It’s not you, it’s me! I am the drama. Lets talk about accountability

In this episode, we’re talking about accountability—the part of growth most people try to avoid. We unpack the habits we blame on others, the excuses we hold onto, and the uncomfortable truth that sometimes… we’re the problem. This conversation challenges you to take a step back, look inward, and own your role in your own life. Because real growth starts when the finger-pointing stops. If you’re ready to level up for real, this one’s for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

It's not you. It's me.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

What if we actually look in the mirror and own our behavior?

SPEAKER_05 0:06

I realized that I was emotionally abusive. I lie to you because I care about your feelings. I'm out here telling these other the truth.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

We can't continue to use something that happened to us in the past. Well, I'm doing this because my mom did this or my dad did that. No, baby, you are 33.

SPEAKER_05 0:23

Some people are just professional victims where it's always somebody else's fault. My thing is, if you got that much fear of hurting the person, why are you doing what you're doing in the first place? You speechless.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

I am.

SPEAKER_05 0:38

Hey, hey, hey, welcome to the Trigger Happy Out where we take shots of the truth, straight with no chase.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

It's your host that do the most of your corner, Darnish. And get ready as we dive deep, laugh loud, and unheck trigger, you can dive in. But it's always real.

SPEAKER_05 0:58

Hey, y'all. It's your girl, Darnisha, licensed mental health counselor, mommy of two. I like to give it to y'all straight with no chase, but sometimes I gotta put a little sugar on the rim to ease it up. But either way go, y'all already know. I'm gonna give it to y'all. 100 proof truth.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Hey, hey, what's going on? I'm your boy Daquana. I'm here for all the weather, bringing you the wind, the sun, the rain, and the storm, baby. But mostly I like to just sprinkle a little sunshine to help you get through the day.

SPEAKER_05 1:25

Sprinkle, sprinkle. All right, y'all. So today's topic is one that we all have heard before. And that is, it's not you, it's me. But today we're flipping that phrase into something a little bit deeper, and that's accountability. But before we get into it, we want to give our lovely disclaimer. This is not a substitution for therapy. We are here as a sounding board. If at any moment you're feeling triggered, please step away from the episode and take a couple deep breaths if you have to. And if you need professional help, make sure that you seek a professional counselor. You can find one on Psychology Today. You can utilize your EAP services at your job. You can do a soccer Google search. But either way it goes we are here for you.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

All right, so y'all know how we get down. It's time for the icebreaker of the day. And today is gonna go back to season one again, song choice of what best describes your day. Darnesha, do what you have for today.

SPEAKER_05 2:17

All right, so because of the topic today, it kind of reminded me of a back-in-the-day moment where I was dating this guy. Since we're talking about accountability, I'm gonna keep it real with y'all. And so he said this to me. We was in the we was in the car together. We was riding. I had just, I had this some foul stuff, right? And he was like, man, I'm a man with pride. You don't do like that. You don't just pick up and leave and leave me sick like that. You don't throw away what we had just like that. I was just fing them girls. I was gonna get right back. So I'm gonna give y'all a little Jay-Z sun cry. Because today is all about accountability. What you got?

SPEAKER_00 2:55

It's gonna be I'm going down by Mary J. Blige. It's not because my heart was broken. It's because I don't know what's going on with me. I don't know if this is my sinuses or I'm getting sick again. But I'm going down, y'all. Like, I woke up with a massive headache. I've been sneezing all day, and I just can't seem to shake this headache. I took something for it. It went away for a little bit, but now it's starting to come back. I've been tired. So yeah, I'm going down. Mary J. Blige, MJP. We stay in New York. We stay in New York.

SPEAKER_05 3:28

I'm going down. That body just, I mean, the body ain't body no more. You know, we we getting older. It's kind of harder to fight off, but you got it? You're gonna get into it. Jump back in the ring. You got it?

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Mm-hmm. Let's see how I am in the morning when I go to work, child.

SPEAKER_05 3:42

Well, I hope you feel better, brother. I really do. Because I hate to see you like this. I really do. All right, y'all. Back to the topic at hand, and that's accountability. Y'all heard it. It's not true. It's me.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Right. Because a lot of times people say that phrase to avoid responsibility. You know you have at least once or twice, right? But what if we actually mean it? What if we actually look in the mirror and own our behavior? Today we're talking about what accountability looks like in relationships, friendships, and even ourselves.

SPEAKER_05 4:17

Yes, y'all. So accountability isn't just saying, my bad. How many times we do something and we just be like, that was me. That was on me, my bad. It's about recognizing your role in a situation and being willing to change it. That's key. Not just my bad, but okay, that was my bad. Now what am I gonna do about it? But let's be honest, sometimes it's just easier to blame others. But growth can only happen when we acknowledge our part of the situation, what we did, not what somebody else did, but what we did.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Right. Accountability requires self-awareness, humility, and emotional maturity. Okay. Now, is there any type of personal reflection that you can think of, Darmisha, that you had to be accountable for yourself?

SPEAKER_05 5:04

Yeah. Do I want to struggle then?

SPEAKER_00 5:08

You struggle that hair.

SPEAKER_05 5:10

I'll just go back to what I was talking about earlier. Okay, so I was younger. Here I go making excuses for my behavior. Okay, but I I gotta preface with that. Like I was about 19 years old, 19 years old.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Young and dumb.

SPEAKER_05 5:23

Young and dumb, somewhere around there. And I was dating this guy, but he was on that bull. And so I pulled up at the store. It was called the liquor basket. And so I I seen the vehicle of this this other guy. But I knew they like ran in the same circle, but they wasn't homies, but I knew they was in the same side of town. So the dude was trying to get at me, right? And I was telling my girl, I said, I can't talk to him because he they on the same, he, he in the same little, and she was like, girl, whatever. Gass me up. So I started talking to the dude for the sole purpose, because I was I was mad at the homie. Oh, if I start talking to him, I know it's gonna, because I I'm from a little small town. I said, I know it's gonna get back to him within a matter of seconds, days. So that was my trifling, that was my trifling moment because I did it to get back at somebody else. But I was wrong for doing that because just because they wasn't friends doesn't mean that they didn't acquaint with one another or they wasn't around one another. And so I I should have made better decisions.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Um, I think for me, it's gonna be a little lighthearted. When I had to be accountable for how I treated somebody, just one of my friends didn't like how I was speaking to them as far as trying to be their therapist, and I wasn't trying to do that. So I had to be accountable to listen to them and hear them out and apologize for it because that's not how I meant to make them feel. I wanted to be there for them as a friend and not as a therapist.

SPEAKER_05 6:56

Okay. All right. So the intention, we talked about this last week, intention and impact. So the intention wasn't necessarily a bad intention. You were trying to be there for them, but that's just not what they needed from you in that moment. And so you're able to recognize in that moment, I should have been more so supportive and not, okay, I got that. All right. So why do you think people struggle with accountability? We're gonna, we're gonna dive into that. So one reason people avoid accountability is because of their ego. What Kanye say? You got a big ego. Ego. Hey, such a big ego. Yeah. Nobody likes being wrong.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Nobody. And another reason is fear. Let's talk about it. Fear of losing someone, fear of judgment, or fear of admitting that we hurt somebody.

SPEAKER_05 7:48

So you got an example of fear, avoiding accountability out of fear that you would either hurt somebody or fear of being judged if you admitted to what you did, or fear of just losing somebody.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Yeah. I mean, we all had a fear of just losing somebody and not wanting to tell them the exact truth. I think we all struggle with that sometimes. Sometimes. But you have to just be truthful because later on it's gonna come out anyway. So I would say a past relationship, it was because I was afraid of losing them, and I didn't necessarily want to tell them the truth about how I felt in the moment. So unfortunately, I didn't tell them. I just let it go by and I just slid on by, just thought it was gonna pass on over, but no, baby, it came out like a thief in the night. Mm-mm. I ain't gonna go into details about it, but you know, it was more so of just fear of no. It was a fear of just losing somebody. I mean, I'm the type of person, if somebody asked me a specific thing, I'm just gonna go ahead and fess up because there's a reason why you're asking it.

SPEAKER_05 9:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

So I might as well go ahead and tell the truth on it.

SPEAKER_05 9:03

You ever heard of, okay, I lie what Jody said on Baby Boy, I lie to you because I care about your feelings. I'm out here telling these other the truth. How do you feel about situations like that in relationships?

SPEAKER_00 9:16

That don't make sense.

SPEAKER_05 9:17

It's right. But my thing is if you got that much fear of hurting the person, why are you doing what you're doing in the first place?

SPEAKER_03 9:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:25

I mean So where's the reverence?

SPEAKER_03 9:31

You speechless. I am.

SPEAKER_05 9:33

You got me speechless. Yeah, but where is that reverence? If you that fearful, I don't want to tell this person the truth because I don't I don't want our relationship to end or I don't want to hurt their feelings, but you weren't thinking about that when you was doing what you was doing to hurt the feelings in the first place. So that's accountability too. Being able to say, Well, you know what, I ain't got no business doing X, Y, and Z in the first place. I like yeah. So in addition to ego and fear, sometimes people simply just were not taught how to accept responsibility in a healthy way.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Exactly. That that's that is deep right there. Because a lot of us don't know how, because one, you didn't grow up seeing that.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

And I think people need to look into that, not using that as an excuse, but you can look into why you're not able to do it in a healthy way is because you've never seen an example of that in a healthy situation. Not an excuse, but it gives you some reason why you do these things. Now it's up to you to change that. Okay. You have to be man and woman enough to change that because we can't continue to use something that happened to us in the past. I'm tired of hearing the same thing. Well, I'm doing this because my mom did this or my dad did that. No, baby. You are 33, grown age, and you can't continue to keep going back. Well, baby, your mom and dad is already grown. They did what they had to do. You can't keep using that. You know, I'm tired of hearing that. I have so many friends that just talk about, well, my mom and dad didn't do this for me, and I'm mad, and they need to do all that. Well, baby, you grown now.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

So you ain't no child. Stop using that as an excuse and get yourself up and do the things that you need to do in the correct way.

SPEAKER_05 11:33

And I just love you so go ahead. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

No, go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 11:36

I was gonna say I just love you so much because I had that on my mind to discuss. Professional victimization. Some people are just professional victims where it's always somebody else's fault. And how long are you gonna carry on? I'm not dismissing what happened to you in childhood. I'm not dismissing your parents not being around, I'm not dismissing anything that happened to you. Because I carried around some childhood stuff with me for a long time, well into my 30s. And so I had to, I ain't even gonna lie, I would say early 40s as well. And then I had to remind myself, Donisha, you are 40 plus years old. Girl, come on now. You know, that was it, Denise. But um I'm just like, at what point do you just say, you know what? That happened, it is what it is. This is what I learned from it, this is how I grow from it, this is what I know from it, and this is what I can do to be a better version of me. Because we can't go back to the past, and it's not healthy to continuously hold on to it either. So, at what point are you going to accept responsibility for the way that you are right now and the decisions that you make? Your mama or your daddy didn't force you to make the decisions that you're making right now. They had influence over you when you were younger. Well, what about right now? How you sh how do you show up for your kids since you say your parent wasn't there for you? How are you showing up for yours? How are you talking and communicating with your child since you said you got yelled at all the time, or you got beat? Are you beating on your kids? Are you degrading your kids? Are you saying demeaning and derogatory things to them? Or are you lifting them up? So again, you know if you know better, you do better. This generation knows better. This generation is more woke. This generation has more help and more resources. The baby boomers didn't. What's after the baby boomers? You got the baby boomers, we got millennials, we got winging eggs. Who is that? My mama nam. Yep, your mama nam.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Isn't it? No, it ain't the boom.

SPEAKER_05 13:37

What generation is that?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

1973.

SPEAKER_05 13:40

My mama's 62. I don't know. Y'all know what generation is.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Y'all know what it is. We ain't going back there. We just know our generation, okay?

SPEAKER_05 13:47

We just know that y'all didn't necessarily have the resources that we had. And so being the age that I am now and DeQlan being who he is now, we're fine, we're understanding y'all did the best that y'all could.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

And what y'all could, you know, with the resources.

SPEAKER_05 14:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

And with the resources. All right. Now we're gonna go ahead and jump into accountability and relationships. And relationships, accountability builds trust. When someone can admit I hurt you and I'm working on it, that creates emotional safety.

SPEAKER_05 14:17

I love that. I hurt you. That's validation of feelings. I recognize, I acknowledge that I hurt you. I can't change the fact that I hurt you. I can't promise you that I won't hurt you again, but I'm working on it. That creates an emotional safe space. That psychological safe space we talked about, that's what that creates. That that's allowing your partner to be like, okay, I can be vulnerable. This is the kicker, though. You can't continuously hurt and hurt and hurt and hurt over again and still expect that person to feel emotional safety. Because the more you do it, the more it's gonna hurt.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

You're right. And you know, I had to learn from my previous relationship that I made a promise that I would never hurt that person. That was a dumb promise because I hurt that person anyway, right? So I had to get out of that mindset of making that promise. Well, I promise I would never hurt you. I'm lying right then and there. Because some point down the line, I am gonna hurt you, not intentionally. I want to say not intentionally. So I'm not going to put that false narrative in something in a in a relationship. Because again, people get hurt naturally. It's not a perfect world. I'm not a perfect person. I'm not, I'm not Jesus. I'm gonna make mistakes because I'm human. But I had to put that in there.

SPEAKER_05 15:41

So what I hear you saying is it was a mistake for you to make that promise to not hurt them. And I heard you add on, like it wasn't intentional. So, but you shouldn't have made the promise because it was a possibility you would hurt them again, but the intentionality wasn't there. And I just want y'all to remember what we said an episode before, where just because it wasn't your intention doesn't mean that it wasn't impactful to the person. And we can't take away that impact. Once that impact hit, that impact hits. So we have to learn to be more mindful. And I want to go back to a story of accountability because when I was married, we're talking about us. It's me. It's not you, it's me, right? And I know initially we want to think about everything that that person did that caused the separation or the breakup or whatever, but we got to self-reflect on ourselves, which is what this episode is about. And what I realized, I didn't realize it when I was in it, but when I got some help and I got out of the relationship, I realized that I was emotionally abusive. How? Because when we would get into it, I was shut down. And I'm talking about for days. And this was a person that needed to address the situation immediately. And I was the person that needed time to cool off. And so when we went to counseling, one of the things that the therapist said to us that I will always take away is, well, Darnesha, it's not fair for you to just shut down for days. And she's telling him it's not it's not fair for you to expect for her to have a conversation immediately. So y'all gotta come up with a common ground. But when you shut down on somebody, when you walk away from them, when you dismiss them, you're telling that person, you're not even worth a discussion. You're not even worth me explaining why I'm mad. You ain't even worth it. So, in a roundabout way, you're abusing them without even saying anything. Sometimes not saying nothing is saying a lot. So I had to realize Tony should communicate. If you, if you let's just say I don't feel like talking right now, how hard is it to say, just give me 30 minutes? Just just give me a minute. I'm not having the best day. You know what? What you said triggered me, what you said hurt my feelings, but you know, give me some time. That was a learned behavior for me because I I get a lot of whoopings. I'm not gonna say I didn't get whoopings. I got popped in the mouth because I'm a pop, I be popping off. So I got popped in the mouth. And so um, my mama had me around all these old grown people. Oh, I'm talking like them, I'm talking like my Ain't Lean, I'm talking like my grandma, but it wasn't appropriate, right? So my mom, the punishment, she would get mad and she wouldn't talk to us for like a week or two. I know, and I'm and I'm I'd rather you cuss me out, but she wouldn't talk. Me and my sister, we uh opened up our Christmas presents earlier than what we were supposed to. She found out because the little wrapper paper was torn off. She gave us the gifts early, and she's she ain't talked to us. And that hurt that's more hope hurtful to me because I feel like a physical whooping, I'm gonna be hurting for a couple of hours. I might have a little couple whips on my arm, but that's gonna heal. Oh, that just hurt. So I learned how to do that. Oh, I'm mad at you. I'm just gonna give you the silent treatment. And that was so painful. So again, recognize what you do wrong. When you walk out of a relationship, stop worrying about what they did to you. You focus on what you did because you can't change nothing about what that person did to you, but you have a hundred percent control over how you respond.

unknown 19:06

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

I think you know this wholeheartedly. I used to take accountable for when I was married.

SPEAKER_05 19:12

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Because what did I do when I called you? It's I would meant I know I was wrong. I know I was wrong. I could have did this, I could have did that. I know I will always shift the blame on me on what I could have handled better in that situation. And then sometimes you had to just give it to me like, you need to stop.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Because what did he do? You know, it it warrant that response, but it's still not okay. But again, I'm glad that you was there for me, girl, because we was there for each other, not knowing that we was mirroring each other's uh marriage.

SPEAKER_05 19:45

Right. I I seen something the other day that said, What happens to you in life is 20% the action of somebody else and 80% of the way you respond to it. And I was like, dang, that's that's legit though. Because we can't control what happens to us, but our reaction to the said situation is everything. It is.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

It is. Because if they did something to you, you don't have to pop off. You don't have to cut deep. You don't have to hit below the belt. But I know a lot of people hit below the belt and talk about them or talk about their their spouse or whoever real bad, like a dog, like a low-down, dirty dog. Baby, no, no. If that's the type of relation, I don't want it. Leave me out of it. I don't want that. I don't want that. I don't like that.

SPEAKER_05 20:32

Yes. It's I'm laughing because I had an embarrassing moment going through Las Vegas Airport with mine, and we was, we was go, we, we going through the uh the security scan, going off on each other. I mean, saying some vile things to one another. Oh, and then had to sit next to each other on the plane. Man, I'm telling, hey, that turbulence hit. You don't think I grabbed him? He was like, get off of me. But yes, but accountability, holding yourself accountable, because just some just because somebody crash out or say something to you, that don't mean you got to say something back.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Exactly. Even though you want to, maybe it's better to bite your tongue and just be the bigger person and just say not to react to it. Because initially that's what that other, especially if it's a toxic relationship, the other person wants that response. They want you to be out of character.

SPEAKER_05 21:21

And then going back to that when you don't accept accountability, there's that blame shifting. And when you shift blame, ooh, it creates a whole bunch of resentment. Because accountability doesn't mean that you're always wrong. It just means you're willing to examine what your role in the situation was. And if you're not doing that, that resentment builds up with your partner. And it's hard to gain that trust back. I I do therapy with people that have so much resentment towards their partners, and it's it's hard. Not just with partners, with family members. You know, friends. You have friends and families that never apologize or don't Don't accept accountability, then you feel in some kind of way, and that resentment builds up. And until you address it, it's just gonna sit there and just faster.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Baby, resentment turns into hate. Because I'm not gonna lie, I did have some hatred at one point.

SPEAKER_05 22:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

My ex-husband, I had some real bad resentment. And it's it didn't really turn into hate. Let me take that back. Because I didn't allow him to have that much power over me. When somebody, if you start to hate that person, then they have that much power over you still. And I refused to give him that satisfaction. Now I had some resentment, but it never turned into hate, I will say that. Now, I would never forget my one girlfriend, Keisha, when I lived in DC, I used to say, baby, he can burn the hell for all I care. Right? She said, Well, could he go to heaven? I said, baby, he can go to heaven too. I don't care. As long as I'm not involved, baby, do him. I don't care. You know? So, yes, if she flicked it on me, well, do you wish him to go to heaven? He can go to heaven. I don't care. I just don't care. Because as long as I'm not involved, then that has nothing to do with me.

SPEAKER_05 23:11

Yeah. So how did you get to that point where you didn't allow the resentment to turn into hatred? Or once you found it getting close to that, you were able to kind of combat that that feeling, that emotion.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Oh, I was going to therapy. Okay. Therapy was the thing. You know what I'm saying? So, but I just always knew that if somebody had hate, because I know I heard it one time before that I think Medea said it. Somebody said. That that means that person still had oh, it was Medea. Because it was Medea goes to jail. When they was talking about, oh, I hate them. Baby, don't let nobody get you have that much power over you. And I refuse to anybody have that much power over me because they're not worth it.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

They're not worth it. Maybe they can't go off and do them, and I don't care. That that's just something that as long as I don't, I'm not affected by it, maybe I don't care about what they do, who they do, who they see, whatever. That's on them and not on me.

SPEAKER_05 24:10

Right, right. Well, that's good. Because it does take a lot of energy to stay mad and angry at somebody. I don't have no hatred or no animosity towards nobody. If you beefing with me or you got a problem with me, that's a one-sided beef. That's a you issue. Because I sleep peacefully. I ain't thinking about you. Why are you holding on to all that anger and resentment? Even in, I'm I'm gonna say this. I have to go there. Maybe we can do an episode on this later. But co-parenting relationships, I want my son's father, my daughter's father to win. A win for y'all is a win for me is a win for the kids. So it'd be, I've heard somebody say, Well, yeah, I can't wait for karma to come and blah, blah, blah, blah. Why would you want something negative to happen to the primary caregiver of your child or to whoever? Because if I'm not right mentally, how am I supposed to be a mother to my children? So why are you praying on that person's downfall? Pay y'all pay for them to pay for the come up. Pray for the mental stability, pray for the financial stability. Why do you want to see them broke? Why you want to see them broke in? That's not that that's not me.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

You know why? Because it also takes a lot of growth for somebody to get to that point. So they don't want to see them progress. They don't want to see them happy because they saying, Well, why and why do I want you to be happy if you made my life a mid uh live in hell. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:52

Made my life here hell.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Okay. Real bad. But that again, it it takes growth. It takes therapy will help you get to a point where you don't have that resentment because when you learn that it's not benefiting you, I mean, hey, karma's gonna I say karma is the biggest in the world. It's only a matter of time. Yeah, karma is a is the biggest B in the world, but you don't want to wish nothing bad on or or or hate on your s your past significant other. Because remember, karma comes back and it will hit you too. So just keep that in mind.

SPEAKER_05 26:34

All right, y'all. So we're gonna get into some steps on how you can start accepting accountability for yourself. Because it's you. It ain't them, it's you. Okay, it's me. It's Daquan, it's the person listening. Let's focus on us and not focus on everybody else. So the first thing you can do is practice honest self-reflection. Practice honest self-reflection. The first step is being honest with yourself. When conflict happens, instead of immediately Okay. The first step is being shit. The first step is being honest with yourself. When conflict happens, instead of immediately blaming the other person, pause and ask yourself, well, what role did I play in this situation?

SPEAKER_00 27:15

That question alone can shift your perspective. Self-reflection helps you recognize patterns and your behavior. And I think that's the biggest thing. I'm very I overanalyze myself. And I always will say, what could I have done better in that situation? So that's already step one for me. All right. Step two is own your mistakes. I said, own your mistakes. The second step is owning your mistakes without excuses. Because a lot of people like to put excuses behind, well, I did that because you no, baby. No. And you just canceled out the whole thing. Well, but, but, but I wouldn't have done this if you didn't. I wouldn't have done this if you didn't. No, baby. Just say, I made a mistake, I did this, and I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_05 28:05

Yeah. Just like he said. Accountability don't sound like I'm sorry, but you made me mad. No, I'm sorry. Period. I hurt you. I'm sorry for disrespecting you. Period. And then step three is make amends when necessary. If your actions hurt someone, the next step is to what? Dun dun dun. Apologize. Make amends.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Mm-hmm. That could be apologizing, correcting the behavior, or showing through your actions that you're committed to doing better.

SPEAKER_05 28:41

Actions. Because a lot of how how many do who knows somebody that said, I'm sorry, so many times the apology lost its substance. I'm tired of your apology. I'm tired of you apologizing. I'm tired of you apologizing. The best apology is changed behavior. You want me to believe that you're sincere with your apology? Then how about you do something different next time?

SPEAKER_00 29:02

And you know, every time I I think of anything, I think of a toxic relationship or a domestic violence situation. When they say, I'm sorry, baby, I won't do that again. I won't hit you again. I won't. And yet you keep doing it and it gets worse, worser, and worser and worser.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

That's every time I think of something like that, is that people in a domestic violence situation, they they hit each other. You know, it's not even one-sided sometimes. It's both sides. Okay, we hit each other. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, baby. Uh it won't happen again. And next thing you know, you're getting pushed into the wall or something. And then y'all, y'all scrapping. I don't want that. I don't want that. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 29:45

Not at all.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

Step four is set personal boundaries with yourself. Sometimes accountability means setting boundaries with yourself.

SPEAKER_05 29:53

Yes. For example, if you know you react emotionally during arguments, you might commit to taking a pause before responding. If you know, okay, I you I'm about to crash out, take a break. Take five. But again, communicate that though. You know what? I don't want to respond right now because I'm my emotions are all over the place. Can you just give me some time to just calm down? So just set some boundaries. That's a great boundary to set. And then we want y'all to check your patterns. If the same issue keeps showing up in different relationships or situations, it may just be a pattern. This is just something that you're accustomed to doing. And this is a behavior that you need to work on changing. Again, it's not them, it's you.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Exactly. Accountability means asking yourself, is this something I need to work on? Because as you stated, it's not you, it's me. Let me go back and self-reflect on seeing if it's me. All right. Another powerful step is asking trusted people for feedback. And I do that all the time. Because I already know I don't need nobody in my corner. I don't have no friends that's just gonna be a yes, sir to me and tell me everything is right. Because I have people like you on a now, the quan. You know you could have done this. Now you know you didn't have to do that. Now, Quan, why you do that? Because I don't need no yes, ma'am. No yes.

SPEAKER_05 31:16

Right. I got this running joke with my girl Bianca when she called me and say, tell me if I'm wrong. I'm like, You wrong. I do the same thing. Because if there's that doubt in your mind, then it's it's there for a reason. You feeling convicted or you feeling like, nah, something ain't right. So if you gotta ask yourself that, tell me if I'm wrong, then yes, you're wrong. And sometimes asking for that feedback though, people can see things about ourselves that we can't see because they're looking at it from a different lens. I don't want any friends that can't hold me accountable either. I don't want any friends where we get into it and then I'm I'm trying to figure out why I ain't heard from you and you it's because you you just in your feelings that you don't like, because I'm like, what happened? What I do, what's up? Okay, let's make amends. That's the type of person I am because I don't hold on to grudges. But if that's how you roll, then that's how you roll. But that ain't for me. But I want those type of friendships where I could go to you and say, hey, X, Y, Z, and you can come to me and say X, Y, Z. And we don't have to agree. We can agree to disagree. We can agree to disagree. But ultimately, you know that that friend has your best interest at heart and ain't leading you astray. Well, ain't trying to hurt your feelings. They're telling you what you need. It's what I want to hear and what I need to hear.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

I'm gonna say because I tell my friends all the time, you can be mad at me. I'm gonna tell you what you need to hear, not because what you want to hear. I wasn't expecting to hear that. You're right. You wasn't, but I ain't that person. If you want me to be, if I tell people all the time, if you're gonna be my friend, I'm gonna be honest with you.

SPEAKER_05 32:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

I'm gonna tell you when you dead wrong.

SPEAKER_05 32:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Okay. Now, you have your moments when you're right, but I'm gonna tell you when you dead wrong. Now, if we out in the streets, I'm gonna be like, nah, you know, she ain't right. But behind closed, now, friend, you know you was wrong.

SPEAKER_05 33:05

Mm-hmm. But yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

You know, because again, friendship is not gonna be you're gonna put them out on blast in front of people. You know, you're gonna you're gonna have your friend back, but behind closed doors, nah, girl, you know you was wrong for that. You shouldn't have done that. All right, now let's talk about holding yourself accountable when nobody else is watching. That's where real growth happens, okay? When you can sit with yourself and ask, what could I have done differently?

SPEAKER_05 33:37

Yes. All right. Uh do you have an example of a situation you had in your life and it was like, oh, I could have did this differently.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Yeah. Again, when it came to my with the whole marriage situation. I was like, now it was one time.

SPEAKER_05 33:52

You were embarrassed.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Not at all. Not at all. Not at all. It was one time when I had called my ex. I said, You a dumb bitch.

SPEAKER_03 34:01

Oh, you shook the table.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Oh, baby, I shook the table.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Tell another man, you a dumb bitch. Because you was dumb. Now, did I have to say that? No. Could I have said something different? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Did I have to demean him? No. But did I? But I could have definitely did something different. I did have to say that I could have just either A, walked away or B, not even respond.

SPEAKER_04 34:29

But did it feel good when it came back?

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Oh, baby, it did. It did. It came back. And I said that with conviction. Maybe it was the once out of my last relationship. I had to, it was close to me saying that. I said, now, Quan, how did that work out in your last thing?

SPEAKER_03 34:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

That wasn't effective in my last situation. How's that gonna be effective here? So let me not even do that. So yeah, I had to learn my lesson and not to say that. I can say that to other people that I don't like.

SPEAKER_05 35:02

Right, man. So a few years ago, I had a performance. It was uh a Christian stage play or whatever, and I was a part of the opening act, and I had a mind solo. And so I had invited my mom and a few close friends or whatever, and I'm I feel like a little kid. I'm steady looking in the audience to see if my mom was there, and I didn't see her. And so I um I'm checking her location on her phone. She literally ain't even nowhere near the facility where she was still um at a kickback. She was at a kickback. And I'm I'm really upset now because I'm like, dang, you choosing a kickback over something that's really important to me. So she ended up showing up, but she was late and she missed me. And as soon as I seen her, I just went off. And then I uh like I walked away, and then I'm just crying, and she she ended up finding where I was at, and she's trying to calm me down. And then I I felt bad, you know, because I'm like, dang, I ain't have to go off on her like that. But that triggered an emotional response in me. I didn't even know where it came from, but it reminded me of when I was a little girl and I'm and I had to perform and my mama wasn't there. And it reminded me of times where I felt, because me and her had this expression before, where I felt like she was prioritizing other things and people over me. So with her not being there in that moment, that's what I that's what it felt like. I felt like that little girl that was just waiting for her mama to show up and she and she just didn't show up, or she showed up at her own leisure. And so in that moment, that's the moment where I could sit back and reflect. And she had said to me, you keep, we we were going back and forth, and she was like, You ain't no kid, something like that. You know, and it really hurt my feelings because I'm like, damn, I ain't no kid no more, but I just wanted you to choose me. I just wanted to feel chosen. I just wanted to feel prioritized. And it was that moment when I realized my mom ain't responsible for my grown feeling. Ain't nobody responsible. I'm responsible for my feelings and how I respond to them and how I react to them. Nobody has control over those. I don't know when they gonna come. I just know that I have the control over how I manage my emotions. So that was my that was my personal reflection moment where I could have done things differently.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

So what I hear you said, you opened up the same moonplay, you open up the same one.

SPEAKER_05 37:33

Basically, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

That's all I heard. You open up the same moonplay, the same one.

SPEAKER_05 37:41

Man, I'm done with you. All right, y'all. So this was a good this was a good one. Well, I feel that way about all our episodes. I feel like we have really decent episodes and decent girl bomb episodes.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Decent. We bomb.

SPEAKER_05 37:54

We is. But if y'all got anything y'all want to talk about, don't just send us the question of the days. Y'all can send us episode ideas as well. So we're gonna give y'all this quick little recap of everything we talked about today. We started off talking about what accountability really means. And it's not saying my bad. It's really you reflecting on your role in the situation and not just acknowledging what you did, but making behavioral changes. Because again, you can say, you can say I'm sorry 15 times, but if you keep doing the same thing, that apology is null and void. And then we talked about why people struggle with accountability. That ego, that Kanye West syndrome going on, that fear, and then not even knowing how to take, not even knowing how to, yeah, accept responsibility in a healthy way, because maybe they didn't see that growing up. What else we talked about?

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Accountability in a relationship on how we can build trust. We also talked about the practices of taking the steps for accountability, like practice honest self-reflection, which some people struggle with. Owning their mistakes, a lot of people struggle with. Make amends when necessary. Set personal boundaries with yourself. I can honestly say a lot of us don't set those personal boundaries with ourselves. Right? We also talked about check your patterns. Maybe this is something that I've been doing all this time in a relationship. Maybe I have to do some inner work on myself. And then the big thing is ask for feedback. Ask a trusted friend that's going to give you 100% shoot. Like truth over all. They're gonna tell you when you're wrong and what you could have done better.

SPEAKER_05 39:43

Right. So again, we just want y'all to remember that holding yourself accountable when nobody else is watching, that's the real growth. What are you doing when you're alone behind closed doors? When you sit with yourself and you ask, what could I have done differently in that situation? It's about how we break cycles and become better partners, friends, and parents. All right, so y'all already know it is QA time. Let's get it.

SPEAKER_04 40:14

It's time for the QA. It's time for the QA. It's time for the QA. It's time for the QA. It's time for the QA.

SPEAKER_05 40:24

All right, all right, Dequine. What is today's QA question?

SPEAKER_00 40:29

All right, today's QA question comes from Jackie from Pensacola, Florida. What's going on? Jack Jack. We know.

SPEAKER_05 40:38

You're rubbing off on me.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

You know, I'm the nickname guy. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 40:43

You are.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

It was cute for you to say Jack. Jack Jack. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 40:47

My bad. Jeez. Incredible. Tough crowd.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

All right. Jackie wants to know how do you bounce back from a bad relationship?

SPEAKER_05 40:55

This is a good question. I think we probably should do an episode on this.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

That is.

SPEAKER_05 40:59

Everybody's healing process doesn't look the same. For me, let me tell y'all, when I used to uh break up with somebody or somebody broke up with me or whatever, because I didn't got broke up with before too. I know it's hard to believe. But yeah. Um, so you ever heard that saying the best way to get over somebody else is to get up under somebody else?

SPEAKER_03 41:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:19

Like, and so what I found myself doing since we're talking about holding accountability, I would like to hop on a dating app to kind of increase my self-esteem a little bit. You know what I'm saying? And then it's overwhelming because you're getting all these messages. But I feel like for me personally, I can't speak for everybody else because some people might still feel like, well, let me just start dating somebody else. I feel like I have to do some self-reflection and I gotta heal a little bit. Because I don't want to bleed on somebody that didn't cause me the damage. Because I've bled on people before. Because here they come having to heal a wound that they didn't even create. So take some time, but do some self-care. A lot of a lot of women, they go get a whole new hairstyle, cut their hair, whatever, get a little makeover. Just because if you look good, you feel good. We said that. Well, yeah, I would just take some time to enjoy being alone. Love yourself, learn how to be alone with yourself. Some people are so afraid to be alone with themselves. That's why they're constantly in relationships because they don't like themselves. So start liking yourself again. Start becoming individualized again. Realize what it is that you like, what your wants are. Because we can become so meshed in our relationships where we don't even have no identity. Go to the movies, go take yourself out to eat, go on a solo trip. Y'all know how many times I done been out the country by myself. I I do not care. I'm outside. I ain't waiting to get flued out. I can I can fly me out.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Uh I would say the same thing because after my marriage, I totally lost who I was. I lost my independence. I forgot who Kwan was. So what I did was I moved back to North Carolina. Because North Carolina, well, shout out to Charlotte, North Carolina. That's where I first began to realize who I was in my undergrad. I started to define myself there. So the best thing for me to do was to move back to redefine who I was. Because that was I was away from people like my family and kid family. I didn't have, I did not want to be back in Maryland no more because it was too expensive. Too expensive. So I I knew where I was comfortable. I already had roots there, I had friends there. And I had trusted people that I can lean on to hold me accountable and to help me get out my get out my funk. Shout out to my best friend Jerome, because he also was there to allow me to stay there for a couple months until I got off on my feet.

SPEAKER_05 43:58

Jerome and Howard. I said the ruminant.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

I said your rum. You know what I'm saying? So, you know, shout out to him. I love him to death. It's so crazy how we met. And the first day we met, people thought we knew each other for years. You know what I'm saying? So I I appreciate that. But that's what I did. I moved back to North Carolina and I started to meet I met a new friend group where we would do things like Sunday dinners and uh and things like that. So it was good and redefining for me to understand who Kwan was. And I was starting to get my revenge body back.

SPEAKER_03 44:39

So come on now.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

Yeah. You know, it fell off, but I'm I'm trying to get back into it. So I'm trying to get better. Much better. But yeah, that was a good question, Jack Jack.

SPEAKER_05 44:51

That was a really good question. So basically, if you if and then grieve your relationship because a relate a lot, a relationship ending is a loss of something. So it's okay to grieve your relationship. You're gonna have those moments where you miss talking to that person, where you miss hanging out with them. And that's okay. And then in retrospect, start creating some new memories, some new happy moments. So those anniversary dates that y'all used to have now create something positive around that date so that when that date comes around, you're not fixated on, oh man, I miss this person because this is what we did. No, okay. So our anniversary date was January 17th. I'm gonna make sure on January 17th next year, I'm planning a trip somewhere. I ain't gonna be thinking about such and such. Because that's my new January 17th memory.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

I guess for me, it's out of sight, out of mind, because I couldn't to this date, now that you brought it back up, I think my anniversary date was February 23rd. Maybe I forgot all about that. I didn't even think about every time that date came up. Now, what date I celebrate is the date I got divorced. Okay, December 10th at 10 o'clock in the morning. You ready 2019?

SPEAKER_05 46:01

Mm-hmm. You know what? I know mine. But it's all good. I get along with my ex, though. We today, this week, we be like call. Some days, you know. But thank you for that question, Jackie. So we are going to get into our affirmation and action of the day.

SPEAKER_00 46:23

Yes. All right. So today's affirmation is I am strong enough to take responsibility for my actions and wise enough to grow from them. All right. I'm gonna say that again. I am strong enough to take responsibility for my action and wise enough to grow from them.

SPEAKER_03 46:47

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

And the action for today is think about a recent conflict or misunderstanding, and how you could have handled that better.

SPEAKER_05 46:56

Okay. I like that. Think about a recent conflict or misunderstanding and how you could have handled that better. Because it's not them, it's you.

unknown 47:05

Remember?

SPEAKER_00 47:06

No, that's how it was them. I said what I said, and I'm not thinking.

SPEAKER_05 47:15

You see, listen, we just spent a whole hour talking about accountability, and you still want to blame Shif. You still want to blame Shif.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

No, if that person lied on me, how is that my fault? Right. They lied on me.

SPEAKER_05 47:31

But we ain't talking about them. Because what what can we change about them lying on you? Tell me that.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

Nothing.

SPEAKER_05 47:36

What can we change about that? What do you have control? Do you have control over somebody lying on you?

SPEAKER_00 47:40

I don't.

SPEAKER_05 47:40

What do you have control over?

SPEAKER_00 47:42

My response.

SPEAKER_05 47:43

There you go. There you go. See. A plus for Alex.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

All right, girl. We're gonna have to say goodbye. And that's a wrap for this round of Trick A Happy Hour, where we take shots of the truth with no chaser. Just raw conversations where the shots are sharp and it takes a sharper. And nothing gets off the table. If you like what you heard, hit that follow button, leave a review, and tell someone who can handle the heat. Pull up a bar steal next week for more real talk. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Until then, stay bold, stay loud, and don't water it down.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

Cheers.