Mental Health | S2E1 | Men’s Round Table | A Black Love Series

Mental Health | S2E1 | Men's Round Table | A Black Love Series



EPISODE 1: MENTAL HEALTH
On the premiere episode of Men’s Roundtable: Season 2, host Glen Henry chats with Lawrence Robinson, Karega Bailey, Anthony Clark and Marcus Tanksley about how they are navigating mental health issues like depression & anxiety.

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foreign [Music] the black love men's Round Table my name is belief and I want the gentleman at the table to introduce themselves Karina why don't you go ahead and start peace good people I'm karika Bailey Angel father author um black love practitioner I don't know how I'm supposed to follow it Marcus thankfully uh y'all know me as Mark Salem Graham or tank I'm a father a husband social media influencer what's up y'all my name is Lawrence Robinson I'm an actor father yeah what's up guys my name is Anthony Clark I'm a certified life and love coach and an author yeah so today we're going to be discussing uh mental health um physical health and I just want you guys to tell me and anybody can start I want you to tell me when you recognized uh that you needed help right you were at your lowest um and I want you to tell me maybe who is the one that helped you recognize that um I'll go ahead and start so there was a period of time where so I was had moved to California and I'm out here working my way up you know the corporate ladder and then my last job that I had um I was striving for a particular position really really wanted to get there so I ended up getting this position and right let me see a year before I got this position my dad passed um so I'm in this position in a new position still dealing with that not really realizing it on top of being in a position where you know in up until that point you know 18 years before I was a man I knew exactly what to do I'm in this position because of my experience however in this particular uh job of this field I'm not I don't know what's going on I'm still learning everything so I'm like green again I'm like I ain't been green for 18 years what is this so going through that then I'll fast forward a little bit I had a conversation one day I was met a guy who had been in this position for quite quite some time I was leaving work Came Upon him he's I'm like hey how's it going you know let me get some feedback from him I've been at this time it was probably like six months in yeah maybe a year and you know he's telling me everything about how his day went how his last couple weeks have gone and what the forecast is for the next couple of weeks and as he's talking I'm realizing there is no way in hell I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life there is no way so coming to that realization in that moment in that conversation driving home having that epiphany still the lingering effect of losing my dad and then uh in the middle of this I'm you know we still doing our podcast me and my wife and everything vlogging and everything and I look back fast forwarding you know to La up until through last year realized I was extremely depressed I was going through it and I thought I was just stressed because of work like I lost a whole lot of weight I'm I usually I'm between 220 and 240 right now I'm like 245. I was down to barely 200 pounds and on me on my frame going back and look at it you can tell like my face is shrunken down and I told my wife I was like I was depressed right here I was looking at a video I was like look at my face I don't even look healthy yeah and she you know they don't see that you always look good babe like that just shut up that ain't what I'm talking about I'm over here like look at me right here so realizing that it was like um I had that trauma of it was like almost like a trauma of looking back at the past and was like dang I went through that and I didn't even realize it did was it was it the fact that it disrupted your purpose oh yeah absolutely so you know as a lot of men have this whole mindset you know a lot of us our career is us that defines us what we bring to the table yeah um and me being in this position you know money's okay and everything but being in this and it's just like but if I don't want to do this what am I going to do in my life okay I got a fan I got four kids I got a wife I got a mortgage I got bills it's like I support all of this my wife is over here people see her as the Mogul I'm the foundation of that like I'm stable this is what I do yes I've done this for 20 years this this is me and they say what I want to do and now it's gone and my heart is not in it so that's when um yeah it's gone like the thrill was gone and I was just like what so it was like a hard conversation I had with myself but then I realized I hope I'm not fast forward it but I realize every single time I've made an elevation in my career elevation in life God was always the Forefront of that and he would always I realize he always makes me uncomfortable enough to move so I move myself if it ain't like I pray for it and God's like oh here you go yeah he's like no God's like no I'm gonna make you uncomfortable enough to where you can do this and you end up doing this yourself I'm gonna push you out of that place you don't want to be in and that's what he was doing and that was what fast forward now that's what moved me to retire from my nine to five last uh last year in May and worked for me and my wife full time yeah so now self-employed but I ended up going through all that because I never would have stepped away from my nine to five because that's what I do you know that Hands-On I I you know structural intake I do all that stuff all day but that I enjoy it no just I was just good at it yeah yeah can I can I can I just uh speaking of purpose right I I just kind of wanted to table it to Anthony because it seems like all the things throughout your life has kind of culminated to the moment where you and your wife got together now you guys are life coaches right because you've had a very interesting story you could have life here right your life exactly so can you tell me about that point where you kind of reach that that low point and you were like something has to change at this moment so so for me there were a couple of moments like that in my life so I had like multiple breakdowns well I like to call them catharsis that I went through the first one was I moved to California played Sports and I moved from Brooklyn to California to go to college at 17. and immediately I met my college girlfriend and we moved in together and I saw that we weren't compatible but I stuck with it anyway um but we started fighting like cats and dogs cats and dogs we're both stubborn and so we broke up we're doing the X sex makeup breakup makeup breakup and she said she was pregnant with twin boys at the time I had an opportunity to play pro basketball in Peru and pro baseball with the Brewers double A baseball so I was ready to go to camp and she comes back and goes I'm pregnant and even though we weren't connected my father wasn't there for me so I'm like I'm always gonna be there for my kids even though I feel like I shouldn't be with her so I'm not real anyway so in the process I had to give up the sports because she needed help right then it is so I couldn't report to to Ken so um to make a long story short I'm married her the Twins were born um named after me the first three years we just fought me and her like still like cats and dogs and it just hit rock bottom was like this this ain't gonna work then I found out that I wasn't the biological father after all of that so here I am in my 20s like 21 20 about 20 23 at the time lost the marriage athletic career my whole future so it was like Rock Bottom yeah I even thought about killing myself at different points but then my spirit was like you know what this could be a blessing this could be an opportunity for you but in order for you to take advantage of it you got to get your together you got to stop blaming everybody else start looking at yourself yeah and so I started doing my inner work okay so what does that look like because a lot of people say in a word but I don't know would be working in her you know what I'm saying you gotta tell me what that means my inner work was to be honest with myself and to look at how I was how I thought and to start questioning is this really benefiting me why am I being like this why do I act like this and the tendency for a lot of people to be like well that's just the way I am but I knew if I stayed away I am I'm not going to get to where I want to be amen so I always say like to go there you got to grow that you know on this level you're always trying to get to high levels of understanding Enlightenment wealth you name it so how are you going to get to those other levels they're going to come to you you got to go to it so I got to expand and get out of my old way of thinking and being and so I recreated myself and I described it like and this connects to even a second trauma so I'm gonna combine them together I went into the department of corrections as a State correctional officer and I was involved in a shooting and after that shooting I experienced post-traumatic stress so now it goes back to the inner work how I'm going to get out of this the same way with the marriage I mean with that now the shooting so I compare it to a pantry cabinet and everything in that pantry cabinet has been there throughout my entire life there's something shaking these are all my beliefs all the things I was programmed to be in this and that but it wasn't working for me but I didn't really realize it then one day there's this traumatic event the marriage the divorce the shooting where there's an earthquake and everything gets knocked over and so that's the breakdown now you lose your identity who am I like you it forced me absolysis the system breaks down when it takes too much pressure eventually it's going to break down but it breaks down to give you an opportunity to rebuild it back even better so when my catharsis it was like okay what most people try to do is to go back to what they were so let me put the stuff back in here but you're gonna get the same life again so I was like you know what no this is a great opportunity I have the opportunity Now to create the life I want to live I want to be who I want to be not because of what other people expecting me I'm going to be my true self I'm going to Spirit within yeah so that connection because that's an internal guidance system where everything you need all the answers it's going to come from there God whatever name you want to call it so most people trying to get it out there it's not out there there's nothing out there right it's in here so if you don't go within you will go without I guarantee you I like that so what I started doing was was I started putting this Pantry back I wasn't trying to recreate the same one I wanted to create a pantry that I loved a pantry that I was proud of and so I'm putting stuff back like what is this dude this I'm good I don't need that you throw out of the way what is this oh this is oh I don't need that what do I want there I want this there I want that there so when I was done I rebuilt this amazing pantry cabinet an amazing life that I loved and so the marriage and that I did the same thing with each situation and I became back better and stronger yeah yeah that's amazing you want to add Lawrence I mean I ain't gonna never look at a pantry ever the same again I'll be looking at the seasonings [Music] naming all the trauma turmeric huh okay okay man that was good man I'm triggered I ain't gonna hold you I'm triggered man um because like I'm so similar to both of you guys it's like as far as I had to recreate myself every time I moved to a different city you know what I'm saying like I'm from Philly born and raised but then I had to move to New York City you gotta recreate yourself but you're gonna go home you know what I'm saying then moving to La it was the same thing and what was really uh hard for me was you know being a full-time actor and believing that this is what I wanted to do with myself and it was my dream I had to 100 commit to that and with 100 commit to acting is dealing with financial struggle because if you went acting class you home is work but if you don't work you're gonna miss acting class so it's like you got to find that balance and finding that balance is the hardest thing when it becomes of being an actor like it's the hardest thing because you just gotta find that you gotta be able to figure out uh which is um it's like I want to say what what is more important yeah what is more important at the time and of course she she always comes to my mind uh my acting coach my big sis you know Tasha Smith she's gonna come on my mind because when I got to La her being my coach she would always say to me you have to find a way to sustain yourself you have to find a way and she will always say that to me when you broke us like I ain't trying to hear that like I'm a Survivor yeah you know what I'm saying they're being so close to somebody like that you know people think that that was a relationship that was you know that that I was born into like no that was you know I that was something that God gave me when I moved here but um that's what I was doing before I even got here that's what I was doing in New York I was trying to find a way to sustain myself and I don't think I ever knew how to put a word to it but of course she does you know what I'm saying so the reality is um every time when it came to uh recreating myself I hit rock bottom and hitting rock bottom is not being able to pay your rent not being able to pay your bills and when I hit rock bottom I always go to God I go to God but I ain't I never learned how to go with a guy until I moved to LA and I went to one Church La with TD I mean Sarah Jakes Roberts and Tori Roberts that's what I learned like you know it was just different going to that church that church showed me you know when people oh that's the Hollywood Church call it what you want because that that church feeds me you know what I'm saying and that church feeds me because it's relatable it's not judgmental it's just like the truth of like yo like you know you Sarah won't get up there and talk about auditions yeah and she's not an actress but she know what we're going through yeah um and yeah man it's just about like just really going back to God that's always where I lead that's always where I go and I think it's um it's something beautiful about being able to lean on a community you know what I'm saying and I know Korea like you're I mean you one of them people that'll call me and even if I don't answer like I'm like man you know what I'm saying like I know you're calling me to a community and pulling me into a place where um you believe better right you know about the people that you want to interact with but I think it's because and I'm you could correct me if I'm wrong but your foundation you know with your family and having such a close-knit community with your brothers and now um you know to see how you and your wife you know what I mean collaborating the music and all this stuff you add to this conversation yeah I'm I'm listening deeply uh processing and I'm I'm looking at like men on different intersections of life that I'm at so I'm grateful for the conversation but I'm also assessing myself within the cipher um and when he started talking about that pantry I was like what made him choose the pantry that's such an interesting place right and I do exercise of taking inventory but I my wife would love for me to take better care of the pantry right I know and I try um but it really made me look at him on an intersection like damn homie taking care of the pantry at least the Pantry's organized figuratively and literally though but like living in the partnership um and that that place in life Marcus are you talking about like you know being in a career x amount of years and just looking at it like yo this is it's different now or whether recreating yourself and finding that rock bottom and evolving and finding that right bottom of finding God and I'm listening to the conversation and the question um and I'm trying to ask myself like damn when is it when was it oh where am I now yeah right um I'm certainly in the mind state of abundance I'm not at rock bottom but the blows that took me to the deepest Waters um it almost felt like I could not find Rock Bottom Rock Bottom would have been stable ground wow that's the Rock Bottom would have been a certain Turning Point I've been in the open oh I've been in the Deep Waters posturing myself for seeing different um seeing abundance like training my mind to be the first mind that sees abundance and cause abundance rather than being the first voice that creates doubt um but the doubts come from lived experiences the doubts come from you know Susan my brother 2014 uh gun violence and and the way that is inner the way that exists around us so much my intersection of life is I'm not far from it and also looking at like in a recent conversation uh I finally was able to articulate that um you can't just address Me by any one situation that's happened to me wow you you'll have to address me or have a conversation me about what has happened to me but you also must address me as a man that's kept going it's in my keep going that's where you find way more about my my faith my intimacy and really who God is in my life is not in my bottom moments it's in the tenacity the will to keep going to keep striving instead of like um it's not like a it's not like bullish either sometimes it's just like this gentle like relentless incrementalism can't stay here so when Anthony said but I I can't stay here this is an invitation to create something new uh meet myself a new way but that does mean that perhaps everything you once was familiar with will no longer be who am I outside of this experience wow so I think I'm asking myself that question real time real life and I am framing the habits of mine to tell myself like you can't pray with a double mind so my mind has to be solid even when I'm praying to God if I'm praying with doubt I'm the double-minded person in the prayer amen so I train myself to remember what is true and then submit myself in that alignment with prayer but when you're when it's done whether you're in your prayer closet on your knees or just driving and talking real life had to situate my mind on abundance not the losses that have happened to me but they have happened bro they have happened happened yeah yeah and I think the scariest part about what you're saying is that you don't want to believe that you're going to have to get used to the loss right and so it's a it's constant right and you're like oh grief is something that I have to invite in in that ultimately I don't want it to be here long but I have to make it comfortable because I will lose again I will continue to lose again so this is a roommate that lives with me now that has residency in my home you know um and not only that as we're talking about the pantry right you got people coming up to you saying I'm hungry I need you to whatever you got in that pinch I need you to I need you to support me with that whatever you got up in there and even if you're in the middle of a rock bottom you know breakdown and everything's off the shelves the skill of black men is to create with nothing we have nothing in the pantry yet we're still supposed to provide and fight against all of the external things that are coming at us you know what I'm saying so in doing all of that right and then right we don't nobody wants to hear about it we don't want to hear you complain that's inconvenient give me what I asked for and I'm not saying that that is the the majority of of our relationships but we are not cared for right um therefore we don't know to care for ourselves well I was just thinking right how about you're saying like we're not care for it but sometimes I feel like we put more on ourselves than others do right all we're seeing is that we are here to produce something right we are what we do yeah and so when you have your foundation shaken um you have your uh your identity and your purpose moved uh that place looks like depression and that is what I'm saying is like it's okay you know what I'm saying like I need everyone to know that it's okay right to be at the lowest point and just sit you know I look back in my childhood and all the traumas and all the deaths and the fact that I didn't expect to live to be 17 growing up in Brooklyn um I'm just same drama chaos chaos broken heart kids lost this the shootings if you could change any of that I would not change any of it because it made me who I am and in life you're gonna have that's part of life nobody's going to come to life and have everything perfect right so you're gonna have challenges and it's how you overcome those challenges and what's going to make the difference is your perspective on it and so the life that I Live Now I love the life that I Live Now but it's because those experiences those traumas those negative experiences those curses I turned them into blessings and when you change the way you look at things the things you look at change and so it all comes from perspective wow so so how are we changing our perspectives though right is it is it a choice like is this something that we we are we're hypnotizing ourselves are we doing daily affirmations like what it is it one thing that I always is I read it was years ago but it's that's it's the same pain is inevitable misery is optional so I can choose to to dwell in this and and some people need to you need maybe you need to sit there and take it in and realize where you're at but you have to keep going and that that's where the misery will come in and if if you're in that point longer than what you need to be yeah and it's like you talk about like falling or hitting rock bottom physically if you jump from that ledge and jump down there's going to be a period of time where your legs grab you and then you're eventually gonna have to come back up you can't sit in that squat position forever right and it's that um dealing with that being in that moment of all right this is where it's at this is awful and then figuring out how to stand back up and climb back up the steps yeah um how we do that amazingly as black men is like we are the best at doing it because it's like you know we you know talk about you know mental health and everything and wanting to reach out for help we're not knowing to reach out for help and this is like you know maybe ashamed upon oh you you know you seeking help you go into therapy it's like if you broke your leg you're gonna walk around with a broken leg or you're gonna go to the doctor and get a crutch and get a cast this is like as black men some of us are born injured you know mentally in the in living in the United States that's an injury already coming out of the blocks so it's like there's nothing wrong with seeking that help or constantly studying yourself right now I feel like I'm great but are there some things that I could work on to help me better you know you talked about you know coming out stronger it's like when you tear something you break a bone a lot of times that bone heals stronger but you got to let it heal you gotta get help for that healing to happen to come back stronger that most of us uh who have experienced therapy have really experienced privilege right because we could afford the help right that we need um my therapist told me uh you know that no one is going to need me more than I need me right and um I didn't really understood that because I didn't really understand it because I was like man like everybody needs me right everyone I know like you know what I'm saying like like I'm trying to lift up fatherhood for the generation right you know what I'm saying like everybody knew what I got you know what I mean he's like no but you need you more you know and so if I know that then I know I need not only do I need myself as I need I need him but I also need a couple people that need me right a couple young men that I could be teaching just these little things are like yo checking with this person man like don't hold on to that too long you're gonna have to have this conversation right and so that that that old proverb like Each one teach one that is a real thing that I feel like we all should be carrying you know what I'm saying I think that's a blessing of fatherhood though right because you know once I had my son and like seeing him grow up it made me realize that it wasn't just about me anymore because we keep talking about you know how to get you know fix ourselves and you know get rock bottom or realizing but a lot of people especially where I'm from they don't think nothing is wrong yeah yeah they don't think nothing is wrong you know what I'm saying and they go through their whole life not even having a clue they think that depression is normal yeah so it's like having a kid that's when you realize I know for me there's like all right you know you got another responsibility that's not just yourself and then you start realizing like yo I got to change these things about me in order to show him better so I think being the black dad is just like the biggest gift that we can receive as black men it's like they say a fish doesn't know he's in water until he gets out of water so they don't know that they're in a situation because that's the norm right and that's been the father's Norm in generations and generations and it's like Society in our community they gave us this template to live by instead of King his thought you should think act and be in all of these situations and if you live up to this template that we created for you then we're going to give you Kudos and we get respect and props in the community if you don't then you're going to get ridicued and you're gonna get this so and if you see anybody else doing it ridicuing this then so it scares us into living into this template but that template doesn't serve us the template actually works against us yeah and so the key is for us to break that template and go I'm not living by the template it goes back to the pantry I'm going to recreate it my own template yeah and not get stuck in this the other part that youngsters needed here in the game is It's All Temporary the naysayers are temporary right the temple is temporary the naysayers are temporary the props are temporary the Kudos are temporary right it's all temporary because you can't do all your growth in that one setting right you'll have to experience the discomfort of newness or uh trying again um this idea though that like the hood like like nothing's wrong with it I think it's um I think innately every human being knows something is wrong with it I wonder what happens to our thinking when we don't think we have the capacity to change it right because if we really talking and being honest we're really around the construct the whatever whatever ails us but let's just say the violence with all my might love and heart I can say something from the depths of my heart and it does not solve the problem Grand scale it may make a difference in that instance you know that's where the Each one teach one comes right but we have to be as persistent about creating the world we desire as as the problem is persistent about existing so this conversation is one iteration we need another one that's happening right on the corner I mean another one is happening in Philly or whatever we need these things to happen um inside these spaces and outside these spaces because especially with concerning grief and then you know that roommate we all have and like what I've understood deeply about grief is that like grief is not just like a thing to get back to but it like say if you try to busy it away or be productive away like you pass the time you don't pass the grief amen so the time is going but the grief you must spend intimate time with it grows you it evolves you and it's so uncomfortable I know God to be in our discomfort in our grief in our restarts um and in the in the template all of those things they're just they're just temporary and unlocking it so more young young folks get to see that sooner um take the jump sooner take the risk sooner amen right it's just like um that's the imperative part I think like mental health is this idea there's this clicking top clock and that clock is fake too it's temporary there is Grace but we don't know how to see it because you know that clock is really loud all right yo so this has been the black love men's round table thank you guys so much for keeping our conversation on Mental Health uh my name is belief got kariga got Marcus Lawrence and Anthony uh make sure you guys follow black love and uh stay tuned for the next one peace [Music] thank you

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