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
Creating Healthy Communication Habits: Learning to Grieve People Who Aren't Dead
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Have you ever poured your entire being into a relationship, only to find that it might not have been the right fit? My journey through marriage, the profound effect it had on my friendships, and the personal growth that ensued are laid bare in this heart-to-heart discussion. We tackle the often-ignored truth of seeking genuine, experienced advice when facing the rocky roads of marital life. I'll also share the wisdom gleaned from seasoned partners and the revelation that sometimes the counsel we need doesn't always echo what society expects.
Navigating the complex web of childhood connections into our adult lives can be as tricky as a tightrope walk over a cultural chasm. Raised in the South where silence and respect often overrule expression and confrontation, I dive into how these early lessons shape our relationships and communication skills long into adulthood. Join me as we evaluate the true weight of friendships - should they be measured by their longevity or the growth they foster within us? It's an episode that doesn't just scratch the surface but probes deeply into the essence of our connections and the courage it takes to realign them with our true selves and purposes.
Good evening, good evening. Good evening, good evening and welcome back to the Carlos Speaks podcast Number one. I am sorry that it's taken so long for me to get to the next episode. There's been a lot of changes in my life Promotion ceremony, a lot of traveling, you know life has been. Lifeing is what I would say.
Speaker 1So to those of you who have listened in the gap of time between episode five and tonight's episode, episode six, thank you, I'm grateful. I definitely saw that there were a few downloads over the past week. We can have, and I really try to get out a new episode once a week. But also, I try to be authentic and very true to providing episodes that I feel in real time. As you know, if you've been here for a while, my episodes aren't scripted. There is no necessarily a format. We just turned the mic on, we turned the camera on and we had some dialogue. So again, thank you. Every like, every comment, every share, every text message, dm comment. I'm grateful for it all. So thank you for that. I hope you're well and if you're not well, I hope that something from this conversation helps you lean in the direction of becoming well, something that we talk about maybe closes a gap for you or it encourages some part of you to be healed, be it through whatever spiritual medium. You support conversation that may need to be had with someone, anything of that nature. So if you're not well, I pray that you do become well. Previous episodes there were a lot. We talked, we dove into my previous marriages, we dove into my previous relationships, some of the struggles that I go back and forth with being a dad, and I got a lot of feedback, a lot of feedback. The majority of it was thank you for being so vulnerable, transparent, those things, and there's a kind of weird nervous laugh that I give off before delving into something that is really personable or personal right or something that is very close to my chest those things that are currently healing. So it's been very interesting to have dialogue about those previous episodes.
Speaker 1One of the, I guess, pressing comments that I had gotten from the episode about my most recent marriage was do you think that you gave everything you could have to make it work? And that's a question that I've asked myself. That's a question that I have asked my therapist and, to be quite honest, my answer is yes. I think that I did more than I should have to make that work. And that was my answer to the people who asked. And they said, of course, well, why do you feel that way? And it's because I gave so much of myself to that connection, to that marriage, to that relationship, that it began to do internal damage and that damage manifested itself in other relationships.
Speaker 1I lost a lot of friends while I was married. Some of those losses came from what I believe to be insecurities in my previous partner, because I have a lot of female friends. Have you met women? I think I said that in the previous episode. So I'm surrounded by loving, nurturing, caring women all platonically. And I anybody who knows me knows that I cherish my friendships. So to lose those friends behind that relationship in hindsight was ludicrous to me. Who I am now would never have jeopardized those friendships, those relationships, those connections, for the sake of a relationship that had already presented itself as incompatible, for lack of a better term. So once I started becoming reclusive and isolated and I wasn't as communicative and people are reaching out saying, hey, are you okay? In hindsight, I should not have ever let that relationship get to the point where it's changing who I am as a person to other people.
Speaker 1I think, like I said in the previous episode, the decision to walk away should have been made long before it was forced to be made, so I'll say that. So, yes, to answer that question that I had gotten a few times, I think I did everything I should have and even to make it more specific, I sought wise counsel right, because I'm a young husband, so, having those conversations with spiritual leaders, other husbands, mature husbands who are going to be and that's a key if you're going to seek wisdom and guidance from anybody in the realm of marriage, I think it is imperative to connect with people who are going to give you the business I'm talking about. Listen, abre, this is what happened in my marriage. This is how it affected us, this is how it affected me as a husband, this is what I learned as a husband and this is how we moved forward as a team, collectively and also individually.
Speaker 1I think a lot of times when we seek wise counsel regarding marriage, we get the aesthetically pleasing counsel right, and what I mean by that is you get the guidance that says it's marriage, it is what it is. You have to figure it out because there is no other option. No, there are indeed other options, yep, and that might not be palatable or, you know, easily Digested by the elders of the church or the elders and black families. I'm black, I can't speak on any other experience, so you know a Lot of our grandparents stuck together through hail and high water. Baby, I'm not going to hail and I'm not taking the deal. Sorry, life is entirely too short and I have too much to do to force a connection that is not called or ordained by God, more so than it is me desiring to be with somebody. Okay, yeah, turn me up because I'm talking to me too. Oh, so, yes, to close that gap before we get into nice episode.
Speaker 1Seek counsel from people who will be honest. Marriage is the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life and I can explain to you why. You know so. If anybody has ever come to me, and even the people who have, you know, have had dialogue with me Regarding the difficulties of marriage, we all give it to you. Just great, what you think about marriage, how much time you got. Please have a seat. And that is my top tier, top five Pieces of advice as it pertains to Looking for counsel in the marriage. Find somebody who's gonna be honest with you, find somebody who is going to hold you accountable as a husband, as a wife, as a unit. You know you can never have too much support when it pertains to the Labor we know as marriage, baby, the labor, be laboring. So, yeah, so Segwaying that was a terrible segue, by the way, segwaying into tonight's episode and, like I always say, there's gonna be one of the ones.
Speaker 1I know I say that, I say that every week, but I need y'all understand that, for me at least, this is one of the ones and I say that because it's near and dear and close to my heart. It is one of those spaces that is always in a state of Continuous healing, and tonight we're gonna be talking about Grieving people who have not died. Even that in itself just makes me deep negro sigh, just ugh, because it's one of those things. It's one of those things that I think happens very often but people don't talk about enough. You know what I mean. Like you know, when people stop being friends, they're like oh, I just don't, you know, I just don't rock with them no more. You know they own their way, you know a very run-of-the-mill, brush-under-the-rug type of experience, and I don't think that's healthy, especially being someone who has been so deeply entrenched in such a space.
Speaker 1So let's get into what that means. Right, to grieve someone who is not dead, I mean very specifically having connections that are severed, friendships that are ended, relationships that are ended, family ships that sink, all of those things, any of those kind of ships that sink, I believe, requires a period of grieving, and I think that it is a multifaceted experience. Right, because me, maybe I'm a communicator, I'm an overly communicator. I'm not just going to wake up one day and be like, oh, I just don't rock with you, or I'm not a ghoster. Right, I'm not just going to stop talking to you one day, because I personally me personally I believe that that is cowardice to allow someone to think that or to leave someone to their own device as it pertains to why you don't talk to them anymore. You know what I mean.
Navigating Childhood Connections in Adulthood
Speaker 1So, in the realm of dating, right, you go out with somebody, you have dinner with someone, and it's not really your vibe, right, say that, say that you know, rather than just not communicating anymore, and now they're like well, was it me, you know? Was it my breath? Was it the date? Was it something I said, you know, and I don't think that it is honorable for lack of a better term, or aware is an even better term to do that to someone Because you don't want to have done the yell, even if you have learned to take ghosting on the chin and say, all right, well, that is what it is. No, it's not what it is. Something happened and I think, or I believe, or I would prefer that you just had a conversation going like just say that, say that, hey look, we just not headed down similar paths where we can be aligned for what I want versus you won't. Ba da bing, ba da boom, go by your way. Thank you for a great time. And dip, you know, versus just the dipping part. That was a terrible segue too. But to go back into the originating idea for tonight's episode, let's start at the beginning. I think it's always contextually important to start there. And what's the beginning? Carlos, I'm glad you asked Family Again.
Speaker 1Anybody who knows me knows that I am from the deep south. I come from a very close knit family, if you will, and early on in life we're taught to put up with family because that's family, no matter what. That's family. That's your aunt, that's your uncle, that's your mama, that's still your cousin, that's still whoever. And we're taught at an early age to allow people to abuse us for the sake of who they are to us. That's still your mom, that's still your dad, that's still da, da, da, da, da, da. And we use that as a justifying causation to allow them to abuse us. And I think abuse is one of those words that we've, kind of like, made hypersensitive, because abuse can have a myriad of applications Physical abuse, emotional abuse, spiritual abuse, financial abuse, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So when I say abuse, I mean abuse in the general sense. So we're taught and raised to allow people to abuse us because of who they are.
Speaker 1In my experience because I can't speak for everybody, right? So growing up it was always yes, ma'am, no ma'am, yes, sir, no, sir, okay, all of the things that give the Southern aesthetic right Well mannered, polite, not really reactive, explosive, those things right. Southern hospitality, all that good stuff, and I think all of that in my experience has been a mask that we use to be pleasing aesthetically, right. We don't want to. I think.
Speaker 1For me, in my personal experience, that was the beginning of being conflict-avoided. You know, if I'm in a room say amen, right, but conflict-avoided in the sense of all, right, I'm going to just be quiet, I'm going to just, you know, that is my mom, that is my dad. You know, I, because if I say anything it'll be disrespectful, because we I don't come from a background of being able to communicate as a child, because anything that I say that isn't child-like is disrespectful, come on, right. So, and if I'm disrespectful, I'm about to get turned every way but loose. So, in an effort to avoid getting my behind cut, yes, ma'am, yes, sir, even if that person isn't my mom, isn't my dad, isn't my granddad, isn't my grandma, because they're an adult. So we are taught to go along to get along before you get your behind cut. I don't want a behind cut, so I'm going to go along to get along. You're just so stupid, so you do it very hard. Yes, ma'am, okay, all right.
Speaker 1And what happens, I believe, is that we grow with that mentality Come on, somebody. We grow with the inability to communicate our true feelings, from a fear of what that conflict might bring. Come on, I'm talking to me, right? So the older you get, right, and even less okay, let's change the application of it as a student in school. Right, the teacher is always right. When I was a child, no matter the teacher might be irritated, teacher might be having a bad day, teacher might be going through the door, it don't matter, because whatever that teacher says, that teacher is right. And the argument has always been that teacher got hers. Okay, well, that teacher maybe had a bad day and took it out on me. But I gotta say yes, ma'am. I gotta say yes, sir, because I know that if this leads to conflict, I am going to lose every time. So I'll be quiet, all right.
Speaker 1So again, continue the application of this mindset through our adolescent years, through our teenage years and to our young adult years, where we're going to college and we're making connections in that 20-year-old you know, 18, 19, 20, 21-year-old time frame. In my experience, it was easy to come and go because there is no communication, because of the wants to be conflict avoided. Instead of telling somebody you're not attracted to them, you just kiki kaka, fall back until it fades away. All right, follow me, I'm going somewhere.
Speaker 1So I believe that the inability to grieve people and connections that are dead to us starts in our adolescent childhood years. All right, we got to shift gears a little bit. So what happens when we create connections? From that mindset we have at that age or that point in time, we have friends. Those friends grow with us. Everybody caters to their childhood friends, right? So you grow, you learn together. You know you trauma bond, even though you don't know that you're trauma bonding as you grow, right? So fast forward from childhood into adolescence. You know that's, that's a one day one, that's gang. You know what I mean. I ride, I die for you. So let's say that's where. From there, graduate, high school, now we're young adults, right?
Speaker 1I think at no point do we ever really consider the quality over the longevity of the friendship, poor relationship, because there are some of us who are with our childhood sweethearts and we have the inability to communicate honestly because we're conflict avoidant, because we grew up together. I'm from where you from, so you want what I'm on. Your mindset is very much so similar to mine. So, even though this connection may be unhealthy, nobody talks about it because of the inability to communicate honestly, from traumas that stem from our childhood. All right, I'm going somewhere else, watch me, follow me.
Speaker 1So what happens is we create these connections that are founded and validated by the longevity of the connection that has been my friend for 20 years. Therefore, the quality is already checked off without ever really evaluating the quality of that friendship or that connection or that relationship. Oh, we've been together 32 years, bro. You're 33 years old. You've never explored anything outside of that. So are you truly able to evaluate this relationship with a sense of unbiasedness, to gauge the healthiness of the connection? Are you communicating honestly or are you conflict avoidant, roger that?
Speaker 1So now let's double back to where. You wake up one day and you ready for the smoke. You wake up one day and you are ready to have difficult conversations because you are now questioning the quality of the connection. So then the conversations turn into how does this connection contribute to my life? And that baby is a question to ask how does this connection contribute to the quality of my life? And we can walk her back one Does this connection contribute to the quality of my life? I told y'all, I told y'all this was gonna be one of them ones.
Speaker 1So if the answer then becomes no, this connection does not contribute to the quality of your life, then what is the direction then? Do we then say well, it's been 20 years and I might be tripping, so I'ma let it be what it is. Absolutely not, even though that's what we do For the sake of conflict avoidance, because I don't conflict with myself. I don't want to sit with myself and say, brad, it's really ain't your friend, this really is not your person, because those are difficult conversations to have, even with yourself, much less the person you're connected to. But let's say, hypothetically, we've been going to therapy. We've been going to therapy, we've been praying, we've been strengthening our relationship with God or whoever you believe in, and you are having a real life evaluative I just made that a evaluative approach to your life and you start looking at your connections and fine tuning them and looking for the benefit. Matter of fact, swat never thought I would use that in my life, but in my message program. Right?
Speaker 1If you have an MBA, you are very familiar with what the SWAT is. Swat is a diagram that identifies the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a potential opportunity to start a business in a given location. Now let's SWAT these friendships. Right, whether the strengths of this connection. Do we communicate with one another? Well, do we communicate with one another openly and honestly? Right? Let's talk about the weaknesses. What are the weak points of this connection. Are those weaknesses worth strengthening? Are we both collectively willing to build those strengths? Are those connections even happening? What do I need from the people that I am connected to to consider them friend? These are the hard questions that we very rarely ask ourselves. So opportunities what opportunities does this connection bring me? What are the threats? Is this connection easily threatened by an external or outside influence?
Speaker 1And when you have that SWAT analysis, you sit down and you make a decision and you say, all right, this is either A good or B is bad. And you decide is this something that I want to continue or something that I don't want to continue? Or C, is this something that a conversation could fix? All right, let's move forward. Hopefully y'all following me, I'm not taking the GPS, I'm taking the scenic route tonight.
Speaker 1So you get to the point where you're having these conversations with yourself and to really, really, really see this through for lack of a better term or phrase you have to have these conversations with the people you're connected to and it doesn't have to be abrasive. Please don't let it be abrasive. Matter of fact, let it be communicative. Let's go have a drink, let's have lunch, let's have brunch, let's do a thing that creates the environment or space in which we can communicate, and I think even that is going to be indicative of the quality of the friendship or connection or relationship that you have with a person. Because do they just say, okay, let's do it? What's on your mind, which is, again, like I said, indicative, okay?
Speaker 1And you have a conversation and you say, hey, I've been thinking about these things as it pertains to our friendship. Are we learning from one another? Are we contributing to the lives of one another? Are we sharpening one another, because iron sharpens iron? Am I contributing to you and your life as much or in ways that you need for me to contribute? Do you feel like I'm a good friend to you? And be receptive of those answers?
Speaker 1Because more often than not, we operate from a sense of ego. So if somebody tells you that you're not doing something that you believe you are, the immediate reaction is yes, I am. Why are you feeling defensive? Because all of a sudden, it's still don't got to be explained. And if you don't understand, then allow it to be explained Right, receive, all right. How can I be better for the sake of this friendship? And then the converse, or the other side of that is these are the things that you contribute to my life, these are the ways that you show up for me. But what I need from you is ABCDEFG. Right In a perfect world, you have that conversation, you know y'all.
Speaker 1Y'all hug it out, y'all shake hands, y'all have a shot, whatever it is, you're not going to go on and y'all be amazing best friends or a perfect relationship or great cousins or whatever it is. But what happens when that conversation doesn't go well and the SWAT analysis then says this is not an opportune moment, this is not an opportune connection, this person needs to be severed. Then what? I tell you what we usually do. We ignore that and we SWAT anyway, we build anyway, right, and then we get frustrated down the road and we have explosive reactions to the inability for that person to be our friend because we brushed it under. I knew this was a bad opportunity, I built on it anyway, and now I'm frustrated that it crashed and burned. Now I got to take this out on somebody. No, that's your fault, gang. So SWAT says no, what do you do when you lose your best friend? What do you do when you lose your grandma? What do you do when you lose your brother? And when I say lose, what do you do when you have to cut them off in an attempt to protect yourself? Because staying connected to abuse of people will continue the cycle of abuse. And every time you brush it off with a, they didn't mean it. You know they just had a bad day. You know maybe I shouldn't have, and you're allowing them to continue to traumatize you. What do you do? What do you do? You let it happen more often than not. You keep it going because you don't want to lose the time that you've invested. You don't want to lose the experiences. You don't want to lose the memories. You don't want to. So you have to make a decision and you say, all right, for the betterment of myself, the betterment of my life, the betterment of who I am, for the necessity to stand on business. And I cut this person off. And for me that's been one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do. But, just like I tell anybody, the valley is darkest when you're in it and on the other side of the grief is healing, there is fulfillment. You know, you get to focus on the things in your life that are indeed good that do indeed pour into you. You know, you get to create a different sense of self. I think sometimes, more often than not, a weight is lifted because those connections that do not serve us drain us. You know, look at your phone and we're like God, oh, I don't even want to, I ain't going to answer that, you know. Or you have to filter who you are in the presence of the people you don't rock with but they think you're all best friends. And you have to start making excuses for people as it pertains to who they are to you and who they are not for you. And in my experience, the best way to do that is head on. So that means no communication, you know. That means having that conversation that says, hey, I can't allow you to be who you are to me, be who you are to anybody else, but I can't let you do that to me. And if that means that we can no longer be what we've been, then be well. And there's no maliciousness, there's no animosity, there is no hate, you know, and those things aren't there. When you know that you've done everything you could for a particular connection, you know when the actual relationship breaks up. And I'm not mad because I know that I gave everything I could. I'm not mad because I know that I did everything with no ill intent. I'm not mad because I know I gave it everything that I had. And no, this is in a conversation that says do these things to make it easier? That is not easy, bro, that's not, it's not. You know, there are major accomplishments that you have in your life where you want the people who've been there, the people who have witnessed it, to be there. But they can't because of the service that the connection has brought you. And that doesn't devalue the accomplishment, that doesn't devalue the milestone, the benchmark, right. But there's a part of you that says man gang should have been here. Oh, turn up. And that kind of overshadows the grief. I don't believe personally, that grief ever goes away. I think it comes in waves, especially when there are rippling connections associated with that connection. Right, if it's a family member. Now that family member is family members, which are family members, the people who do serve you, the relationships that do bring happiness to your life. But the hard part about waking up ain't fogey's in your cup. It's about having the accountable confidence in yourself that says I did the right thing and I'm going to stand on business. I'm going to be cordial, what's good? Ok, wish you the best, how about you? And keep your pushing. But all of these things require that you be objective in your awareness of the relationships that you take part in relationships, friendships, family, ships. What is keeping that boat afloat? Are there holes in a boat that needs to be addressed? Is that more sinking? Those are very difficult questions that you have to ask yourself, because those ships affect the quality of your life. Check your ships. Check your ships and have the courage to communicate. Have the heart to talk, but, more than anything, have the heart to hear, to listen, to understand. Thank you all for joining me tonight. I pray that you're well. I pray that you move forward with the courageousness you need to communicate. I pray that you have a heart to hear and I pray that there is something from this conversation that you're able to take with you as you go. Yeah, until next time, peace.