You Can’t Blame Your Past And Keep Hurting People

We wrap our series with a blunt look at how unhealed pain turns into patterns that damage relationships and get handed down to kids. We challenge ourselves to stop confusing “normal” with “healthy” and to take full responsibility for the work of healing. 
• why unhealthy behavior can feel normal when it is familiar 
• how unhealed pain leaks into relationships, parenting, and friendships 
• swearing “I’ll never be like that” while still repeating it without healing 
• the difference between explanation and excuse in personal change 
• how cycles spread through learned behavior, including racism and hate 
• practical steps like emotional regulation, boundaries, therapy, and apology 
• why legacy is behavior and emotional impact, not just money 
• choosing to build people up instead of becoming a hurt person who hurts people 
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. 
And for daily, motivational, and up-to-date content, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at ExcellenceAboveTalent. 

Transcript

Hard Truths And Why It Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to Excellence Above Talent, a podcast where we have the hard conversations about the lives of men and what leads us to achieve greatness and suffer defeat. Hear from other men's journeys as well, as we all learn and grow together to become inspirations to ourselves and those around us. And now your host, Aaron Thomas.

The Cycle That Becomes Childhood

Explanation Is Not An Excuse

Practical Ways To Heal

Legacy, Hate, And A Hurting Country

Encouragement And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 0:40

We are wrapping up our 24-week series on why men become abusive and ways we can be better. So we are on episode 22, and I want to say something that will probably piss someone off, but I could care less. There are more men being abusive in their relationships than not. Hot take, my opinion, but there are a lot of men out there who claim to be men but act like little boys. Hot take. There are a lot of Christians that claim to love God but secretly hate people because of their skin color or what they choose to do or the type of sin that they see them doing, all the while hiding their own sin. Excellence about talent isn't here to sugarcoat anything. It isn't here to make you feel fluffy and amazing and cool because there are 100 men killing themselves every day in the United States of America, and no one is talking about it at all whatsoever. 100 men take their lives. Create this cycle of pain and trauma because no one was bold enough to stand up and say, This isn't right, and there's something going on here. There's something wrong here. Episode 22 is the cycle you don't heal because becomes someone else's childhood. Some of the things we struggle with didn't start with us. We learned them. We lived around them. We watched them become normal. But just because something was normalized doesn't mean it is healthy. And if we don't heal what is broken in us, we risk passing it on to someone else. Today, we are talking about cycles, inherited behavior, and the responsibility of healing. A lot of people are living out patterns they've never chose consciously. They've learned them. I've learned them from my parents, relationships, environments, survival, pain, trauma, silence. And over time, those patterns become normal. And normal does not mean healthy. Super important to understand. We all want to be normal, but your normal isn't healthy. Why would you want somebody else to be like that? Just because something was common growing up doesn't mean it was healthy. A lot of people grew up around yelling, emotional shutdown, manipulation, avoidance, anger, lack of affection, pride, silence. And because it happened it happened often, they assumed it was normal. I learned, and your kids are learning, I learned as a kid, and your kids are learning now more from your behavior than words. They watch how people communicate, how conflict is handled, how love is shown, how emotions are expressed, and whatever they repeatedly experience becomes familiar. That's how the cycle continues. Unhealed pain doesn't stay isolated. It leaks. It leaks onto relationships, parenting, friendships, communication, self-work. Pain that isn't addressed usually becomes a behavior. And I know a lot of people said, and I said it, growing up, seeing my dad and mom interact. I swore I would never be like that. I would never be like my father. I'd never treat people that way. I'd never repeat that. But if you don't heal, you repeat the behavior you hate. Not intentionally, but it's automatic. Because there's nothing else that you know or have learned to offset said behavior because unaddressed patterns become reflexes. This happened, so I do this automatic. That happens, so I do this automatic. Because I've seen it done 15, 20 years, my entire life. So I know it doesn't look and feel normal because I see how it's affecting mom or siblings, but it's all I know. So let's be clear. There is a difference between explanation and excuse. Understanding where behavior comes from matters. It cannot become an excuse to stay the same. There is a difference between explanation and justification. Your past explains behavior that does not excuse you from hurting other people. And if you want to heal, you have to become aware of the things that you've learned and the things that you need to unlearn. Because most people don't break cycles because they don't recognize them. They make the assumption, this is just the way I am. My mom and dad were racist. Their grandparents were racist. We didn't like black people or Hispanics or white people. And you grow up and that's just what you see and hear. And the crazy part, as a teacher at a middle school, I see it. They're not getting it just off the streets. Their parents are feeding them that behavior to think that it is okay to walk around a school and scream it out because they know nothing's going to happen. And you can't get mad at that kid because their parents are failing them. They're not letting them know that that is not okay. And I assume they go to church because everyone in Odessa goes to church and they love Jesus. But your kid is a direct reflection of who you are as a parent. So you cannot say that's just the way I am. Because a lot of times it's just what people adapt to. This is all I've seen. This is all I've known to hate women, to abuse women, to hate certain people. But healing starts when you stop defending unhealthy behavior because you know it's not right. You know it's affecting people, and you have to start asking the tough questions because you are responsible for your healing. No one is coming to save you as a man. No one. No one is coming to heal you as a man. No one is coming to love you as a man. You have to heal yourself first. You have to love yourself first. You have to take responsibility of what you have learned and how you feel and fix it. Because the healing part is heavy. But healing isn't just about you, it's about your future relationships, your children, your influence, what gets passed down after you. Because behavior teaches people, even when you say nothing, breaking cycles is uncomfortable. But it looks like communicating differently, apologizing, and changing your behavior, learning emotional regulation. When I start to feel angry, when I start to feel ashamed, when I start to feel bad, what are things you can do to offset that feeling? Go through that feeling, but don't let that feeling sit. Because when it sits, it not only sits on you, but whoever comes into your space, you're going to give them that emotion as well. So you have to regulate your emotions constantly. It looks like setting boundaries, going to therapy, becoming more self-aware. I didn't like how that felt. Why didn't I like how why that why didn't I like how that felt? And digging deeper to try to figure out what that feeling is. So you can now have a conversation. This happened, it made me feel this way, and then I know what I need to do next to make sure I don't put myself in that situation. Choosing to be disciplined, overreacting. In order to break cycles, you have to be intentional. In order to break cycles, there is going to be an internal battle because healing is hard. It forces you to confront all the monsters that you have tried to hide in your closet. All the sin that you tried to say isn't sin while looking on somebody else and being like, I can't believe they do that sin. It forces you to confront your pain, your pride, your insecurity, your fear, old wounds. A lot of people avoid healing because staying familiar feels safe, even when it hurts. But as a man, you want to leave a legacy. You want to build a legacy. Legacy isn't just money. Legacy is behavior. It's what people experience from you. It's what people remember emotionally. And eventually it becomes what people carry forward. You want to build a legacy where people felt motivated and inspired and loved, regardless of the fact of what you were going through. People trying to bring you down, people trying to stop you from being great. Because it's easy to look at other people who are trying to make a difference in this world and make fun of them while you sit back on your phone or in your chair at home and do nothing. You're living this life, you're going to work, you're making just enough money to scrape by. And you have time to try to bring somebody else down because they're choosing to do something different. They're choosing to do something that you know you need to do, but you don't do. So it's easier to be a keyboard warrior, to talk down, to not give people their flowers while they're alive, than it is to get your butt up, start working out in the morning, start walking, start reading, get a closer relationship with God, start growing, start wanting to become better, addressing the issues that are in your life. But people don't do that. Hurt people hurt people. And that's something that has motivated me in this process of my life. When someone tries to bring me down, or they talk beh they talk about me behind my back, I don't need to feel any type of way. Because I'm still going to be moving regardless of if they don't like it or not. But I feel sadness in my heart because that hurt person who hasn't healed, who hasn't faced their demons, are trying to hurt someone who's tried and tested, who's been through the fire, who's willing to stand and die on it. My heart hurts for people that are hurting, would rather hurt other people than to get better. It's not a great way to live. You're not holding me back. You're hurting yourself more. You're digging that ditch deeper and deeper, trying to hurt someone that if you came around and you talked to them and they talk to you and you learn from them and they learn from you could potentially make your life better. But because they don't look a certain type of way, or speak a certain type of way, or have a certain life that you make the assumption they need to have in order to learn from them, you try to hurt them. And I see it so much here in the United States. Republicans are hurting, Democrats are hurting, white people are hurting, black people are hurting, Hispanic people are hurting. The US is hurting. And instead of trying to figure it out, all we're trying to do is hurt each other more, which is the dumbest thing in the world. Because you you live until you're 80, maybe 90, 100 if you're lucky. And majority of your life, you chose to hurt people. On your deathbed, I wouldn't want to feel how you feel. When you look back over your life, you didn't make a ripple effect in that water. You tried to stop the ripple effect in the water when you saw it from someone else. You only hung out with one type of people. You had negative thoughts and president thoughts and biased thoughts for everybody else. You said you were a Christian, but you hated me. You said you were a Christian, but you closed your eyes to the friends that were sinning and doing God wrong. And you opened your eyes to everyone else in their sin. To live that way in my head is brutal. Because when you tear someone down, what do you gain? Versus when you lift someone up, what do you gain? If you don't heal from your unhealthy patterns, there's a chance someone connected to you will inherit them. You cannot change what happened to you, but you can decide what continues through you. And maybe the greatest thing you could ever do is break a cycle that was destroying generations before you. You are awesome. You are amazing. You deserve the best that this world has to offer. Do not give up, do not quit. The world does not get easier, but y'all get stronger. You have a blessed weekend.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Thank you for listening. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And for daily, motivational, and up-to-date content, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at ExcellenceAboveTalent. And remember, keep moving forward. Never give up, and you are never alone in this battle. We'll see you next time.