't help them if they're not willing to help themselves.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:30

Right. One out of 10 comes back to ask for questions. Why? Because the other nine, my stuff is so intuitive that they don't need it. 10 people who want to go through the whole process, one of them will come back and say, I got a question. I got a question. The rest of them is like, I'm good. And I'm like, wait, I thought I'm available for quick. And they don't they don't come back. Right. They work on themselves and they get it done.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:53

Yeah. I love how not only what you're doing helps you, but it helps you help them. Yeah. And then not only does that keep you protected mentally, emotionally, spiritually, it keeps you from from wasting your time. Let's just call a spade a spade. Yeah. Because you can want healing, but you have to understand that that's you. You have to do the work. There's no coach. There's no therapist. There's no. workshop that you can go to that's going to do the work for you. And that self-reflection is what people avoid because it's dark and it's ugly and it's angry. And there's a little kid, like you said, that little kid in there that's in there having a nanny 911 temper tantrum. Yeah. And you don't want to deal

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:35

with that. Exactly. And some have tried. And I'm like, did you take the workshop? No. OK, then we're not. You got to do you got to get the primer before you get the main thing. But here's the last unintended side effect. of my system, which was born out of my frustration of taking in so much trauma and not being able to handle it. The last side effect in this thing that I call a genius system is when you are getting such intuitive information and a lot of the work you're doing on your own, even though you have my voice on video and you have my voice when you come to my lives, which are, you know, free or whatever, or you come to my YouTube and you get all of that information, you are doing the work, right? When you then get to a point where you are ready to graduate, so to speak, and really be able to kind of like float with your own wings, you realize that you have not built a dependency on me because you look back and you realize that you did most of the work. Even if I gave you some assistance, maybe I guardrailed you a little bit. You did it. You know how little kids feel when they do the project and they're like, I did it. I did it. You get to really look at your healing journey and say, thank you, coach, but I'm good. Yeah. Like, I don't need to keep calling you. And people who are used to sessions will get addicted to the sessions and they feel like they got to keep. I don't have those people. They've done the work themselves with my me being like the little person on the shoulder. Right. Everybody who's been coached by me when I released them. Right. They'll come back and say I was outside and I was about to make a move. But then I heard your voice because they were listening to the video and the voice is saying, don't do it. You know, that's your inner child. Right. They literally all of a sudden say they hear my voice. And I'm like, if that's what makes you make the right decision, then so be it. Keep listening. Most people in the workshops, they have not watched them less than five times a piece because you learn new things and you go back and listen to it again with different ears. And you're like, oh, my God, I learned something new. You can't do that with a one on one session on the phone.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:33

That makes so much sense. I want to take it back to where this movement came from. What made you say this is the work I need to be doing? Because you're not just talking about relationships. You're helping people relearn themselves, helping them confront the things they've been carrying and find language for it, helping them feel seen, feel heard. So you spoke on it briefly about why sit down and heal and what that phrase meant to you literally just within your own healing. But what are you inviting people into when they land on your page or reach out to work with you?

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:07

So here is the part that people don't see coming. I created this from a community mindset, not an individual mindset, right? So let me explain to you what that means. If you care about the Black community, if you champion love, if you champion relationship, if you champion even people having better relationships, even in friendships or familial relationships, right, then you have to Not just look at relationships as the connecting of people, but relationships as in relationship with yourself. Right. The only way for you to grow a relationship with yourself, especially in a world where most of us have some type of wounding or trauma, is to face that first. Right. If you face that first and you get with some assistance, in this case coaching, and you are able to start your healing journey and push through it. Right. then you then become the model for the people in the environment around you. So you're going to catch some strays that see you different. And some of them will be empowered to want to do it themselves, even if it's not for me, which means now you have now inspired another. It could be your kids. And I always tell people you healing. It's modeled for your kids, even if your kids are 30. It is. Even if they're 30 years old, they get to see a mom or a dad that is working on themselves, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:32

Right. And people don't realize kids are always watching. Even if they're not just intently watching and focused on you, they're downloading constantly information from their environment, from what they see. I have a 25 year old who come back and tell me about her experience with me as her mother and her childhood and how that's affecting her or what's that even led to in her young adult life. And she's learning about that. So the community approach kind of looks like when you heal, when you're

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:22

healing, you're I hate using it. Healed sounds great in a sentence, but it's really not an end point. Yeah. So if you are healing, you not only change internally, you change energetically, right? You move different. You see the world different. You approach people and things different around you. If you inspire change in, let's say, your household, Your household is one house on the block. But when you are outside, that is now your environment. You may inspire the next home, right? When that growth spreads exponentially, now you're looking at change by community and not just by individual, right? So when I am helping people heal, it's not just about you, right? And just a small little 60 second example. I have a workshop called Shadow Work Workshop, which is basically the subconscious working and figuring out the inner child. Right. OK. I have people who have taken this workshop, which is one of the most powerful ones I have because it digs so deep. People have taken this workshop. They have identified their childhood wounds. And it also gives examples of how what you do, what your parent has done to affect you in a way and what it could extrapolate out to. people have taken this workshop and literally had like their mouth open like, wait, I'm doing that right now to my kid.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:47

Right, right. Like,

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:48

whoa, wait, I got to change something. Right. Just in your search to heal yourself, You are now poised to now change the trajectory of your kid right now. And that is powerful because then there becomes the community mindset.

SPEAKER_01: 1:32:05

Exactly, exactly. And this is how we change. This is how we change community. And when we talk about love, Black love, like we are in this particular conversation and just in general, you cannot, it's not just romantic love. You cannot not talk about the community, right? the love of community and how that in turn shifts. Because once the community changes, that changes the environment. You see, when you walk outside the door where you're not just in that bubble of just your house on your block. So that's a beautiful thing and something that that we need more of, too, in our black community.

SPEAKER_03: 1:32:43

Yeah, because this is what you hear from most people who are dealing with a lot of things in life with relationships or whatever else or abuse or whatever. And you'll say, But why do you think that you pick like this or why do you think that you behave like this? And most of them will say, because I never saw it. Right. Right. So if you never saw it. Right. If this is the sentiment of most people, I never had an example. Then part of the solution is creating the examples. Right. So I'm a firm believer in not believing the statistic, but becoming the reason why the statistic isn't true.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:15

Right. I love that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:17

That's what I live by. So people are like, I would never get married because everybody's getting divorced. And I'm like, if you really believe in love, be the reason why the statistic isn't true. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:27

Because

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:27

you control what you choose and not choose. The difference is what lens are you looking at when you're looking through when you're making a choice. That's what I work on is changing that lens from red to clear. Perspective.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:39

That's so funny. I just had that conversation about viewfinders, just opening up your phone and taking a picture of the app. Yeah. Yeah. How you looked at love allowed you to be in the 16 year marriage with your wife right now because you changed your perspective and you didn't grow. You changed your mindset. Change changes everything. that's a conversation because now you're going into neural pathways and people hate change and don't know why they hate change but you know your brain is actively working against that change because it hates change it loves routine that wrote you talk about that survival mode

SPEAKER_03: 1:34:41

yes but here's one point I want to make I did a lot of healing work before the marriage but most of my healing happened during the marriage because this is where you get battle tested this is where you're going to come and get triggers that you never knew were there and the result Yeah. Yeah. go get out of it and how you resolve it is going to allow you to, whether you're going to be long lasting or not, whether you're willing to adapt to changes in all of these things. Most of my healing happened after the marriage. It was having a partner that understood that both have to understand that change is coming. And then when you go through this stuff, what foundationally do you have to go back to when things are not well? And that's why when you meet someone, you're not looking for attachment. You're looking for alignment. Yeah. Does it align with your core values? The whole equally yoked thing. Like you've got to make that a big vetting process. And that then becomes a foundation that you then build off of when you do get that trigger and it hurts and you don't know how to talk about it. Right. How do you get to the point where you're sitting down having a conversation with your partner and say, you know what? I didn't like when you, you know how hard it is to tell them that you've got even men to tell them that something hurt in a conflict. For me to be able to do that now or her to be able to do that now, now we're at a point where we understand the nuances of each other. Even just simple thing of, like, let's say you're an introvert and you need recharge time. Well, if somebody doesn't understand that about you, it could hurt someone with abandonment issues.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36:21

Yeah, definitely. Now they're transferring that. Not understanding your need or just what it is that you need in that moment because now they're focused on just their needs. They don't understand how Even themselves, what that means to be introverted or what that means to be extroverted or it all comes back to knowledge, wisdom and understanding.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:42

I saw this video on TikTok a while ago, but it's an amazing video of this couple where one is an extrovert and one is an introvert. And she goes through a day in the life of their life with them both being a little different. And she kind of catalogs deep conversations about our needs and being an introvert. He needs time, quiet. He likes to watch TV. He likes to play the video games. And she said, I really need closeness like my I like quality time. And so what she learned through their relationship is sometimes he needs to just kind of veg out and like watch TV, but she'll sit on the other end of the couch and read a book. So she's present in the room and he's getting his time without being bothered, but she still feels like she's in the room with him. And that appeases what she needs while he's getting what he needs because she knows that that's his recharge time. So they've learned how and she's like, okay, so this is the time where he needs to go ride his bike. I'm not going to bother him, but when he comes back, he knows he needs to hug me when he comes in because I need that in order for me to feel safe. And so they have this synergy between them. If you don't have this kind of communication, your relationship is doomed.

SPEAKER_01: 1:37:54

Right. From the jump.

SPEAKER_03: 1:37:55

Yeah. I thought that was amazing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:37:57

Right. Right. Yeah. without judgment. But I think it's important to note that not every coach, not every therapist is the right fit for everybody and how traumatic of an experience it can be if they fumble the ball with somebody who's expressing their vulnerability for the first time. So for those who are listening and thinking, maybe I do need help, maybe I do need support, what should they be looking for in a coach or a therapist? What signs should let them know, hey, yes, this is someone I can grow with. And on the flip side. What are some red flags to watch for when seeking help in this space, especially when you're vulnerable and don't want to be re-traumatized?

SPEAKER_03: 1:39:06

Right. So, One of the things that I hold true with my coaching is that I don't take on something that I'm not qualified to take on. So a lot of times my clients end up going to therapy for the first time because I was the conduit to get them there, right? Right. Because I'm a safer entry point. Yeah. The reason why a lot of people trust me per se, and I can talk about other coaches too in a minute, but the reason why they connect with me is because of the way that I had to sit down in a lot of the emotional despair in those states that I've been into that were highly traumatic. They don't see me as a coach up front. They see me as one of them because they get to see me be vulnerable on a live that they didn't have to pay for. And then they're like, oh my God, I think you're the best fit for me because I feel like you would understand what I'm going through. That's important. I'm very candid about not just going through things, but what it feels like to be in an emotional state And that is the connective tissue because a lot of times when people are in heightened emotions, they feel alone. They don't think people understand what it feels like. Not that it's happened. Like you could say, I just broke up. But when I talk about what it feels like to have those tears and that phone sitting next to you and you want to dial it and you don't know if you should call them or not and you know you need to knock it. Like I talk about that intimately. So they're like, he gets it. And that's what makes a lot of people drawn to me because I kind of have what I call a street level knowledge of how to express the emotions versus the book knowledge, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:40:39

Yeah, it makes you relatable.

SPEAKER_03: 1:40:41

I marriage the two, but I give it to them in language that they can digest. And a lot of it comes from my empathetic place because I am an empath. So I know what those emotions feel like. And so a lot of people are drawn to me in that way. And some of them will choose to get coaching through me. But if I feel like there's so much stuff going on, then I'll say you need to go to therapy. A lot of coaches won't do that. They'll just take your money and keep trying to They'll go into areas that they don't need to go into. So to answer the other part of your question, what you need to do when you are vetting a coach or a therapist, and you also first need to understand the difference between the two. The coach is going to take you from where you are. He's going to ask you about your goals and help you get to your goals. The therapist looks backwards and kind of looks at a diagnosis differently. where you've been.

SPEAKER_02: 1:41:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:41:29

Now, when I do teeters on both, but I don't dig too deep, like I don't deal with physical abuse or sexual. OK, I don't do none of that because I'm not qualified to do any of that. Right. But I will give you indicators of where the childhood trauma may have started from. OK. And you can say, that's me. OK, cool. You have an anxious attachment style. This is how we're going to move forward. I don't do all of the diagnosing of everything that happened to you in your life because that's not my job. Right. So, When you're vetting a coach or a therapist, first, you need to know the difference and that will let you know where you need to land. Yeah. And then when you get there, then it's really about how you feel. Is it comfortable? Are they making you feel comfortable? Yeah. Do you feel judged? Right. Some people don't feel judged by everything. coach or therapist and you have to look at that too is it them or is it me right

SPEAKER_00: 1:42:20

right

SPEAKER_03: 1:42:20

some of the red flags you want to look out for sometimes is someone that you think doesn't care doesn't get you not empathetic to your issues it feels like they're just trying to make you come to sessions

SPEAKER_01: 1:42:31

it's just a job

SPEAKER_03: 1:42:32

right the other thing is is that if you don't feel like you've grown yeah right you've been in therapy for five years and you're the same right something's not right yeah something's not right

SPEAKER_01: 1:42:42

and your therapist should have told you that yourself hey we don't seem to be making Right. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:43:03

Some people just need someone to vent a nonjudgmental fear. But if you're coming for growth, they need to be giving you things that's going to help you become different than what you are. And you have to be mindful of that. Like, if you know that you need to become something better and you need to work on some things, well, there's work involved. There's habit change because your coach or your therapist helping you habit change or are they just there letting you dump stuff on them? Right. Because some people will feel better after they dump the stuff. Right. But that's not fixing the problem.

SPEAKER_01: 1:43:35

Not at all. Not at all. Because those problems are going to resurface. Exactly. You're still not, you know, you're going to be looking for somebody else to talk to about it again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:43:44

What I find in a lot of people who end up in my care is a lot of them have been in therapy since they were like, children and they're still in therapy. And then they'll come to me and they'll say, I've only been with you for six months and not my whole entirety of my therapy. I would have never gotten this. Yeah. They just sat there. Right. There's no metric by which you can say I've been in therapy for five years and I'm still like something's wrong. Right. Yeah. So I don't I don't judge people's situations, but that's a long time for you to not have anything change.

SPEAKER_04: 1:44:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:44:21

And the therapist is just sitting there like, yeah, we're on the third year and just keep paying for the weekly session.

SPEAKER_01: 1:44:27

Oh, graduation.

SPEAKER_03: 1:44:28

That's the whole, the goal is for you to graduate, not for you to find a crutch. That's why I always tell people, I don't want to be your crutch. I want you to be able to take your birdie wings and fly on your own. And if you need to come back to Papa and get some more food, cool, but I'm not going to, I'm going to teach you how to hunt. I'm not going to feed you. I'm going to teach you how to hunt.

SPEAKER_01: 1:44:46

How to go out there and feed yourself. On the flip side of that, what about somebody who their first experience with therapy was horrible? Like a person's first experience going to church and they showed up in Black on All White Sunday and now the people looking at them like they crazy. What happens when they have a first time experience and it's awful and it turns them off from wanting to seek help? What would you tell them? Because it seems like it just reinforced their belief that nobody cares. Nobody listens. They're not safe to feel vulnerable with anyone.

SPEAKER_03: 1:45:18

Yeah, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, unfortunately, when you do that. And it's difficult. And this is why when I coach people, it's almost like a reboot. You're going to have to unlearn some things. And the only way to do that, like I said earlier in the conversation, is you have to detox and sit down and heal, right? That whole moniker means a lot. What I try to do is I try to, again, Even though there's a lot of emotion for me, it's very mathematical, right? Like one plus one equals two. If this recurring thing is happening and we want to change the behavior, we're going to have to find a different way to go about it, which means you have to attach yourself. This is where the pain is. I have to do something that goes outside of the scope of what I believe to be familiar or what I'm used to doing and running into. And it's hard for me to change or you know, go outside and use the things that I've learned. And that's why I pride myself on giving you foundational tools that may not be relevant to every situation, but the system works for every situation. You follow me? Like if you know how to manage yourself through one trigger with a set of tools that tells you how to work with any trigger, then you may not catch it the first time, but you've got tools to say, These are the steps. Right. You have now changed the trajectory of how you deal with anything you deal with. And so that's why we're talking about with the whole coaching therapy and all of that kind of stuff. If you don't have that, then you're in the wrong place.

SPEAKER_01: 1:46:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:46:51

If you as a therapist aren't graduating people, you're in the wrong profession.

SPEAKER_01: 1:46:54

No doubt. And I know

SPEAKER_03: 1:46:56

they may hate me for saying that, but you're in the wrong profession.

SPEAKER_01: 1:46:59

It's the truth. Yeah. Look, it's the truth. Some people

SPEAKER_03: 1:47:02

have chronic stuff that lasts, you know, they got to take medication and all that. But the population at large should not be in your care for years and years on the same thing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:47:11

Right. What you said. Like

SPEAKER_03: 1:47:12

somebody broke up with their boyfriend. They shouldn't be trying to figure out how to handle that two years later from you. Not themselves, but paying you. No, no.

SPEAKER_01: 1:47:21

But from you. Right. Paying you. Paying you to help them. And that's sad. You can't even pay people to help you. And oh my goodness, that's horrible. I want to bring it to present day though, Derek, because finding love right now, It's not what it used to be. I want to shift to what it actually looks like to date and seek real love right now, especially in a climate where division, competition and performative connection are the norm. What's your take on modern dating, especially in the black community? We've got social media podcasts, clickbait, gender wars, pick me culture, high value men, feminine energy, masculine women and a whole lot of confusion and division. Black men are saying black women are too hard, too masculine, too independent. Right. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:48:29

So it's the latter.

SPEAKER_01: 1:48:30

We're projecting pain onto each other.

SPEAKER_03: 1:48:32

Right. So it's projecting pain. And it's also providing a solution for people who are dealing with pain to give you a villain to blame. Right. Right. On both sides. Right. Yeah. My answers to these questions that seem complex. I'm really very simple with it because I'm the champion of human behavior. When you take away the nuance, human behavior has not changed ever. It has not changed, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:48:57

It has not.

SPEAKER_03: 1:48:58

So when people say it's 2025 and dating is different now and I'm like, yes, different, but it's not so different, right? Like you can say that we have online dating and podcasts and we have all of this, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:49:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:49:13

You may be frustrated because it may be Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. that is that thing that you don't like, don't date her. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 1:49:51

simple, right?

SPEAKER_03: 1:49:51

Right. So like you can say, oh, the women are so masculine. I can find you a thousand women right now that just want you to be present and they don't even care about how much you make. They just want somebody to keep them safe. So stop it. This is Internet jargon. This doesn't happen outside.

SPEAKER_01: 1:50:07

Right. But the narrative. Most of these

SPEAKER_03: 1:50:09

men who are saying all of this rhetoric, if you put them outside, and you had them actually deal with a woman that wanted to be in a relationship, they wouldn't even say this stuff to her because they know they would lose her. They're only doing it for the internet. Right. This doesn't work. That stuff doesn't work outside.

SPEAKER_01: 1:50:25

Right. Let

SPEAKER_03: 1:50:26

them know. So when people say, oh, people are different. No. Pain is the same. Emotions are the same. People that want to just sleep with you. Did that start in 2025? No. Liars. Manipulators. Is this new? Same thing, right? Exactly. All of this is the same. It doesn't matter where you find it. It's there. It's your job to have the discernment to recognize it. Right. Exactly. All of that stuff. If you go online dating versus meeting people outside online, does it? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I don't let people run that past me. They'd be like, everybody online, they just want to sleep with you. I'm like, go outside. I guarantee you won't find a bunch of men that want the same thing. You just don't lay your head there.

SPEAKER_01: 1:51:27

Go to the gas station. Yeah,

SPEAKER_03: 1:51:29

like you. It's a silly argument, right? It is. It really is. And I don't begrudge people, but it's a silly argument about I'd rather meet somebody outside. And here's the kicker. Here's the kicker about oh, dating is so hard and the dating pool has pee. You know what happens in real life? And I'm only going to talk about some instances and most of them are women, but I know men probably it's the same on both sides. So what happens is, is that me, the analyst, the mathematician, I'm going to break you down and let you see where your weaknesses are. So you come to me and you say the dating pool has pee in it. Everybody I meet is trash and the dating pool sucks and dating is different. And I just hate it. And so I'll sit you down and I'll say, OK, let's go ahead and do some math. Right. How many dates you've been out on in the past three to four months? Two.

SPEAKER_01: 1:52:17

Who, me?

SPEAKER_03: 1:52:17

Who's

SPEAKER_01: 1:52:18

dry around here, Mr. D?

SPEAKER_03: 1:52:19

Like the person would say two, right? Right. Two, three, right? In four months, they might have been on two or three dates. Or zero,

SPEAKER_01: 1:52:25

right? Right. That's me. I'm in the zero club.

SPEAKER_03: 1:52:28

So the dating pool... is trash because of three people. That statistic doesn't even bear fruit for your neighborhood, let alone the whole dating

SPEAKER_02: 1:52:38

thing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:52:38

Right,

SPEAKER_02: 1:52:38

right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:52:39

So statistically, it is false. You don't have enough information or at bats to even do that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:52:45

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:52:46

So now here's the deeper math, because I go deep. I'm going to pull out your weakness in literally five minutes. So now I'm going to ask you, Where are you going to meet these people?

SPEAKER_01: 1:52:57

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 1:52:57

Most humans hunt in familiar areas. They're going to go to the same Barbie Friday. Right. They're going to go to the same brunch with their girls. Right. They're going to be in a certain mile radius of their home. Right. Yeah. So now in that 10 mile radius of your home, they have to be over six foot. Right. They have to have this kind of job. They have to have, you know, love they mama. They're going to have to be emotionally intelligent. They're going to have to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:53:22

Checking boxes. Now in

SPEAKER_03: 1:53:22

that 10 mile radius, now your pool of potential candidates is really tiny. Right. Right. Because they got to be the right skin tone. Can't be too dark. Can't be too light. They got to be. So now the people that you would potentially have is smaller. And the bigger part is they have to like you back. That part. Right. Wait, they have to be single. Right. And all of that. Right. So now your small window of people because you refuse to get outside of your comfort zone. You're not going to do anything different. So you go to the same places, nine times out of 10, you're probably going to get similar results because in small pockets of the country, people are socialized the same way. They go to the same high school. They might even dress similarly because they grew up in an area where fashion looked a certain way. So you go to the same bar every week, you're probably going to meet a similar type of guy. But now you say, The dating pool is trash. Right. When your redemption story might be 20 miles away from your house. Right. But that's too far to drive, right? Yeah. So now you're boxed in. You can't come to me, Coach Derrick, and say, I can't find anybody because I'm going to call you a liar. Well. You haven't gone outside your comfort zone. Most people don't.

SPEAKER_01: 1:54:34

That's

SPEAKER_03: 1:54:35

true. If I say, hey, you like crochet. You know there's a crochet convention that men and women go to and it's an hour away. Nah, I ain't doing that. Well, then you ain't trying. to be met. You're not trying to put yourself in places where the people that you say you want congregate. Most people, when you peel back all of it, You're going to find someone that hasn't dated much. And you're going to find somebody that's in a comfort zone that will not yield the results. So they then fulfill their own prophecy. Because if you think everyone is trash, when you meet someone, you're going to assume that there's something wrong. And when you pick out that one little thing, you're going to be like, see, I was right. And then you go back and go on the internet and be like, yep. And then I'll be like, You don't get to come up here and talk about how everybody's trash. You know why? Because you're in a dating pool, too. Are you

SPEAKER_04: 1:55:26

trash?

SPEAKER_03: 1:55:27

And let's not talk about the people that don't even need to be there because they got stuff to work on. You are the P2. You're going to pick a whole narcissist and be like, I didn't know. Yes, you did. Because you did too much. You already know. These signs don't show up two years later.

SPEAKER_01: 1:55:40

Don't lie. We know. We know. We just rationalize and accept and compromise for whatever reason in order to stay or to pick or to choose or to be with that person until those things happen, manifest in the relationship and now you're like, Well, where did this come from?

SPEAKER_03: 1:56:00

Yeah, there's no way that you could tell me that you've been with 10 narcissists in a row and they all hurt you the same way.

SPEAKER_01: 1:56:06

Right. We had a problem. Let's talk about why you're choosing. We

SPEAKER_03: 1:56:09

got a problem.

SPEAKER_01: 1:56:09

We got a problem and it's not the narcissist. When people

SPEAKER_03: 1:56:12

say the dating pool is trash, it's a trauma response because that's an indictment on everyone.

SPEAKER_00: 1:56:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:56:18

Right. It's an absolute statement. People don't look at it this way. It's an absolute statement because of your anecdotal experiences. Right. You have not met everyone in the world of the other gender, so you can't make That statement.

UNKNOWN: 1:56:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:56:29

Group. You can

SPEAKER_03: 1:56:30

say it's tough. Yeah. You can say it's taken too long for me to find my husband. Cool. I give you that. But to say everyone is trash and all men, all they want is one thing. I'm like, you haven't met all men because I can show you examples of some amazing dads, some amazing husbands that will walk through fire for their wives. They exist. You're not beating them because you hanging around with Tyrone, who ain't doing nothing for you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:56:55

Or you're like Mamba, who ain't out in the streets. So people be like, well, how can you expect to find a man if you can't be found?

SPEAKER_03: 1:57:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:57:02

They can't find you. That's

SPEAKER_03: 1:57:03

most of my clients. Most of my clients don't go outside. They

SPEAKER_01: 1:57:07

cannot find you. And

SPEAKER_03: 1:57:08

I'm like,

SPEAKER_01: 1:57:09

okay. Right, we got this bad thing about outside. And I understand it's hostile out there now. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so much plays a part of that. But like you said, there are good people out there. Yeah. To assume that every man is bad or every woman is, you know, hot girl, just down for the hot girl summer.

SPEAKER_03: 1:57:27

Yeah. I run into men all the time that are like, I'm just trying to find my wife. Like, I don't know. And then you have women I'm trying to find. I'm like, how come they don't meet? It's because they spending time trauma bonding. Yeah. You'll never meet if you hanging out in places that are toxic to you. Right. Or you isolate because you're afraid to get hurt again. You won't find that person that's ready for you either. So you're going to confirm your bias in either one of those two situations and you will be subconsciously believe it to be true. Like, how can you isolate from the world, right? And then say there's no men out there qualified to be my husband. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:58:01

Eight billion people in the world, Mr. Derrick. There are over eight billion people in the world according to, what, 22 census? Yeah. That's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_03: 1:58:11

And there's a huge population of men that ain't even... in these streets like that they're lonely they want somebody to appreciate them that's more population of men than the ones you call dogs like we're talking like 50 60 percentile of men that don't have kids right they're not married and they may be awkward right right they may not necessarily have the swag you like they're going to get ignored but they're amazing people they're amazing doesn't mean they're repulsive to look at or anything they just may not have that whatever it is you think. He may not be six foot. He may be 5'10". Oh, he's excluded. And I'm like, you're 5'2". You're 5'2", and you're excluding a 5'10". Stop it. You're going to be looking for a long time.

SPEAKER_01: 1:58:57

Last question I want to ask you, because there are so many, but I want to wrap this up and I definitely want to have you come back. When you look at the state of Black love right now, what we've lost, what we've survived, what we've become, what do you really feel? Not what sounds good, not what people want to hear, but from your gut, Derek, from your spirit, do you still believe in Black love? And if you do... What's it going to take to save it, to rebuild it, to protect it? Because right now it feels like we're watching something sacred slip through our hands. So tell me, what do we need to do to keep Black love alive?

SPEAKER_03: 1:59:33

So I think the realistic answer is, is that, of course, I believe in it because I became a coach that tries to help people create it in their lives. But I don't like a lot of the things I see. It gets exacerbated because we have social media. So there's a lot of attempts to destroy it even further. I believe in it. I believe in Black love, but I don't believe that it will take form in the way that we would want it to. As a full-blown community of people, we've lost that. I don't think that will ever come back. As a whole, I think that we can get a lot of people to reinvent how they approach relationships, i.e. working on themselves. You see pockets of organizations and people that are championing therapy and black love. And so there's people out there in the fight, right, to try to get it better. Couples organizations where they help couples communicate better. So they're out there. Right. But they're not they're not trending on social media, but they exist on the ground. So it's happening in areas. The unfortunate thing is that we are very susceptible to being molded by what social media says is right or wrong. And if I'm a broken person, man or woman, and I'm looking for a scapegoat, just go on one of these lives on TikTok. You're going to find a crew for you to trauma bond with over your pain. And then that becomes your tribe. So I think a lot of those people won't be saved, if you will. They're going to live in that misery because they need something to bite. But I think that If you really expand your lens, you'll see organizations of men saying we want to help our brothers. You're going to see organizations of women saying we want to help our sisters. You're going to see organizations that say we want to try to create opportunities for black people to get together. Is it going to be easy? No, because we got a lot of confusion going on out here with the world changing. plus how we are with each other. Like I said, we're in a period of correction. I don't know what that looks like on the other side, but I know that there are a lot of people who really are not willing to give up. So if that means the Black love that you're talking about exists in 30%, 40% of the Black culture, but it's not the whole thing. In today's climate, that's a win to me.

SPEAKER_01: 2:01:52

Yeah,

SPEAKER_03: 2:01:53

definitely.

SPEAKER_01: 2:01:54

I appreciate all those that are listening that are a part of those pockets that are out there trying to Make change in whatever shape, form or fashion that they're doing that to not just have these pockets out there, but have a collective community, whether it's a virtual village where people know that you can come here and there's a collective community. Cause it's hard. If you don't know where to go, we have all these pockets, like look at our platforms on social media. That's a prime example. We have people just focused on engagement more so than the actual connection. So when I'm talking about pockets and you're talking about pockets, when we go and we interact with people and with each other, I get to plug you. I get to plug you and send you somewhere. I know that you can go, but We need to know. We need to be aware of platforms like yours that are out here doing these things so that people know that they're not out here alone, that there's help, that there's resources, that there are people out here with guidebooks, survival guides that's trying to help you reach the next stage that you need to go. So you don't have to keep going, living through life the way that you're living. It's already tough enough. So when you add on that mental aspect of it, it becomes too much. We definitely need to be a collective. We definitely need to start sharing these pockets that are out there so that we can make and tailor a suit so that we're not just out here with individual pieces. We need to be a collective. And that's what I see that's missing.

SPEAKER_03: 2:03:26

Yeah. You know, to piggyback on that real quick, it's not really that people are like, you know, about black love and how it's kind of stained or tarnished or whatever. And we talk about what I just talked about is the pockets. The larger thing is not that the pockets don't exist or that there aren't spaces for people to go. it's something that's larger in the Black community is collaboration, right?

SPEAKER_01: 2:03:49

Yes. If you take

SPEAKER_03: 2:03:50

five pockets and they unify into a bigger thing, now we have something that people can really look at, but then that requires us to be able to work together and not be so individual

SPEAKER_01: 2:04:00

focused. Competitive,

SPEAKER_03: 2:04:02

too. That is another thing that hurts this movement. No matter how small or big it is, it hurts the movement. When we have Coach Derek and you have five other coaches that work on healing, but we want to compete and not join forces and create something bigger.

SPEAKER_01: 2:04:18

And become rivals instead of working together. Why can't Coach Derek and Coach Jason and Daquan and whoever else out there come together? Why can't we panel? Why can't? That is important. Collaboration, community.

SPEAKER_04: 2:04:31

Derek,

SPEAKER_01: 2:04:32

this has been one of those conversations that hit different. I felt it, and I know that the people listening felt it too. I thank you so much for your time and energy today, your mission, your platform. Your voice, Derek, is powerful. I have so many questions to ask, but we'd be here all day. Before we close out, I want to give you space to what I call play it forward. No questions, no structure, just room to say whatever's still sitting in your chest. Because I know you didn't just come here to talk. You came here to leave us with something. And I don't want this to end without giving you that chance. So this is your moment to help sharpen iron and speak directly to the next brother who's listening, to the sister who's tired but still holding on, to the ones who want to love but are scared to reach for it. to the ones who are healing, breaking, building and showing up anyway? What do you want them to carry from this conversation? So I

SPEAKER_03: 2:05:34

would say that no matter your gender, no matter your station in life, one thing that you will always be able to control is yourself. No matter the environment, no matter the circumstance, no matter the pain, we have to get back to honoring, who we are, understanding who we are, and being unapologetic about who we are. No matter what the external forces may say, when you move in your unapologetic truth, in your authentic self, the people who should be in your sphere of influence belong there because you are fundamentally changed. So when you attach yourself to people who align with the authentic version of yourself, then not only do you connect with better crops of people, you start to feel better about yourself. This then lends itself into how you end up in a relationship in who you choose because you are not pretending to be someone that people like. You are authentically being yourself and the people that you end up like or liking you are attached to the real you and not the one that you have created. that is palatable. So the overarching sentiment that I would say is always believe in you, chase the why of the behaviors that you do not like in your life, the spaces that you land in that are uncomfortable, the friendships that you have that are not serving you. Identify those things and then try to take steps and try to understand it. Understanding and acknowledging is first. Then the correction, the adjustments, That's difficult because a lot of us don't have the tools and that's where you search for the help. But the identification is huge. You have to understand that the life you have, the way you feel is not what you want. And most of us already know this. When I talk on my show, I tell people, I don't have to convince you that you need to heal. You already know that. I'm just here when you're ready for the help. I'm here, but you already know you need it. You've known it all your life. If you don't like the outcome, you have to embody the most positive, realistic version of yourself and live life abundantly through that lens.

SPEAKER_01: 2:07:59

If that ain't a word, I don't know what is. Sometimes a word lands and all you can do is let it breathe. So I'm going to honor that. Sit with it. And I hope everyone listening does the same. Before we wrap it up, I want to make sure that people know how to stay connected to you, Derek, because So...

SPEAKER_03: 2:08:39

The big umbrella of how to find me is through my website and it's www.sitdownandheal.com. Through that website, you will be able to see the entirety of everything that I offer. If there's a cost associated with it, there's a cost there. And for your convenience, 99% of the stuff I have, you can break into two monthly payments. So it's not so much of a burden. All the workshops are hosted there, which I told earlier in the show, They're so intuitive that you don't even have to do a one-on-one with me. If you know you need to heal, there's a healing section. If you know you need to work on dating and relationship, there's a section for that. If you're already a couple and you need work on communication, so wherever you need to dig in, it's already there. If you already know you need to work on breaking up from a relationship, there's a workshop for that. You don't even need to communicate with me to go get it. It's going to be laid out for you. And if you need to see how I operate, There's TikTok. I go live on TikTok almost daily, almost. So you can get to see a tone of how I operate and do things. I have a YouTube channel. Sit down in here on all platforms, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. You can go through and look at my work. A lot of it feels workshop-ish. So you will get a sentiment of how I do things. And then once you get comfortable with me there, then you go back to the website. And either A, you can communicate with me through the website. There's also a form that you can fill out depending on where you want to go on there that you can inquire and say, hey, this is where I'm at. Tell me what I need to get. So that's there as well. So all means of communication funnel through that website. But I go live on YouTube every Tuesday at 730 p.m. Eastern. I sit down here with Coach Derek and then I do pop ups on TikTok quite frequently. So there's always ways to find me. And when I tell people at the end of every show, hopefully if you engage me on any platform, And you keep doing it, eventually you'll be inspired to sit down and heal.

SPEAKER_01: 2:10:36

Yes, you will. If you didn't catch that, don't worry. All of Coach Derek's information and direct links will be available in the show notes. Be sure to give this king your support. He is a gem and is doing the hard work to help people heal. So go check out his platform and share it with the world. Mr. Derek, my brother, thank you, not just for what you've said today, but for how you said it, for how you showed up, for being honest, grounded, and willing to go there with me. You didn't come here with a script. You came with your truth, and that matters. You gave voice to a lot of things people don't know how to say out loud yet. And whether they agree, feel called out, or feel seen, you made us feel something. And that's what real conversations are supposed to do. I hope you are willing to come back and do this again with me.

SPEAKER_03: 2:11:32

Thank

SPEAKER_01: 2:11:33

you so much.

SPEAKER_03: 2:11:34

Absolutely. Anytime. Just let me know.

SPEAKER_01: 2:11:36

I will. Thank you, King. I pray your day is nothing less than pleasant and is productive.

SPEAKER_03: 2:11:42

Same to you.

SPEAKER_01: 2:11:43

Peace. Well, hello again. I see we made it to the other side and I thank you so much for tuning in for this wonderful conversation with Coach Derrick. To my guest, Derrick Jones, thank you for blessing us with his heart, his wisdom, and his truth. If today's conversation touched you, moved you, or made you think, take a moment to follow, like, and subscribe not only to I invite you to not just listen, but to sit down, reflect, and begin your own healing journey too. If you I just might be turning it into bonus content soon. Your continued support means everything. Cities and countries all over the world are tuning in all of the time. And that means our voices, our truths, are traveling the world. If you feel called to share your own story and be a guest this season, you can fill out the application on my website. All the links you need are right there in the show notes. And before we jump out of this rabbit hole, I want to leave you with a reminder. Love is leading the charge of Kings and Chain. It was only right that we started this season rooted in love because love is what will heal us. Love is what will bring us back together. And my prayer is that we all learn how to love each other again. Be good. Be safe. Stay healthy. And drink your water. Water is life. Peace.