Transcription
Foreign. Goldsboro, North Carolina. What's up, Tyrus?
Hey John, how you doing?
I'm good. What's up, man?
Uh, definitely empathize with her as well as what she's going through with her husband because I was that guy. And then that guy. Oh, sweet. But we're calling about. We're on the other side of it. Oh, awesome. To get out of it. The whole time I was talking to her, I kept thinking, man, I want to talk to her husband. And then you called. So, way to go.
Yeah, yeah. So, what's up? Let's do this.
Okay. So, actually, I was referred to you. Thankfully, I've listened to your podcast and thoroughly enjoy it. But I had called today about a financial question. And I don't have a financial problem. According to everybody, I've got a lot of other stuff going on.
All right, let's unpack it. I'm angry. Naturally. Uh, very angry person. Um, at what? Trying to stuff in the past that I want to be able to get over. What? Since it's having kids. What? Name it. We're mostly directed towards my mother and father.
What? What? I know. I don't want to, like, you know, gaslight anybody. That's why I'm, I'm trying to be careful. So I don't want to be who my father was, which was a very angry person. At whatever he was angry at, he took it out on us. Okay. And I met my wife, God bless her, um, a little over two years ago. She had four children from her previous marriage. And we had an eight-month-old of her own. So, a lot of children. Love them. A lot of children.
Hey, hold on. That's a million kids. Angry guy. You're gonna meet. I just think anger's like a waste of most of my energy. Yeah. Five kids would make me probably just an angry guy. From eight months to 15. So, quite a. And I'm 25. So, I'm still a child myself at a lot of times.
You're 25? Yes. This is all. I mean, this is top five, my favorite calls ever already. Keep going. This is just good.
Okay. All right. All right. Boost my ego a little bit, please. Break it down.
Um, so I've heard a lot. You talk a lot about secrets and how they kill you. Yep. And it kind of, not kind of, it frustrates me because I was known in my family, and like braggingly, braggadociously, the steel trap of the family. If you have a secret, come to Tyrus, nobody will ever find out. And it's listening to you say it kills, kills you. Like, I forced myself to basically become a robot because I didn't have. I'd never made enough time to really look at myself and care about myself. It was always bringing on other people's stuff.
And what are you carrying that you don't want to carry anymore?
Uh, everybody's secrets. My own secrets that I'm not even. Like, what? What secrets? Something was done to me at a very young age that was not okay.
And you were sexually abused?
Yes. Okay. Listen, I'm gonna be super clear. Okay? Your anger, that cloud, that swirl, lives and breathes ambiguous language. It lives and breathes these things and these feelings and these other things and these other things. One of the straightest paths through all of this BS is naming stuff. That guy sexually abused me. That woman cheated on me. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. It just shines a light on all of it. Clears that fog out. And now we have something we can actually direct ourselves at. We don't. Our bodies don't let us do that because it's scared. Rightfully so.
Well, it's, it's messed up because I'm not even scared for people finding out what happened to me. I just don't want anybody getting in trouble because it was years ago. Like, it sounds messed up. I know. But it's like, what good comes out from anybody knowing what happened?
Uh, hey, listen. Freedom. Sleeping all night. I don't sleep. I know you don't because your body's still on 24/7, 365 alert watch. That's exactly right. You know why? Because your body remembers. Hate. We remember what it's like to be that age. Remember what happens. Stay extra vigilant. And then your brain takes up every bit of emotional margin you have. So that eight-month-old does eight-month-old stuff, like spit up, and you lose your damn mind.
Is that right? Well, that's so much. That she's actually perfect in my eyes, you know what I mean?
No, no. They spill juice and I'm like, "Son of a..." Exactly. Exactly.
Yes. So here's what I'm gonna tell you. What's gonna come out of it? Peace. Your body put a GPS pin in that pain and it has continued to beep on that pin until you deal with it. Until you let your body know, "I'm a 25-year-old father of five now. I'm in the driver's seat. You don't have to protect me anymore because I'm not seven anymore. I'm not 12 anymore. I'm not the family baggage keeper anymore." All anger does, man, is it points us. Our, it's our bodies just pointing us towards something we care about. And my guess is you really care deeply about, uh, kids being safe.
100%. And you really care deeply about people feeling loved. The challenge is, you don't have the tools on how to keep kids safe because you're too busy keeping yourself safe.
Very fair.
It's not a moral judgment. That's a physiological judgment. You want to show people deep love, and you've never even seen that happen because your parents are too busy saying, "Hey, carry this for me. Carry this for me. Carry this for me." And they used you like a pack mule.
You should have been a little boy having a good time.
It doesn't matter. It absolutely doesn't matter. It's how is my body responding in the present? One of the things we know about memory is that it's, it's pretty faulty. It's pretty faulty. Um, what's important, and this is from Peter, Dr. Peter Levine's work, this is from Vandercook's work. What's really important is less about the specifics, the minute details of something that happened in our past. It's what does that memory do to our bodies in the present?
Okay.
So, here's a good example. Let's say when I first got married, my wife got in my face and screamed and yelled. That's, that's how. What I remember 20 years later. She planted her finger in my face and screamed and yelled and told me that I sucked at something, right? Let's say that we go through counseling for years. And by the way, if you know my wife, she's, I would never. She would never do that. She would just stab me in my sleep. She would never yell at my face.
So, let's say that 20 years later, our marriage is really good. And we've been through therapy together. We have two kids or three kids together. We have reconciled. And we have one of the best marriages ever. And then I do something. I forget to pick up my shoes. And she looks up and just that anger flashes. And my body instantly goes back to that moment. She was pointing in my face. Now I could say, "Remember that? You've been doing this our whole marriage. You're screaming and yelling at me." And she would say, "Dude, I didn't. I never even did that. I got mad once. I never screamed and yelled." Whatever happened. Doesn't matter. What happens is my body's responding right now. Am I safe? Yeah. I'm safe. I'm safe now. And I'm gonna take a big deep breath. I'm gonna hold it for a count of four or six. I'm gonna exhale it. I'm gonna say these words inside my mind or out loud. My body's trying to take care of me and keep me safe. I'm good. I'm gonna practice that. See what I'm saying?
Yeah. I've actually, because I'm horrible about going on tangents. Hey, quit talking crap. Hey, you're my friend. Quit talking crap about yourself. You talk about yourself so bad.
Yeah, it's self-talk's horrible.
It is. Yeah. I'm trying. Literally, my number one question I've got written here: How to rewire your brain to be? Because it's, I'd love to be in better shape. I'd love to not be angry. I love. But in those moments, the, what I've done before is just suppressed everything and been a doormat. Like, yeah. Like you said, you're too quick to forgive. Because I didn't want to deal with it. I was just like, "Yeah, whatever. I don't care. Steal from me. Whatever."
You weren't forgiving. You just opened the door. Forgiveness says, "I walk out on my front porch and say, 'Y'all stolen from me in the past. Y'all have taken the most precious thing for me, which was my innocence. You all did that. I'm not carrying that crap for y'all anymore. I'm setting it down. And you are not welcome in my home.'" And you walk inside your house and you lock the door. What you've done is you walk down the front porch and said, "Hey, I'm just not going to think about y'all anymore." The front door and the back door wide open. Yeah. Right. And you let them ransack the place. And that's not forgiveness. That's avoidance.
Yeah. Okay. So here's the, uh, here's where we start. And let me paint you a broader picture. We live in a culture that would tell you, "Just set some goals. Instead of weight loss goal, and crush it and kill it. And set a financial goal and dominate that." Good, right? Um, whenever you feel angry, just flex and stop being angry. Like, that's, that's how we approach it. And that's in there. It's stupid. It's a waste of energy and a waste of time. You burn out.
That's right. Your willpower is much less powerful than your systems. Okay. We're going to start with identity. So, what I want you to do today is to go to like Michael's or or Home Depot or someplace and either get like a really nice piece of plywood or get a nice, um, piece of cardstock or something. And somewhere in your home, I want you to hang it up. And I want you to write on it with a with a permanent marker, and as nice lettering as you can do, "I am a man who honors and loves my family. I am a man who is in control of his emotions. I am a man who is a good steward of my body. I am a man who will own what my parents did and never repeat it again." What we're going to do is we're going to set identity statements. This is who I am. And then we're going to go back fill those identities with some actions. They're going to make those things possible. With some systems. They're going to make that possible.
Okay. Right. And let me just preface this because I know that it was not my parents. I know that they. I, I just want to get that out there in case anybody hears. My parents. Listen. Listen. I just wanted everybody.
Hold on. You still think you are responsible for the adults in your life? You are not. I don't care who it was. You're not responsible for how your parents feel. Not one time did you tell me that it was them. And you're just.
I know. I know. I just heard you say what they did. I didn't want you to think. No, I, I get that. But I also want you to know you are not responsible for the emotional regulation of the adults in your life. That's their job. Okay? And if, if your parents listen to this and they go bananas, we never. Do you have to say, "I never said you did." They will possibly, if they don't know, be devastated that their kid was hurt like that and they didn't know. Or they did know about it and they didn't know how to respond. And so they pretended it never happened.
So that's where I'm so angry.
And you damn well should be. Because if they did know, that's exactly worth it. Have you ever asked them?
I don't. That's why I asked about how do you know? I was six at the time. Okay? Seven. So it's weird that I remember stuff from four years old and I don't. It's like it happened and then black. So I don't know if they know. I don't know if they don't know. But so listen. If they did know.
To be fair, I don't have a relationship with them.
Okay. So it may be as I was supposed to be. What's your relationship like with them?
If you don't talk to them, if they're out of your life, then a conversation with them is of no value. Yeah. Okay. Um, that's you just running up and lobbing grenades at them. If they're out of your life. Okay. If you have to reconcile the fact that you were sexually abused and your parents may have known about it and they chose nothing. That I, I can't think of something more justified to be angry about. And it's ruined all of my relationships.
No, it hasn't. No, it happens. You have. I have. Correct. Okay. I can't. It's been hard. So hard to trust people and not be. Yes. I've just only become vulnerable with my wife recently.
Good. Good. Hey, and I would like. Hear me honor that, man. So good. You are 15 years ahead of me, dude. Before I learned that kind of vulnerability, you were way ahead of the game. Yeah. Okay. I'm proud of you. That's hard, man. It's real, real hard saying things out loud.
But I don't want you to start blaming the anger for things because you've got choices.
That's true. Okay. Absolutely. And moving forward, I want us to practice, man. You are trying to engage in something that you've never seen done. You've had somebody describe the game of baseball to you and then somebody handed you a bat and said, "Go play." And you're like, "Okay, some guy on a hill is gonna throw a ball at me and I'm gonna hit it with a stick." Okay. And then I gotta run. Where, where am I running?
Right. Right. See what I'm saying? You are figuring out what true, honest, vulnerable, connected, accountable parenting looks like in real time. And you've never seen it actually done. Give yourself some grace. Okay.
Okay. It's gonna be hard. Oh, by the way, you're dealing with four people who've got a different dad. All right? That's hard too.
Yeah. You know what we should put on top of that? You know what we should dump on top of that? An infant. That sounds cool. And a dog that sits in the house all the time. Hey, why not? Let's have a dog. Let's see if we can come up with any other thing to ruin our sex life and our intimacy and our financial life. Like, right? You know what I'm saying? You're in it, dude. You are in it. In your eyeballs.
Yeah. I heard the great Terry Reel, one of the most incredible therapists ever, I think.
He said that he recommends people who are struggling with anger to carry around a picture of their mom and dad and put in their wallet. And every time, or put on your phone. And every time you're about to unleash on one of your kids or on your wife, pull out your phone, look at that picture. No, no, I'm kidding. Pull out that phone and look at him and say, "Hey, Mom and Dad, this one's for you. All right. I'm gonna piss on my kids for you. I'm here to honor you." And he reports that people stop their angry outbursts immediately. And they never pick him up again.
Yeah. What we're looking for is a gap between stimulus and response. Okay? That impulse to yell and the actual yelling. Yourself. The actual yelling itself. If you can put even a splinter of a wedge in between those two things, you got a shot.
Okay. Okay. I can't recommend enough. Can't recommend enough that you need to call somebody and go talk to somebody. Okay? Because not only do you have the abuse in the background, the potential parental involvement and all that mess, but you probably have a wake of people behind you that you've hurt over the years out of your own pain. Is that fair?
But that's putting it lightly. And that pain creates great guilt, which turns into great shame, which then eats those secrets. And you see how this thing turns into a loop?
Yep. And then here's, this is the important part. If you don't deal with this, you are making a conscious choice to hand this off to those five kids.
And that's why I'm calling. Like, I don't. I don't want to be the father that they're scared to say, "Hey, Dad, I got drunk. Can you come pick me up?" Or if I messed up, "Can you help me?" I didn't have that.
That's right. And what that's going to look like ultimately is, um, I want to be. I want. I don't want to be that dad either. So this morning, I got up before I usually get up to get my workout in so that then I could get my whatever thinking or praying or writing time, whatever nonsense I do in the mornings, so that I could have breakfast with my 12-year-old. Every Tuesday morning. So that one day, in four or five or six years, he's gonna find himself in a mess and he's gonna know. Not because I said something, but because I showed up over and over and over. I'm planting seeds. And the fruit's not going to be. I'm not going to taste that for years. See what I'm saying?
Yeah. I don't mind if they do the 12-year-old hate, "I hate you," and stomp upstairs. But when they're 30, I don't. I won't come to call me.
That's right. That's right. And they're going to learn how to call you by you calling them. And they're going to learn how to reach out to you by you reaching out to them. And they're going to learn how to treat women by how you treat their mother. And they're going to learn how to tip and honor the waitress even when the food sucks because of how you do it. And they're going to learn how to say, "Hey, I'm really spun up right now. I'm gonna take a walk around the house. Give me 30 minutes, and then we'll have this conversation." Okay.
Yeah. Hear me say this. You get to change everything. And I'm sick to my stomach that somebody hurt you when you were young. If you hear nothing else, brother, hear me say that shouldn't happen. And I'm sorry. And I'm sorry that there was no adults there to protect you. And I'm sorry there was no adults there to comfort you. You deserved better than that.
I appreciate that. Okay. And now everything moving forward is a choice. I'm gonna give you a copy of "Own Your Past, Change Your Future." Okay? My latest book. It's gonna walk you through it. I'm gonna send it to you for free. I'm also gonna send you four or five decks of the Questions for Humans. Here's what those are. I actually talked to my wife about that like 10 minutes before I got on the call. You know what they are? But let me tell you what they really are. They are tools for dads to talk to their kids. To teach fathers how to have conversations with their children.
Well, that's the best thing you've said or given to me. Not, not to downplay anything else, but thank you. That's what I need.
Cool. Because you're not gonna have to stand there awkwardly at your kids. You're gonna be able to take that 15-year-old out and you're gonna have these cards. You'll be like, "All right, we're gonna. I'm gonna ask you these questions. You ask me. And you're gonna answer them honestly." And my son asked me this morning when we were going through, uh, math flashcards. He asked me, "Hey, Dad, did you? How did you do math?" You know what I told him? "When I was in Middle School, son, I cheated like crazy in math. I'm ashamed of it. And I robbed myself of learning how to do math, which made high school math almost impossible, which made Collegiate and doctoral statistics a nightmare. I'm glad that you have chosen to be a person of integrity. And I got to honor my son by telling him the truth about who his dad used to be. And now he knows his dad is a fanatic about cheating and telling the truth. I'm obsessive about it because I used to be a lying little thief." You see what I'm saying? But those cards give you an opportunity to have that conversation without it being weird.
Right. Right. Will you use them if I send them?
Absolutely. That's awesome. Awesome. So today, here's your homework. I'm gonna send you some stuff for free. Your homework is to go get a board of some sort that's going to be your identity and intention. It's going to be home-based for you. Here's who I'm going to become. And then you and your wife, man, y'all spend some time backfilling that. How do I get there? How do I get to be a guy that stewards his body? I need 35 minutes in the morning in the garage. I'm gonna go buy two kettlebells at Academy and I'm gonna just pick or two dumbbells. I'm gonna pick up a workout online. I'm just gonna go for walks for 30 minutes in the morning. I'm gonna start there. And maybe two years from now, I'll have a big membership at a CrossFit gym. I'm a start there. How do I become a guy who is less reactive and less angry?
I'm gonna stay off my phone. I'm gonna leave this toxic job. I'm gonna ask you just a wink when you feel me getting riled up. I'm gonna go tell my kids, "Hey, I'm super sorry. I shouldn't have talked to you like that." And on and on and on. Tyrus, I, I know one thing. You can do this. And go call a counselor, brother. You deserve the healing.