Carlos Speaks Podcast
Looking for a podcast that will fill you with motivation, encouragement, and self-love? Those are the things that I hope to convey here with the Carlos Speaks Podcast. It is my hope that this podcast was creates an open think space to express, communicate and learn. Plug in to hear empowering stories and valuable insights that will hopefully ignite your passion for personal growth and positivity.
Carlos Speaks Podcast
Challenging Traditional Views on Manhood and Dialogue
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Growing up in the South as a preacher's kid, I was boxed into a rigid perspective on communication and masculinity. But what happens when that deep-rooted belief system crashes into the reality of diverse human connections? Tune in for a heartfelt exploration of how empathy and authenticity can reshape the way we engage with each other, whether it's in friendship, marriage, or the broader community.
This episode invites you on a transformative journey as I recount a pivotal moment during a pageant, where my friendship with my mentor was put to the test after discovering his truth. It's a raw look at the emotional turmoil of challenging ingrained biases and the power of open, honest dialogue to lead us toward genuine connection, regardless of sexual orientation or societal expectations. We also tackle the sobering realities within the sacred institution of marriage, exploring how financial stability masks deeper issues and how facing the truth can be both destructive and healing.
For my fellow men out there, this conversation extends a bold invitation to join the movement toward emotional honesty. It's not just about unburdening our hearts—it's about fostering empathy and improving our ability to communicate authentically. We're breaking down barriers and encouraging dialogue that elevates our understanding of ourselves and our relationships. Step into this space of introspection and learn why being true to ourselves and others is the ultimate expression of strength.
Communication From a Masculine Perspective
Speaker 1Okay, okay, welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode of the Carlos Speaks podcast. I'm your host, carlos, and I'd like to welcome you to episode four and, like I said last time, I think it's gonna be legitimately one of those ones, and you know you all by now. You know how I like to start show Number one. I hope you will. I hope you're in a good headspace. I hope that you are in a place of peace is Almost 8 30 pm when I am. I hope that you're a winding down for today and I hope that you're just kind of balancing yourself right now as we begin this episode. So, and if you're not well, I pray that you become well sooner than later and I hope that some part of this conversation helps you Find something that kind of guides you and pushes you towards being well, going right into the show. Tonight we're going to delve into what I considered to be sometimes a provocative Space, right. But before we get into that, I want to address the comments and questions from the previous episode. I got a lot of questions that I think Deserve their own episode, deserve their own Space, right? So if you submitted a question and I told you I'm going to get to that, then rest assured that we're gonna have an episode that surrounds that particular Topic. Other than that, I got like three of those. So, other than that, it's just been a whole lot of continued support. The subscribers is going up on the YouTube channel, the downloads are going up on Apple podcast and I am grateful, grateful, grateful for the support. Thank you so much to everybody who like comment, listen Whatever you do in support of the Carlos speaks podcast. Thank you, I appreciate all of you.
Speaker 1Okay, so Tonight's episode, as you probably read it from the title, um, focuses on learning to communicate from a masculine perspective. Right, and a few disclaimers. I personally don't care for Some of the conversations that surround labels like masculinity, femininity, um, and things of that nature, right, so I'm not gonna delve into those weeds. Right, by masculine, into nice episode, I very specifically mean learning to communicate as a man. That's the only way that I can identify with this particular concept in this particular space, from my own personal experiences with learning to communicate. Um, so hop in right into.
Speaker 1I think for me, some of the biggest hindrances that I faced With communicating started when I was a child. Right, I was a kid, so, if you don't know, I am Southern, born, bred and raised. I'm from South Carolina, baby 803 on the map. And In hindsight, look again, I'm speaking for me because there are a lot of people that can identify with where I'm from and how I grew up. So in hindsight, there were a lot of things In my childhood that conditioned me to be a man that Did not communicate well, period right. So the kind of South that I'm from, very strict household, I'm a PK, right for you. For those of you that don't know what PK is a, a Passage kid, a preacher's kid, which means baby.
Speaker 1I was raised in the church I'm talking about. Sunday was church. Monday was the ocean board meeting, wednesday was Baba study. Thursday was quiet practice. Saturday was a Praise dancing practice. Baby, we was in the church. You know me. There's maybe one or two days a week that we didn't go to church I'm talking about. I'm so church that when I was sick we still went to church because, baby, there is healing in the room. Come on in the room. If you don't feel good, baby, we're gonna lay it at the altar, kind of church, right.
Speaker 1And I sent that foundation to kind of lay the path away that segues into Taking the Bible and Justifying Massagenistic behavior. Mmm, and, and and this this traversed a significant portion of my life also amount for a child through my teenage years, through my college experiences, through my experiences with marriage, divorce as a dad. I'm talking about baby. The Bible tells me that the man is the head of the household. I don't hear nothing else about it. Right, and, and I thought that was right because of how I was raised in the church and then the. The other side of that is that, coming from a stroke, a straight household Conversations were very one way Throughout the entirety of my childhood. You're gonna do this because I told you to do it. How you feel about what I told you to do Ain't none of my business and I bet not here your opinion, cuz ain't a room for it right now. Was that said in that particular way? Absolutely not. However, comma, you knew when your mama says I was raised by my grandparents, primarily, right. So my mom was my grandma, my dad was my granddad. So, growing up, I wish you would what you what you say. You got something on your heart. No, ma'am, right, yeah, and you bet not saying that under your breath because I'm gonna knock it back in your mouth, right, hey, hey, great, it was. I All right.
Speaker 1If you finish out, if you grew up in a church, if you from the strict household, you might be able to identify with what I'm saying. Now. I've struggled with that because, if I'm gonna be honest, I'm just having that title of upbringing has supported success in my life. The trauma has contributed to the treasure. Now, that does not mean that it's right at all. Please hear me when I say it. Just because the trauma contributes to the value of the treasure, the treasure does not mean that the trauma was right. Right, and how did you benefit, carlos? I'm glad you asked.
Speaker 1So, coming up in that type of environment, you have to be put together a certain way, right? If I was to use phrases that I would associate with it, it would be baby, we raise dogs. When I'm from, you know what I mean when I say that. I mean there wasn't a lot of room for emotion, there wasn't room for opinion. You were given an order and you acted it out. Period. You go to school and you carry yourself in a particular way.
Speaker 1Or else I grew up in the age of, or else not in the age of communication, right? So to circle that background to my personal experience. I grew up muzzled. I grew up muzzled. I grew up in a household where we grew. We had very traditional roles. We had very traditional discipline. Baby, it is what it is. It's how we get down over here.
Speaker 1So I spent the majority of my life right In an environment where I didn't have a voice, didn't have a voice. You have a voice, right. So what do you do when you have things to say but no voice to say it with, nor a space to hold it? You vary it, chan, you put it away, you seed it right, and what I like to convey to people is that nothing you feel right can be buried without growing into something else. All right, let's get transparent right. So, as a man, right, and we're gonna traverse different periods of my life, right In this conversation. There is so much to unpack in this conversation. This may have a few parts as it pertain to the podcast. So, burying those emotions, burying what I wanted to say, let's start with college, all right.
Speaker 1So I attended the illustrious Claflin University, right, right there in the heart of Orangeburg, south Carolina. Baby, I'm talking about top seven HPCUs in the country. Year over year, I get down behind the hilltop huh. But it was on the hilltop huh that I had my first realization that I did not know how to communicate and I was very narrow-minded, right, and I thought that my experience as a black American male was the standard, right, I can only be black how. I know how to be black, right. And going to Claflin was my first experience outside of my particular culture. So my freshman year of college, the Aka's were having their annual Mr 1908 pageant and I didn't have any friends on the yard at the time. I was new. So what happened was I got there in January of 2010 because the first part of the academic year I was away for military training. So and even that is me going and getting to college as a first-generation college student is an episode for another day.
Speaker 1So I get there in middle of the year. Everybody already have established friendships, circles, all that good stuff, and so I get there. I don't have any friends. I have a best friend that I had happened to go to high school with, who came to Claflin, and it was through her that I met the Aka's right.
Speaker 1And so one of the Aka's was like hey, I've never seen you before. So we chatted it up, chopped it up, whatever. And then ultimately, she said I think you should be in our passion. And I was like ain't that for girls, right? She was like no, no, no, no. This is a showcase of men who have taste in fashion, who have talents. Like it's gonna be. You know, the big compadre Like you, gotta, I think you'd be great for it. Baby, a pretty girl telling me to do something at that point in life? Okay, well, I need to sign up at I need to sign up right now. You got a pen, you got a paper, what you need, you need my email address. Here you go right, and I wanna make sure I tell my truth without telling the truths of other people. Y'all know how I feel about that.
Speaker 1So I signed up for the pageant and I am introduced to the other participants of the pageant Right, and of course there are all guys we hang out. You know we're conversing, getting to know one another, woody, woody, woody. So, as an advisor, they have brought someone who had won the pageant Sometime before right and I took a liking to him as as a, as a, as a friend, right. I'm like, oh, he seems pretty cool, he can dress, like you know, he carries him so in a way that I would like to emulate. So we connect, right. You like yo man, you, you seem pretty cool, man, do you have a mentor, right? And I'm like, nah, you know, I'm just I'll spray from the country game, like I don't even know. I got here for real.
Speaker 1So we like, we hang out a few times and then on one particular day, I Hit him up and I'm like, hey, I'm trying to go to the cat and he says, cool, swing by my room, I'm getting ready now, which was which was not unnatural, right? So I like I bet on the way. So I go up to his room, right, he's changing or whatever, and so why he's getting ready to go to the cat? I'm looking out his window now. The way that his window is positioned, it had a view of the campus behind us, south Carolina State, and so it Was a beautiful. I remember it vividly. It was a beautiful Spring day. I'm talking about baby Sun dress season and, full of fact, I'll talk about the yard is hopping and popping like baby. We, we outside right.
Speaker 1And so, while he's getting dressed, I made the comment and I'm like, and in this, please remember, this is a Previous version of me, right. So I say breath, the hose is outside, like baby, we, we got to get outside Because we're gonna miss our opportunity to get after the hose, right, um, and he didn't say anything, right, and I didn't, you know, notice immediately, but because he didn't say maybe he didn't hear me. So then I'm like but did you hear, gang? The hose is outside. I hurry up man, let's go to the cat so we can slide. And so I'm continuing to look out the window the entire time.
Speaker 1And he's like Carlos, and he said my name in a tone that kind of took my attention quickly, you know. I was like, yeah, what's going you good, like what's up? And he said what if I told you I don't like women, y'all, when I tell you my chest, drop out my Backside, bro? I was like what you mean by that? Like you don't like girls, like you like women, like you like grown women, like you, like a different type of girl. And he like nah, and I was like you, like you like God. And he was like, yeah, y'all, when I tell y'all. I was frozen to that window.
Speaker 1I Think my heart might have stopped beating, and the reason why is because when I'm from baby. Homosexuality is a sin. I'm talking about fire and brimstone, the end of the world, sin Right, and Anybody who has anything to do with homosexuality will die and go to hell. That's I'm sorry. That's what I was taught at the time. So the first thought that I have is that how do I get the hell up out here? I'm looking out the window plotting my escape. I remember like there was a dresser by me to the left, his bed was to my right and he was between me and the dough.
Speaker 1I am legitimately creating an escape route in my head and while I'm doing all of this, I am a loss to my thoughts and he says to me it's okay, this is the part where you stop talking to me, we don't ain't got any more and this pretty much is our friendship. And and I and I heard him and I was like Damn, that's exactly what I was about to do. Okay, so now I'm gonna put in a place where I'm kind of seeing myself outside of myself, because my immediate knee jerk response was Conditioned. It wasn't authentic. Come on, I was conditioned to react this way, but it didn't necessarily Identify with how I wanted to react, right, so Still looking out the window because, baby, this is weird for me.
Speaker 1I said I was like, does this happen often? And he was like what? Like I meet people when we hang out and we're cool until they find out I'm gay. And I was like, yeah, he was like ever. That's how I knew, once you got offered that this is gonna be Whatever you know, and ain't no beef. I get it. And I'm like. I think to myself that must be heartbreaking to meet and Connect with people that you enjoy sharing a space with, only to be excluded because of what you enjoy for yourself. Right, and so, immediately in my mind, after having that thought, my next thought was am I gay? Yo, I'm tell you, bro.
Speaker 1I was so confused and discombobulated because I was fighting against what I was conditioned to do, right, with what I Wanted to do, and I wanted to be his friend, but I was conditioned to not connect with him. That's gonna go over some of y'all heads. I was fighting between doing what I was conditioned to do versus doing what I wanted to do. So I turn around and I ask them what does it mean for you to be friends with somebody? And he's like what do you mean we friends now. And I'm like no, no, no, no, I got it. Like, what is it like? You can't ask me for no relationship advice, bro. And he was like, he was like Carlos. Why would I ask you for relationship advice if we have two different relational dynamics? And I'm like, all right, you're right, you're right and you don't like me. Right, and he was like Carlos. No, I don't like you in that way. You actually look, you get on my nerves. That's why we hang out only a few times a week. You fully yourself, and you can't be very arrogant sometimes. All right, not too much, not too much. I can ask you for all that.
Speaker 1But nah, we went to the calf and we hung out and we continue to discuss his experiences with connections that he's lost because of his sexuality. And that was, for me, the very first time in my life when I began to see myself for who I was conditioned to be and who I thought I was. I thought I was an open minded, good, accepting person, until I was put into a situation that was unfamiliar and then it became. I won't absolutely no part of this because of my conditioning. So now that for me was a life altering experience, because following that I approach relationships and connections differently as it pertains to my ability to hear somebody, to understand somebody, but effective communication requires both understanding and expression. Right, and I think we're going to nah, nah, I was going to say we're going to save that for tomorrow, but nah, I want to dig into that. I want to delve into that now.
Speaker 1So, going back to the initial part of the conversation, where I didn't have the ability to express as a child, as a teenager, and everybody has their traumas, right, so we talk about mine, particularly now. So what do you do when you wake up one day and you have a voice after not having one for 20 years? What do you do with your ability to speak after being incapable of speaking for 20 years? Well, I'll tell you what I did. I decided that whatever I had to say would be heard and I would never be silenced again, under any conditions, in any space that I take up. I will never be quiet again. That was my response, and that's how I carry myself in relationships, in my general existence, in the army, as a trainer, as whoever, I will not shut up, and my inability to shut up calls me to say a whole lot of things that never need to be said, but I'm talking because I can, because I know what it's like to not be able to talk.
Speaker 1So one of the key experiences that I had with learning to feel through my expressions was my first divorce. Yeah, my first wife was, is a phenomenal person. She's loving, she's selfless, she's everything a wife should be. Yeah, and I mean that. This is usually the part where people are like, oh my God, is there no hope? Absolutely not, absolutely not. We, though even wrong. We had our blue face and crescent face right.
Speaker 1So we met at class, right, and we dated on and off, majority on for years, right, and if I'm going to be quite honest, quite frank with you, I was terrible as a man, as a boyfriend, as a husband, and by terrible I mean I cheated, right, a lot about cheating. I gas lit the hell out of her, all of that, right, but in my doing all those things you couldn't tell me I wasn't a good man. Right, because I'm still providing, I'm still spending the time, I'm still giving you what I believe meets the standard of being a good man. Right, everything I do outside of that is just what men do, and that was wrong. Right, I knew that then, but I was willing to blame the fact that I'm just a guy. I'm a man, bro, like bro, you know what it is. I need these streets. They see the player get played. Okay, so fast forward.
Speaker 1We got married on a particular date. I was in a bad place in my life, and by bad I mean I was a juvenile probation officer at the time, and, if you know, they don't make good money. So I was living check to check. I ain't had no spending money, I wasn't budgeting, but I was broke. You hear me, I'll talk about it with our capital K gang.
Speaker 1And so we were dating at the time, a long distance relationship. And she hit me one day and she's like I'm going to join the Nate. And I was like, oh, I want to say no, I want to say don't do that, I want to say that's not necessary, I want to right but. But selfishly, I saw the benefit of her joining the Navy more than I did the detriment of her joining the Navy. I considered, oh, we'll have an amazing life, we'll move. This is the new start we need, and in actuality, it was the new start that I needed. So, being the quote unquote full good man that I was. I was supportive hey, baby, do it, let's get up out here, you're going to get inside the trenches, you're going to save us, like, yeah, it's lit, you need the career change, all the things. So she did, and I was supportive because by then I had been in an army for an X amount of time.
Speaker 1So we essentially got married in the great state of Illinois, right outside the Great Lakes Naval Base, and I was happy, or so I thought. We moved, we settled and we started winning right. The money was coming in, bills were paid, we were budgeting well, everything that I lacked prior to this marriage, those needs were now met. And one critical lesson that I've learned is that met needs bring clarity. And that goes back to one of the previous episodes, when we talked about sobriety of mind. And what happened was I became sober in our financial stability and I realized that I did not love this woman the way a husband should love his wife.
Speaker 1Yeah, and unfortunately, there are some things done from that lack of love, that lack of honor, that lack of respect that I'm ashamed of, and so God has a way of putting you where you need to be when you need to be there. So I was in a situation where I had to tell the truth, I had to express, I had to say something that was different than the voice and my ability to speak had made room for, because before this moment it was rah, rah, rah. I'm the man, this rah, rah, rah. And now I have to express that I've done something that's going to break your heart and that's different, because you can't say that outside of a particular tone. It's humbling to tell the woman who loves you more than anything that you did something unloving to her, and it may have rippling effects. So I did it, I told the truth and she almost killed me. Yo, I promise you, I swear to God, I thought the girls were going to kill me. Listen, boy, listen, listen, listen. Stuff was flying. My TV got busted, that girl mine. I just knew that was going to be the last day I had on this green earth. So no God, I'm not being facetious. Maybe I couldn't come home that night, and rightfully so, and I'm laughing now, but I still carry that with me.
Speaker 1And even after all of that, she was willing to fill me in and even after all of that, she was willing to forgive me and stay married and I was put back in a position where I had to express, I had to say, I had to reframe how I was taught to speak or how I taught myself to speak, how I was conditioned to speak, because what I'm conditioned to do won't work in the space that I'm in. So I have to be authentic and I gotta say something that I'm not accustomed to saying, something that doesn't make me feel powerful, something that doesn't help me raise my voice, something that does not help me take control of a room that I'm in. I have to say that I'm sorry, but I don't love you how I should and if I stay here, I am going to break you down. How do you say that? How do you say that to a woman who loves you? How do you say that to a woman who's giving everything? How do you say that? Through tears? That's how you say that.
Speaker 1I never learned how to truly speak to people until that moment, because I was overwhelmed with sympathy when she cried Right when I say we shouldn't do this anymore, we shouldn't stay married. This is going to destroy us, and I don't want to do that to you. I don't want to do that to me. Now, in hindsight, could I have stayed and maybe the trust would have come, the love that a man and woman should have come, maybe. But I knew that it would come at the risk and result of additional trauma and I didn't know what to do with that. So I told her the truth.
Speaker 1They say the truth sets you free, but I don't necessarily agree with that anymore. I think the truth makes you feel and we gonna end tonight's episode on that note. Yeah, so, as we wrap this up, if you're a man because I can only speak to men in this particular way I encourage you to sit with yourself and your connections and the ways that you communicate. Are you being empathetic? Are you understanding well? Are you receiving well Right? Are you sitting with yourself before you respond to ensure that you're not responding in a state of condition but you're responding in a state of authenticity, and are you encouraging the men that are connected to you to do the same? Thank you for your time, my man. Until next time, be well.