Breaking Emotional Chains Through Poetic Expression with Marshall Jones

Marshall Davis Jones opens his heart and shares his profound journey through forgiveness in this soul-stirring conversation about healing, poetry, and personal liberation. A five-time TEDx speaker whose poems have been flown into space by NASA, Marshall reveals how the practice of forgiveness transformed not only his relationships but also healed debilitating physical pain.

Through vivid storytelling, Marshall takes us through his evolution from writing viral poetry that reinforced blame to crafting poems that embody accountability and wholeness. His turning point came when he made two pivotal phone calls—one to his mother and one to his father—to speak his truth with clear boundaries: he would speak once, they would never discuss it again, and they couldn't respond. "The morning after," Marshall shares, "I woke up and I was like 'I'm an adult now. I can take full accountability for my life because I can no longer blame my parents for why I am the way I am.'"

The highlight of our conversation arrives when Marshall performs his never-before-shared poem "The Body Keeps the Score," a masterpiece weaving metaphors about tennis, physical pain, and the necessity of forgiveness. His message resonates with bone-deep truth: "You won't forget, but damn it, you must forgive, because holding on to this will kill any reason to live." Marshall illuminates the three essential elements of healing—agency (the right to act), autonomy (the right to choose), and accountability—revealing how forgiveness becomes possible when we reclaim our power rather than projecting blame outward.

Whether you're struggling with family relationships, physical pain with emotional roots, or simply seeking to embody your highest values, Marshall's wisdom offers a roadmap for genuine transformation. Listen, share with someone who needs to hear this message, and if you're feeling spiritually stuck, book a free discovery call through the link in the show notes.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Marshall Davis Jones
• 3:26 Spelling Father: First Steps to Forgiveness
• 8:37 The Body Keeps the Score Poem
• 13:29 Agency, Autonomy, and Accountability
• 18:12 Writing Poetry as Healing Practice
• 21:33 Closing Song: Breaking the Circuit

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back everybody to the truth about addiction. Today's interview is with a man who has the same spiritual coach as I do, and in one week we saw each other two times and it was the first time we had ever met, and so, as soon as I started speaking to him, I thought I need you to come to one of my events and share what you know. And he spoke at my recent Heart Conscious Creators event, where we talked about the willingness to forgive. He is such an eloquent speaker and an incredible poet. On this interview you will hear a poem he wrote. He is reading it in real time and it's just unbelievable.

Speaker 1: 0:52

I need to stop and go back and listen to this poem I don't know how many times to really let what he's saying sink in. So you do not want to miss this. Every one of us has to learn about forgiveness. We don't have to do anything about it if we don't want to, but it's going to be part of our human experience to learn the art of forgiveness. So please listen in, share it with somebody you care about, who you think it might help. And there is a link in the show notes to book a free discovery call with me free. So, please, please, if this is important to you, if you feel spiritually stuck, I can help you. I want to connect with you.

Speaker 1: 1:42

Here's his bio, so I won't make you wait any longer. Marshall Davis Jones is a poet, speaker and communication coach specializing in affective presence. The five-time TEDx speaker has had poems flown into space by NASA, has shared stages with the likes of William and Simon Sinek and somehow along the way, has coached the ATF, SFPD and former hostage negotiator, Chris Voss. He's appeared on Access Daily with Mario Lopez and appears as himself in ray romanos somewhere in queens. He is also the author of tonal influence how to listen better, speak clearer and set the tone. Moving between worlds. Marshall's work guides you to walk in purpose and move others along with you with you.

Speaker 2: 2:53

You're going to love this one, see you guys soon.

Speaker 1: 2:58

Marshall, I am so excited to sit down and talk to you.

Speaker 3: 3:08

Oh boy, oh boy, gotta be good. Now she's gonna set up, are we gonna pass the mic? I think well we have that, and then we have the battery.

Speaker 1: 3:18

Yeah, yeah we're gonna see if we can turn on another one, but but I don't know, throw it. Hello.

Speaker 3: 3:25

They both work. Look at that.

Speaker 4: 3:30

Look at that.

Speaker 1: 3:31

You like that? Waka waka, Okay. So you guys, I really believe coaches should have coaches and they should have coaches and they should have coaches. Okay, and we're expensive. Coaches are expensive, but how badly do you want to change your life and how fast you want to get there? I say that because I recently I was in a hiatus of having a coach and then I hired not one, but two.

Speaker 1: 3:55

He's not my coach, Don't worry, we're not doing that, he's not my coach, but turns out we have the same one. And so I've been meeting this man virtually through this group coaching experience over the last several weeks and in the same one. And so I've been meeting this man virtually through this group coaching experience over the last several weeks and in the same week. I meet him virtually and then we're at the same in-person event and we're sitting next to each other and we're like I think there's something here and there is, and I want to know more about you. I want you to introduce yourself, let everybody know who you are, and I'm pretty sure you're goingodySpeak my train bodies to embody what they believe in.

Speaker 3: 4:47

And that is through poetry, through voice pitch and through poise.

Speaker 1: 4:53

Do you have some poetry that you can share?

Speaker 3: 4:57

Look. So when she said the theme, I was like yeah, you know, have you been dealing with somebody that you just like you haven't forgiven yet? And then you just got to work through that.

Speaker 4: 5:08

I said well, you know let me tell you.

Speaker 3: 5:11

I'll tell you a story. So the first time I had to deal with being with forgiveness Through the poetry, I wrote a poem called Spelling Fowler for my mother. It went viral a few years ago and it was about being in a national spelling bee and the final word, after flocks and knocks on the hill of hillification, which is a word, it's very long I forgot what it means. That is very long.

Speaker 3: 5:37

But the last word was follower and I spell it M-O-T-H-E-R and win the spelling bee and blah, blah, blah. So there was a lot of women who resonated with being that role. Right Performed this poem a lot TEDxHollywood. I'm on stage and I'm performing this poem and there's a part in the poem where it says you don't ask me how to spell deadbeat, sir. And I spelled deadbeat F-A-T-H-E-R-D-A-D-D-A-D-Y, all the proper ways. And I'm on the stage and I say you don't ask me how to spell heartache and 3,000 miles to forgiveness. And that was the last time I performed that poem.

Speaker 3: 6:25

And so the poetry. It is an opportunity to kind of see the prompts that are running your life, like if you go to Chaz UBT, you type in a prompt this is what I want, what is the prompt that's currently running? Because every time I did the poem I rehearsed the prompt about my mother's position, my father's position, and that was step one. Step two there was a pastor. He said here's how you forgive. I'm like, okay, I'm listening. He goes. You have to forgive and then apologize for holding it against her.

Speaker 4: 7:11

I said wait, wait.

Speaker 3: 7:16

But I called both of my parents because the first phase was I. I stopped doing this poem, which was a poem that would get requested. It was something like oh you know, no, I'm not doing this. But I called my mother. I called my mother's husband. I said I'm gonna talk to my mom and say some things. I need you to be next to her. Then I called my dad separately. So I called my mom because in writing spelling father, it wasn't 100, true, because there were things about my mom that were unresolved, that I used the poetry as a mask for. And so I called my mother and I tell her all of these things. And there was two rules, three rules One I'm going to tell you this once. Rule number two we're never going to talk about this again. Rule number three you can't say anything after I'm done. So I do one, two, three talk to my mom, let it out, it out everything. Call my dad. I do the same thing. The morning after I called my father, I woke up and I was like I'm an adult now. I have no, uh, I can take full accountability for my life because I can no longer blame my parents for why I am the way I am, and that does not mean that I don't deal with forgiveness, which is why I'm going to read this poem that you just asked me about three minutes ago. So there's a.

Speaker 3: 8:47

Dr Sarno wrote a book about healing back pain. Are you familiar with that? Yeah, anyone ever have sciatic pain? Yeah, that one leg, that. Just why is this leg doing this? So I had sciatic pain one time. That sent me to the hospital. I was off my legs for a month. Then I read a book called the Way Out and I was in my car in three days and that's when it became clear to me that the sciatic pain was mental and emotional. This was also a period in time when I was removed from poetry, so I wasn't updating my prompts. With the poetry, it's an opportunity to update the prompts. And so I got into a period when I was having severe sciatic pain, like a lot, and I was like I got to get rid of this, this. And because I had already known that the pain medicine wasn't gonna work I already knew that the acupuncture wasn't gonna work. I already knew that all the eastern and western medicine that I tried wasn't gonna work I'm like okay, I gotta get to the poem. So you're like, get to the poem, marshal, it goes.

Speaker 3: 9:52

The body keeps the score, but our days are numbered, so we count on our fingers and toes to bridge the gap to mental math. This craft of mine is minecraft, with jack black till black jack. We are born, a house of cards, a limited edition. In mint condition, breastfed expression. Till we start teething. We chew on food. For thought, to mince words, to solve for why, with logic and reason, the body keeps the score and our days are numbered. So we count on our fingers and toes. This little piggy went to the market. This little piggy stayed home. So we remote work and work the remote to find the balance and have control.

Speaker 3: 10:30

What do you mean? Interesting that you posed a question. Another question is do questions pose? Misdirection becomes near misses, but not quite. What do you mean? Another question to which I reply what do you mean by me? Mean as in a streak of demeaning behavior? Or mean as in definitions or pages of Webster? Or mean as in what happens when you add up some numbers and divide them numbers by the sum of the numbers. The body keeps the score and our days are numbered. So we count our fingers and toes. What do you mean by that? Experience dictates that muscles flexed index definition. Hence we have muscle memories, which leads me to believe that what I mean by that is here's a word multiplied by what I've seen by that. What do you mean by that? Okay, take love, I've seen by that?

Speaker 4: 11:15

What do you mean by?

Speaker 3: 11:15

that. Okay, take love, mama and Papa make you in wedlock. Papa unlocks the wedlock for bedrock. Mama's heart sinks to the rock bed, hard rock. So the cafe cooks up thought dogs and all men are hot dogs. Grills, meat and buns, so you grow up to feed sensually and you run. That's love. Nah, that's not what that means. That's not what that means. That's not what I mean. Precisely, the math ain't mathing. If it's my view, your view, and the truth and half ain't happening, it's only from your point of view. Well, when your point of view is a decimal, sometimes it's a period, full stop, end of story. Nah, let me try. Mama and papa make you in wedlock. Papa unlocks the wedlock for bedrock. Mama's heart sings to the rock bed, hard rock. So the cafe cooks up thought dogs and all men are hot dogs.

Speaker 3: 12:00

But the truth is that's pain, body, and a body in pain when it makes bodies, it can make the mistake to make. You mistake bodies for something, to take bodies. So you take bodies for granted. Granted, you learn how to take bodies that break and remake bodies. Subtract the shame, because everybody makes mistakes. But those mistakes, if those mistakes create bodies, then you're nobody to say who, what, why or ain't body.

Speaker 3: 12:26

But when that shoulder catches a cold, you look for anybody with an antibody, because your DNA is tennis matching a back and forth underhand because they think they got an overhand. So you turn your back and they backgammon with backstabbing, sibling rivalry. So you're praying. God, grant me the serenity because you need Venus to social distance about 50 feet. But if it's God that you serve, then that watch that you are hitting. And if it's the body that keeps the score, then nobody makes a score because that there is a tie, because no one is supposed to win. So no, you won't forget, but damn it, you must forgive, because holding on to this will kill any reason to live. And you won't forget, but damn it, you must forgive, because holding on to this will kill any reason to live. And you can't live like this, because in tennis, when the board says 0-0, that means you kept the ball alive the whole time. And that life, my friend, that's love.

Speaker 1: 13:22

That is so beautiful. Thank you. I want to open it up to the audience in a second, but first, before you read that, you said that you eventually showed up to your parents and said I can no longer blame you for the man that I am today. To me it sounds like you became willing. How To me it sounds like you became willing. Mm, mm, how, how.

Speaker 3: 14:07

I've been trying to figure out what it is that we're doing right when we're coaching people Like what is it that we're doing? And this is an idea, and I could be wrong, but I think there's three things that matter. It's agency, accountability, agency autonomy and then accountability. And what I mean by that is no one can take accountability. They don't feel like they had agency or autonomy, meaning I didn't have the right to act nor the right to choose. So the minute I'm blaming outside of me, it's because I believe I didn't have the right to act and I didn't have the right to choose.

Speaker 3: 14:48

And we kind of learn in that order, like some of us in here have kids In that order is the like the likes Agency I can do things, my hands can move, I can like smile when my parents smile. The autonomy is I can pick this toy or that one. Accountability is like now you live your own life and you make your own choices, in that order. And so I was tired of being a child. Not that there's anything wrong with the imaginative part of being a child, but it's hard to think about the metaphors that we use, like being carried away, like when you say, oh, this person got carried away. A child gets carried away when they have a tantrum or some prayer and I'm like, well, I don't want those metaphors in my front. I just don't want those metaphors on my front. I just don't want.

Speaker 3: 15:59

That Doesn't mean that they don't come, because before I wrote that poem I was having two months of just sciatic pain dealing with some situations with my siblings. None of my siblings are origins from two of my parents. All of my siblings are haves, and the siblings on my father's side were siblings that I chased. And by chased I mean I had a belief that it was my responsibility to hold a kingdom together that was not mine, and in trying to hold that kingdom together, there were things that I expected that when they were not received, I pointed at all of them, and in pointing at them I was damaging my hip. You ever hear about? There's a scripture where Jacob wrestles with God, and when he wrestles with God pops that hip, because it was funny when you did the hip flex and you mentioned it.

Speaker 3: 17:04

Maybe that's why everybody's hips are so jagged. Yo, I mean the psoas. When you brought the psoas up, I was like, yeah, that whole connection between the psoas that connects the legs to the upper body, and all of that emotional response that happens there, you know. And so, as someone who is devoted to the embodiment of what it is that I believe in, and that is that I believe that all of us want to have our agency and our autonomy in order to have our accountability, that's the only willingness I have. I mean, it's not really I can't say anything profound besides just me wanting to live a life that reflects that which I talk about, you know, and I think that's what we all are, that's what we all want. We have coaches. We're like I'm a fitness coach and it's like, well, you've been fitting them sandwiches a little too much, right?

Speaker 3: 17:58

You know what I mean, like that's. You know you want to physically embody that, right? You want to do that. If I'm a dancer, if I'm, if I'm a dancer, if I'm a hostage negotiator, if I'm a whatever, there's an embodiment to all of these things. So I just want to embody those things does anyone have questions about anything?

Speaker 1: 18:22

anything that came up tonight, anything, anything that this man just you just dropped so many bombs in the most beautiful way.

Speaker 4: 18:33

Yeah, how long did it take you to like? What was the duration of the beginning of that was started at home until, like you, the last word?

Speaker 1: 18:44

Hmm, hmm.

Speaker 3: 18:51

So the way that I like to write you, you know everybody's spinning dervishes, so like they're, um, they like you you might have seen one they have the hat and they spin and they have like the cloak, like the matrix jackets, right, um, that's like their form of meditation. So a lot of times when I'm writing I will speak like, so I won't write with my hand, I'll just start talking, and you know writing, and so this poem, this poem, took about a couple of hours to get out of me, um, and then after that, you know, you sit down and refine the thing and do all of that.

Speaker 4: 19:24

But I think you're asking I'm not sure if that, if I'm answering the question you're asking are you asking about the literal first word to last word, like the time it took, or yeah, I was just wondering, like, did you just like, was that today that you dabble, just that, like, oh, was that something that you started in people and then, like, it was a matter of I don't know a few weeks that you, like, had to, oh, you know, find dreams. So it became like this, is it?

Speaker 3: 19:50

oh, this is reset.

Speaker 4: 19:52

This poem is very new, this poem just like oh yeah, you know, then you've been dealing. I said oh yeah, yeah, actually actively.

Speaker 3: 20:00

Like you know, this was fresh in the phone, if you, that's what you're asking. Like so, you know I'm I am catching up to this poem, right? Like so, the poem is there as something for me to look at and to live into, but it was like I gotta get. I had to slam poetry. I don't know if you've seen it. It's a lot of anger and a lot of people kind of pointing at the government or something, or just they, just this is the, and so you learn. You learn that and then you get points for it. So it's kind of crazy, right, you get rewarded for it.

Speaker 3: 20:33

I always want to write my poems to a place where I have all three of my things the right to act, the right to choose and full accountability for whatever it is. So when this poem, as I say it, this is, this is where I want to be and this is what I expect of myself, because I could have been like yo, my siblings, and and and written it beautifully, you probably would have felt something and it resonates you, but then it just reinforces the pointing, right? So the answer? I think the real question and the real answer is I'm still writing this poem right now? No, no, my wife was um, but this is the first time I've shared this poem out loud to the public. So, yes, how lucky are.

Speaker 1: 21:18

We thank people. Thank you so much, arshel.

Speaker 2: 21:32

Waking up.

Speaker 2: 21:33

I hear the desperation call. I turn my back and hit my head against the wall. Don't need a crucifix to take me to my knees. I'm whipping my mistakes to jump over the grief. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it. Oh, sick and tired of the voice inside my head Never good enough, it's leaving me for dead. But perfection's just a game of make-believe. Hey, gotta break the pattern. Find a new reprieve. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it.

Speaker 2: 22:24

Oh, I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside, I gotta live the life. I can be brave and afraid at the same time. Practice self-compassion, start to calm my mind, taking tiny steps to loving all of me. Just the process, cause it's gonna set me free. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it all. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside, I got the the life. Gotta gotta gotta break it or fake it till we make it. Gotta gotta gotta break it. Come on, woo, two, three. I am ready to make a change. One, two, three. I am brave to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's an omen deep inside. I got the the life.