Millions of boys are raised to see vulnerability as a sign of weakness.
Charlamagne Tha God, who spoke on Wednesday with the New York Times National Politics Reporter Astead Hndon at the Well Festival on Wednesday, had a message for the people who were raised like this: throw that way of thinking away.
Charlamagne, who was born Lenard McKelvey and is best known as a host of the popular radio show ‘The Breakfast Club’, has been pronounced about his experiences with depression and fear.
He said that one of the most effective ways he had found was meditation. Another is simple: he goes to his lawn, takes out his shoes and walks through the grass.
“People say that as a joke, such as,” Man, go touch grass, “he said. “Go touch grass! And see what happens.”
It was not easy to be open, he said, but it was worth it. Sometimes, he added that strangers approach him to say that because he spoke about going to therapy, their husband or brother decided to do the same.
That led to a realization, he said, that “when you live your truth, nobody can use your truth against you – if you live your truth, you will just find a tribe that gives you more power to keep doing work.”
Charlamagne said that men, and especially black men, themselves and their loved ones, did not affect their struggles secret. The point is personal for Charlamagne. Only in 2018, when a cousin committed suicide after trying a number of suicide earlier, did his own father told him that he had once tried suicide.
“I remember that I just thought to myself:” Wow, if you told me this years ago, I would have known what the fear I experienced was. I had known what the periods of depression was that I experienced, “he said.” And I remember that I asked my mother, “Yo, do you know that Dad was going through all this?” And she said to me, “Yes, I thought he was just crazy to get a check.” ‘
“My point is,” he continued, “there is no need for someone to keep secrets of each other. If we told each other what it is that we are going through – and even better, the things we did to get through what we were going through – we would all do a big favor.”
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