Adventist Radio London. Inspiration for the song we Welcome to Talking Point with Ray
Senor Pedro Angela discussing the hot topics and answering your questions Saturday's five to seven
pm on Adventist Radio London. It's talking Point. It's talking Point. It's
talking Point, it's talking Point. Conversations you need to have. Welcome,
Welcome, Welcome everybody to Talking Point. We want to thank you for joining
us this evening. We've been off for a couple of weeks. A couple
of things happened, but you know, guys, it's good. We are
back on live tonight and we have a subject it is good to our hearts,
men's health. So today we're gonna go right in Is in the studio.
She's gonna be handling the board, making sure we get the music and
the breaks in and everything like that. But today we're gonna do a little
something different. We're gonna have like the Men's Show, where we're gonna have
a kind of men come on and talk about mental health, mental health and
all aspects. So we're gonna get right into it today because you know,
it goes really fast. As we know, next thing, you know,
will be time for us to end. So I'm joined today by Mark Simple,
He's from Cornerstone. He's a counselor there and Twine and Andre. Uh.
I guess we'll just do one by one. Antoine, would you like
to tell us your name and your show show? So my name's Antel husband
I'll actually know is that? There? And Andre for quite some time now,
I think over ten years. I don't seen for over ten years,
but yeah, a while back, I always a member of do for church
along way, so then I think, and a couple of weeks ago there's
sort of an outreach sort of march. I think the young guy had died
unfortunately, and just following that reached out to me last week he said,
you know what, we've got the food coming up about men's mental health.
Would you like to collaborate, you know, you know, lend your thoughts
and that sort of thing. So I hope I can I can do that
and maybe provide a different perspective today. All right, cool, cool,
definitely? What do you What do you do? So? I work as
a commercial manager, you having a commercial space construction, so primarily working with
air conditioning, quite high intensive, I would say in essence, of a
suit. You know, I'm a suit a suit. I worked some in
around London, meetings, expos that sort of thing. That's that's that's,
that's where the Burridge keep the suits. That's. I don't like meetings.
I don't how you get I don't know how people do meetings, because meetings
is just you get used to. I'll never get used to the meetings.
Uh, we're gonna go Andre next, because you know Mark. But we're
gonna go and Andre has been on before, but we're gonna ask him just
to give us a quick synopsis again of who he is. Okay, So
Andre Jones is half French something on a pio case past us. Kick was
a pastor, grew up in the church. I have one brother, three
children, one wife and what else can I say? I worked more in
the tech field. I see people bought to Dadminton and chill that's me.
That's cool. As You've been on Forward when we did the Siblings show,
so I'm sure some of our listeners will remember you from that show when you
had your brother, your younger brother of like ten years younger than you.
Right, Yeah, I know it's around there, and I'm glad. I
don't remember that much. And yeah, last, but not least, we're
going to have Mark Marcus works in Cornerstone as I don't want to say,
well as a psychologist or as what it is. I'm a trauma trauma counselor.
I work with trauma. Yeah right, trauma counselor. Right, Okay,
well then give us a little bit more about you. Well, I
seem to be becoming a regular on this program. I don't mind. I
work. I have a private practice. I work with trauma addictions, different
types of addictions. And I have my wife, no kids, which have
a good relationship. I think I'm alone today because the wife is in New
York having some family something. So yeah, yeah, all right, cool
Paul, Paul, I'm sorry deep of texting. Yeah, so that's that's
great to hear. As we said, You've been on before too, so
I think this is gonna be a good show. We have different aspects of
different men. Of course, I'm your host Pedro today because Zanya and Angela
decided to throw me out to the wolves, and I did tell them I
was going to do that. So yeah, well, I mean I'm just
like yeah, They're like, yeah, well you should meet this is your
other man in the group, and I'm like, yeah, that's nice.
You could have said something not on Thursday, but yeah, that's cool.
But anyway, yeah, anyway, we're gonna get right into it. Like
I said, we saw our topic today is gonna be about men's health issues,
men's health situations, and I guess I'll go right back. Two.
Oh by the way, Angela and Xenia are on the show today, so
don't be afraid to if you have a question, ladies to ask. Even
though this is, you know, a men's panel, I don't mind.
I wanted you guys to still be answer that you can talk or if you
have a question, because it's not just men's health issues. Men's situations also
deals with women, so we still like to get the women's perspective sometimes I
would say sometimes that you know, I'm talking like a husband of eighteen years,
so that's why I'm saying it like that. So let me let me,
let me like smoove it off. I don't mean it in that way,
like you just like to get a woman's perspective, you know, we
like to get that perspective, so you know, does you know it does
make a difference it does make a difference so well and tone. I wanted
to start off from you since I started with you to begin, Yeah,
what does mental health means to you? And when you are having a mental
health issue, how do you deal about it? Man? I think it's
a loaded question, and I think sometimes it's it's sometimes hard to to put
into words. I think, and I think it's it's it's a problem.
It's a problem that it's hard to put into words. I think that's because
of how we've had to really deal with it over the years and not necessarily
know what it is. But I can't more of an understanding over the last
few years because I felt that it's affected my physical being. So to me,
mental health it's something that you can't necessarily see, but it has I
think one of the greatest impacts on your physical state. It affects your emotions
on a day to day basis. But I think it's also something that if
you know how you can learn to control, you can learn to manage,
you know. I think sometimes we might say, you know, just just
in day to day life, you know, we're stressed, you know,
as men were stressed because work is difficult and all of that sort of stuff.
But I think stress is to a degree mental health. I think to
what extent is what's important and understanding that Mike, so go on, So
a question, No, Okay, my coping mechanism. I suppose it's the
gym. I've been in the gym for years, but I didn't actually know
it was a coping mechanism until there was a period that I wasn't getting to
the gym. You know, I was working day in, day out,
sometimes long hours. I have a business for a moment that was struggling,
and I didn't have a work life balance at all, and something was wrong
with me and I didn't really know what it was. Sometimes you know,
you find that you're getting a little bit angry or you're getting stressed, or
you're miserable, and you don't really understand why. And I didn't have any
balance in my life. So for me being able to control it, or
what's helped me control it, I would say is a physical activity, something
that's regular, something that allows me to have time for myself, time to
shut out the outside world. You just do me, and that's helped to
keep me stable. I would say. I think in doing that without realizing
there are certain changes that you know, we're seeing as a positive from the
outside in. So you know, my family will say, Okay, you
know what, you're happier today, you know, or you know, you've
seen calmer today, you know. But I didn't really realize because I'm just
stressed and I'm just working and it's just you know, everything, it's just
gotting crazy. But then when I had that balance and when I was able
to do something for myself, something to just free my mind, that became
you know, that healing for me, if you like. So that's how
I've I would say, I've been able to manage mental health to me,
that's good. That's good. Yeah, that's one where keep yourself busy.
But then working out. We've had my son on the show before too.
He talks he likes, he's really into working out, and I think he
says that's how he does with his issue when he's when he's down, it
just kind of revives them and gets them going for the next you know,
for the next day. Andrew, Andrew, I want to call you from
Andrew. I'm so sorry, and Andrew. Next question, the same question
for you. Just wanted to have a you know, an idea how you
feel about this. Funny enough, I found myself nodding as Ang was talking
because I think I call pretty much all of what he said in that well,
okay answer the mental health. Mental health for me is it's having that
stability because you can't avoid stress stress. If you're live, you're going to
have stresses. Anything that changes cause of stress. So stress in life is
not the problem. It's how we manage and how we quote the stresses and
the coping mechanisms that we were able to employ that will give us that balance,
that clarity, and that kind of stability as well. And exercising is
one thing that I found helpful for me was badminton. I'm a very quiet
person, and who knows me will tell you I'm a very quiet, soft
spoken person. If you find me on a badminton court or a voterball court,
you see a different side of me. We hear the show, to
hear the screams, you hear the you see the burst of energy that you
know unless I see on an ordinary day a more kind of laid back person
generally speaking. But that's my outlets and that's always been a place where I've
been able to kind of really get frustration, clear my head and come that
fresh. It's either wall badminton, and sometimes singing. Singing has also been
a source of balance for me. What I would add to what's been said
so far is having someone that you can open up to and talk to real
talk, I mean real talk, and I find amongst men we don't often
do that. Some some guys have that body that can really be free with
see how it is no judgment and this kind of yeah, whether it's getting
really emotional or they're just being sharing things that are not that you could easily
be judged for, and that is rare. But it helps to have that
space because I remember watching I can't remember it as Instagram or YouTube a clip
that basically said, especially as black men, we are not allowed to be
vulnerable. We're not allowed to show weakness, anything that is perceived as weakness,
a softness. You know you're not a man if you finish, if
you're showing those things. But we all go through payers where we need to
be able to say that hurt, or to say I'm hurting or I'm sad,
or I'm I just I don't have the energy, I don't have the
motivation I just can't do it anymore. But I guess I like address of
pount chiming in terms of what you agree with what I'm saying I'm not.
I find as black men don't often, we don't often have that liberty to
deep that vulnerable, to be in that state. We have to always be
on top of things. Yeah, I definitely agree with you, not because
I find being that I've lived over different places I lived in the States from
you, and here I find here when I'm honest with people how I feel,
they call it being aggressive. And it's not that I'm being aggressive.
I'm just telling you how I feel and you know, and I'm just being
honest and how I feel like because I'm getting stressed mentally. So I'm like,
this is how I feel because you're stressing me, like at work,
say something at work, and then they'll say, well, now you're being
too aggressive. You could be more less like passive, and I'm like,
but I don't even it's not even say anything, it's just by words,
and I don't you know, I'm trying to understand why do they feel like
I'm being aggressive by just expressing how I feel it because I don't know if
they're used to a man expressing themselves the way that I do personally. This
is just me personally, Do Mark you want? You can go next with
the question and then we can go want to the whole Okay, let me
I just gonna read a bit. In terms of what the ENERGS website says,
its mental health is or emotional, a psych a physical, and social
well being. It affects how we think, feels, an act. It
also helps determine how we handle stress related to others and to make choices.
Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood, an adolescent
to adulthood. For me, mentor how I deal with mental health is basically,
I do a lot of gym. I will whenever I can, I
go to the gym. I love reading, and so these are the things
I do. I also want the things I do I'm big in doing.
I like aquariums, so I had a beautiful aquarium and yeah, so those
are the things that tried to calm myself down. And yeah, so that's
me truly. Yeah. I have to say, I don't know if this
is a transfer ustery discuss any of the points I've been raised so far,
Pedro, Yeah, yeah, I have to say, just touching on,
you know, some of the things that Andre mentioned before, some of these
touch points about as men not feeling comfortable with communicating, you know, what's
what's really going on. I have to say that over the last probably about
three to six months of my life, I have been doing a little bit
of that with a very close circle that I have, just two friends,
and it's been quite refreshing, that's been quite free. I mean, we've
known each other since we were young anyway, so we can be truthful.
But even to that extent, it's never something that we've really talked about because
you know, as you're saying, you know, as a man, especially
a black man, we've got to be strong in the society. That's really
tough on us as it is. But we've been doing that and in doing
that, you know, we've been finding other kind of solutions. It's sort
of like we can even use it like a brainstorm and exercise to figure out
or what can we do, what can we do to be simply happier?
Do you know what I mean? I think it's also about just understanding what
makes you happy, and that can be, in my opinion, another way
to sort of heal and to overcome any ailments that's that's causing you to suffer
from mental mental illness or whatever whatever it is. Yeah, yeah, I
totally agree with you on that. For myself, like dealing with mental health,
probably my first couple when I was in my twenties and thirties I had
it was really I as to get like I was watching something the other day
and it just popped in my head just how he's a feel, you know,
like the F one races where I think it's like some kind of it's
like invisible guys that burned you. Yeah, but you can't see it,
but you're on fire. Yeah. Yeah, Like that's how sometimes when when
I was suffered, like when I was a good that mental health issue,
that's how I felt like. I felt like I was burning but nobody can
see me burning and I'm just and nobody's did to help me put it out,
so I'm just all over the place. I'm just skittish. And then
I just realized as I got older, because I'm I can't believe I'm gonna
say this, but three months I think IM gonna be fifty in March.
Yet March I'll be fifty and probably over the last five six years. I
just don't care. I as a man, you know, like I know
who I am, and I'm just comfortable in myself for my own mental health.
So I've just developed that, like you said, just get a small
snap of people that's in my life. And if you're not in my life,
like you know, you meet people and they're good for that time,
but not everybody's meant to stay there, And so when that time comes for
them to let them go, you just let them go. If they meant
to stay there, they'll stay there. But if they're not meant to,
they just let them go and you just keep on moving. And I just
stick with my wife and my kids. For me personally, I don't have
time to work out because I drive a lot. But believe it or not,
the driving is like my mental Like I could just turn off everything,
just drive and I could just like mentally decompress. I can think about things,
I can come up ideas, I can figure out how I'm going to
figure out, you know, figure out how I'm going to do something.
You know, when something's mentally stressing me or when something's really getting on my
you know, getting me down and then when I get home my wife and
kids are pretty good, I can go and just kind of disappear for an
hour. Go to my room, read something, you know, read a
little something I should. I used to read a lot more. I don't
read as as much as I used to, and then just sit there just
kind of because I tried working out, but I just don't have the time.
It's like, when I get home, I'm so tired. I don't
want to have to go down the road to go work out. Plus,
I always thought working out by myself was kind of weird, but that's just
me, you know. As we said, we all have our own little
you know pros. And know something else that I've tried recently, well,
I tried it last year. I haven't done it much recently, but I
found it really really therapeutic. It's going to spa, going to a place
that has a uh sauna, right and steaming room and relax. Did you
get into an interesting conversation with people who are in there as well? But
and song of the chill Out? Going in the song to just chill out.
They have a nice cool water plunge you can jump in out towards and
then go back again. That was there's a place that poe close to me
in Colchester, really really reasonable, and that was my I tried to go
at least two three times a week and that was probably the best period I
had in terms of combining that together with my Dadminton. That was. That
was, Yeah, that was good. I think we'll go to a swimming
pool myself. I think swimming kind of relaxes me. Yeah, because I
don't know, sitting in a hot thing getting all sweating, I'm like,
I can do this at all. But but but that is because as we
all past, they used to be on the show. That explains why he
goes to the Egos all the time, to the spa. So I don't
know what. Now we know why, yeah, you just you just you
know, we let we now know why. So yeah, because the music
all the time, like at least once a week he went, So now
we know why he was going. So yeah, he never will admit it,
but yeah, and I just probably, well, so I think we're
all seeing similar things in it. It's like for men, I think it
might be different with women. I don't know, you know, I can't
really speak to women in that sense, but I think it's men. I
think if we do a solitary thing, there's something that we can just do
for ourselves and we can just be in our own space. For me,
anyway, I find that that's more beneficial that some people. They might say,
YE need to I need to go out and be social. But for
me, I think when you're just in your own space, it gives you
just time to just unload everything you know and just and just reflect. So
I think, just do things in a solitary way for me personally, And
sounds like that's what you guys are saying as well. It kind of seems
to help. I think, I think you have to. I think you
have to look at it in two ways. Yes, some people like that
space wherein they can go and reflect and do what I need to do.
But for me, I got energized by Reich and rejuvenated by by people by
talking, by by interacting with people. So I can do both the solitary
thing, and I can also do the wherein I like to talk with people.
I like. That's why I like to work with young people, because
I want someone to ask me a question, wherein I have to think or
I have to basically go research or something like that. So each individual has
a different way and how they when it comes to swimming or anything like that.
I cannot swim, So that is going to put more stress. And
I'm serious, I can't swim. Look, I went to my wife,
said to me, Mark, you need to learn how to swim, because
we went to eat e jip and they went off and do the snorkeling thing
and I nearly drunk. So I came back. I came back. I
did turn the two sessions with the little kiddies bluepool was you know, halfway
to my knee. I did turn to two sessions of swimming and realize,
you know, on the last session, I can't swim. So I went
out with another turty two sessions and I still can't swim. So s is
not one thing at all a little combination that could be useful. And this
is for guys in the pannel and those listing as well. If some of
us have mentioned working out, going to the gym, right, not kind
of physical exercise, a really good sweat, I would just let it out
physical perfect combining that with a SPA session golden m hmm, yeah, yeah,
yeah, all right, I'm gonna see to try. It's a try
because I just know, I just if I'm not exercise person. So the
only exercise I would do is probably swim because it's just easy and because I
go up on the island. If I don't know how to swim, I'm
in trouble. But if I ask your question, Pedro, you said that
sometimes you just you just go and find your space at home. Yeah.
Do you find that you get left alone to do that enough? Yes?
Yes? Yeah. My my my wife, man, she's she's my rock,
she's my man. Eighteen years, she's my rock. My wife knows.
And the same thing with my wife too though. See that's the difference.
I know my wife needs the space. So we both have learned when
each other needs that space. We have learned like if I just like,
even if she has a question, she should I'll say, hey, just
give me five minutes, give me ten minutes, and she said okay,
and she'll give me ten minutes, sometimes fifteen, you know, And so
we just learned how to read each other. My children, yeah, they'll
come and they'll say, hey, Dad, give me a her kiss.
And then I'm like, look, I'll be down in a minute, all
right. That no pou, I'm cool, and they will go back to
what they was doing. You know, my son is fifteen, so he's
he stays in the room anyway, so that's easy. It's the girls,
you know, they want to jump and play and give me a hug and
hold on tight, don't let go. I'm like, I'm like, sweet,
you just give me five minutes, okay, that okay, and then
they'll give me then, you know, five ten minutes, they'll come up
to the room like can I ask you a question? You know, But
then that's fine. But yeah, my family's great men. When it comes
to that day, they have they have learned how to We have learned.
We still mess up back, you know, because we're not perfect, but
we have got a good rhythm down in the sense of navigating space for each
other. Okay, because speaking to my region about this, no names or
anything, but he's he's in a position where he works quite a lot sometimes
at home, and he's got children, the wife and so on, and
then you know, they'll get back and then he's with them, and then
he's kind of feeling like, what, I'm always in this house, I
have my time or anything like that, and I'll say you know, sometimes
you just got to if you can't find a space to the house, sometimes
you just got to get out of the house. Maybe just find a hobby
or something that you can do. Mm. But I know for some people
it's not easy to do that, especially if you weren't doing that in the
beginning of your relationship. If you've now sort of realized that's what I need,
but you're you know, two, three, four or five years how
many years deep into that relationship now to now say this is what I need
to do. I think it's also managing the expectation of who you're who you're
in a relationship with, because they have to be on side, right,
they have to say, all right, this is this is something that I
need to be on board of you and you know, allow you to do
and respect that. That could also be difficult. Yeah, I mean I
would because would have said, like go for a thirty minute drive, fifteen
minute, thirty minute drive just but then, like you said, with the
children, then you have to have to wife the one to watch them because
you can't just leave the children. So yeah, I get that that point.
There's definitely something that a conversation needs to be had and both parties have
to be on board. But yeah, with me, definitely both we're both
on board in that aspect. And it just and it wasn't It didn't happen
overnight. This is something that over time happened a lot of conversations, a
lot of a lot of arguments, a lot of disagreements, a lot of
you know, not understanding each other, you know, And as time went
on, we we when she saw that if she let me do that,
I'm a different my mental space is different, then she realized, let me
give him that, because then he comes back. You know, I'm more
receptive to what she's saying when I'm not. When I'm not, you know,
recepted to what she's saying is because I'm so stressed at the moment.
She realized she's not gonna get through to me anyway. So it was a
recognition on her part too to say, Okay, you know what, if
I just give him that extra fifteen minutes, then I can talk to about
what I need to talk about. He will hear me and we can get
something accomplished, and then you know, stuff is not going all over the
place. Yeah, so we're gonna We're gonna just put a pin in it
right there for the moment, as as I used to say. And we're
gonna go to repaid it all by west Morgan. And when we come back,
we're gonna get into different signs of symptoms and what we can do to
sorry the kids. And we're gonna go into something. We're gonna go into
the different aspects of the signs and symptoms of mental health for men. Okay,
the lovely zen you start that for us unselfishly died on Calvary. Oh
how you gave your life f bruise, scorned, crowned your head with on.
No greater love beform for me. Nelvin you pay, Nelvin, you
fee piercing your side, could barely breed, could have came down, jadd
you remains standing in awe of the pride of pain. I never knew of
a love so true. You gave a lie f and still I heard you
lossom men, time to supply you a pin. But I repent forgive me
for my seat. You paid it all, bone crawl you let die so
here I am siring nerving the hole got him my cry, my knees up
all you paid it all all, Oh, you paid it all oh oh,
you paid it all, however your lives. I'm no good, ain't
no money. I can't pay, and it's shade father blood you shame shed
for my thing, shame surrender my heart behad by all as a living sacrifice.
Lord, I give up everything that's not pleasing in your side so I
can handle a last. You paid your life. You gave your life so
right, So many times I rove the bad you for kidding from saying both
cross you play you the song shan laud him my crossbow as you paid him.
You're a cross you paid, You play your sad. You can't up
joan. You sacrifice some of the temple marcass of the healthcare life. But
you came off your plahamas so I can run storryself yourself. You paid it
off upon the cross you play time. Huh oh you put the cross,
you pass the time cold. Either of the loss shut her hair, smit
is mind not him her fause you paid it. If you paid, you
paid, Will you jill your lord? I want to thank you. You'll
find an answer, yesterda we who canceled your past? Wait you pay do
way there too to see you? You you you paid it all come on,
come on, hello, hey me, Kirk, I need to speak
to Bishop sure, hold on, all right, Hello, Hey, I
got some stuff I need to talk to you about. Lately, Pastor.
I've been having all these crazy kind of dreams. It's hard to sleep,
I can't eat, it's scary. You know, I know what you mean.
I mean, ever since that Tuesday seemed like like this's getting real strange,
shoot an thracks, terrorist attacks, and I ain't even trying to get
on a plane. God feel you. And you know when I try to
pray that his voice killing it. God's not real, you know, that's
just hiding me. Yeah, but you ain't feeling me, No, son,
I know just how you feel. See, just because I preach and
teach, don't lead or don't get scared sometimes yeah whatever, but you kiddy
jake, But then I don't make a mistake. Well then they tell you
what's on my mind. But your smile is gone. Yeah, but I
feel so long although your heart is given. See, but you don't know
mind. I mean a little sick and tired of off. She just got
laid off, and the top it off, the rents too, So tell
me what I got to gain? We'll see trials coming to make you storms,
la. How can I trust God and all this myth? Well?
See, that's the reason for a song. See wherever you go, that's
one thing you got to know. God is writing there by your side.
Man. You told me so, thank you for calling. It's always good
to hear from you. Yeah, I gotta go now waiting. I have
another call online too, But I ain't through. See, I'm thick and
tired of all these church folks talking about stuff. And as bad as the
things say, y'all don't feel my pain. I don't have pain. I
don't see how you're on a couple of Time magazine. See, but you're
looking at it now and you don't know how I struggled and what I've been
through. Yeah, whatever, now you cross the line. I'm just speaking
my mouth, okay, so let me speak mine too. I've had some
mountains, I've seen some balance. I've even had to cry sometimes that when
I lost my mother, your mother, my mother. I'm sorry, No,
son is fine. Life is full of ups and downs. But God
said the strong wold last long. But how'd you make it through? The
boy? I thought you knew it was a love. They kept me strong,
smileless, hell foe alone. Although your heart is of it, y'all
don't feel mine. And I'm getting very stick of of all the ships got
laid off in the tope, off the wrinch, Douke Ho, tell me
this what I gotta gain till your trials come to me? And those who
storms? How can I trust God in the midst of all this? Men?
See, that's the reason for this song. Wherever you go the some
of you got to know Gord Steel Care. That's not ninety one, Franklin
say nine nine one. I'm thinking nine ninety nine. In the UK,
I went back on talking point. Guys. We are joined by Tom,
Andre and Mark and myself and as I said, Zenya and Angela are on
the panel. They're just listening to us chump a bit about men's health and
symptoms and issues that men go through mentally. We're gonna start with Anton and
want to just go right off right with when it comes to the stigma,
how do you think the stigma surrounded mental health and seeking help as a man,
And if you have any like ideas like what will be an effective coping
strategy for managing distress? Well, I think it starts when when we're young.
I think it's something that is uh has to be taught. Unfortunately,
uh, you know, the previous generations before us had to come from,
you know, a place where they had to have some sort of immense strength,
you know, because they faced all kinds of difficulties, you know,
inequality, you know, all sorts. So even for me, if I
think back from when I was young, my dad was real tough man.
He was. He was tough. I know that, Andre, you might
you know about my dad, and he was a bit different at home.
You know, I don't know what he's like. I can't even remember too
much, but it was tough. But but the world required him to be
tough, so he was you know, he brought up, he was brought
up in a really difficult place. I would say. He had a really
tough upbringing. So everything about what he taught us, I would say,
was about how to be tough and deal with the world because it's a it's
a rough and hard place and there is no space for weakness. And that's
what's just carried me through, you know, without even realizing. You don't
even know, you know. And then I grew up and I've grown up
in London, East London and East London. You know back in the day,
it wasn't not rough rough, but you know he had its, had
its, had its rough days sometimes, but it wasn't a place for the
week, not really, you know, even when you're in school. So
you didn't have any space to be weak, especially as a black man.
You know, it was tough being black and then tough growing up in East
London, so you had to you had to have something about you, and
any kind of talk about your emotions or feelings was just weak. That's just
what's that disagree with you? You're disagreeing, No, agreeing with you,
you're agreeing? Okay, okay, cool cool cool? Yeah, yeah,
it was. It was just you know, if you want to talk about
feeling sad or feeling upset, you're just weak. You know they'll probably quelling
something else, but they're weak. That's the word that me and man up,
Man up, Man up? What do you mean sad? Upset?
For what? You know? Come on, So as you grow up now
and as I move into manhood, that's just been carried with me and I've
never really learned how to be expressive outside of being tough. You know,
doesn't matter how difficult the situation is lies ahead. I can't show that no
way. I'd rather be wrong and strong. I rather fail, you know,
trying. You know, there's no space for that. So I think
it's something that has to be instilled in young men or boys from when we're
young. But I think that teacher needs to come ideally from men, because
I think women can show it quite well, because I think naturally they do.
But I think we as men, once we I think we need to
realize what mental health is. And once we've realized it, we need to
say, Okay, you know what, I've been through a little bit of
a rough life, if you like, I haven't been able to express myself.
But I'm not going to allow my son to go through that as well.
So I'm going to so that it's okay to express himself. It's not
weak to do that. You know, you're any less of a man if
you do. And I think that's how we change things. I definitely agree
with you on that because I have a well, two of my oldest boys
they men now, so they live in the States, but I have a
fifty on he's dealing. He's dealing for a lot in the terms of he's
in an all white school, he's the head boy, he's black, he's
popular, but he goes through he goes through stretches where I can see he
just mentally burnt down and he doesn't know how to express himself. And I'm
trying to teach him how to express himself being a black man in a predominantly
white school, but also just also not to be too aggressive and doing so,
like I will probably be aggressive doing it like I was, like you
said, you know, like I'd rather be wrong. You know that's that
friend. Strong, Yeah, wong and strong, But there's the other thing,
like you know, you you beke for forgetness after like do it,
and then you beg for the forginness after its you know, like no,
sometimes you have to realize, Okay, maybe I need to step back,
take a minute, you know, take a breath, and then go about
the right way. You know. So you're trying to teach him that and
just trying to get him to stand up for himself because I think sometimes he
just wants to be an ink, you know, he wants to be liked
because he is such an outsider that he may do things that I'm like,
you know, that's a little that's a little on the line that you need
to be more aggressive and saying I'm not going to do that, you know.
But yeah, definitely just thinking because that's a lot what you just said
to unpack, because it's I think it's something that is meant we go through.
We go through it every day, and like you said, if I'm
young and we don't realize the stress that our young adults are going through,
the stress and the pressure, especially nowadays with social media, that our kids
are going through trying to navigate, you know, being a teenager trying to
go into an adult, trying to do the right thing, trying to be
a Christian, trying to be seven adventors, trying to just be do the
right thing. It's very difficult nowadays as not when we was growing up as
it were. Andrea, I see you have thoughts, So go ahead.
I kind of want to include what Antoine just said. I think it also
includes it's not just for men. This is in general, but I'm going
to say it most in terms of men. It's okay to making mistakes.
It's okay to mess up sometimes because we don't have that even in the schooling
system, you're punished for making mistakes. You know, you have the perfect
score if we get it. But as we are adults, you learn,
and you realize that mistakes and this opportunities learning opportunity. If you see it
more as that, rather than as a failure to making mistakes or or even
feeling at something fine, if you feel cool, dust off, reflect what
you learn from that, and you go again, rather than being a sign
of weakness or a sign of fuel your full stop, If that makes any
sense. I think that also kind of ties into our mental health and the
confidence that we carry ourselves with. Yeah, and the confidence we have in
ourselves. Make a mistake is part of life, is actually a good thing.
How many many times? How many game points have did Michael Jordan miss
before she won? We know how many rings you got? How many times
he won the game? For the for the Lakers, for the role.
Sorry, but there's a lot of shots in the meantime. It's all perfect.
It's all part of the game. You know what's funny. I'm not
my good fan, so I've seen I've now started to see just following what
you say, Andrea, I've started to see, you know, there's a
few if you like celebrities, if you like now sort of talking about mental
health, which is good because well that's who the younger generation usually look up
to. But saying that, I still don't think they give it the raw
language that it needs, you know, I mean, I don't think the
raw truth about it comes across. Like the younger lot. They still they
look on social media and I see a little saying a look quote, and
it's got nice, lovely music around it, and you know, nice graphics
and that's it. But the ugly truth of what it can lead to.
I don't think that necessarily comes across, do you know what I mean?
I feel like that's what we need to that's what we need to do to
to to change it. I think we as men who have now gone through
it, need to give the raw truths to the younger, to the younger
generations, to say this is what it's really like. If you don't recognize
what mental health is from an earlier age and see your point. I let's
see your point. Because you're talking like just raising raising boys. You gotta
show, like you said, we afraid to make mistakes for like, so
for me personally, I'm not afraid to make a mistake. I'd bother make
a mistake. You tell me I did something wrong, then fix it.
Then try to go through the whole process of trying to cover up the mistake
with like white lives or whatever, you know, whatever you want to call
it, and teaching or even talk to young people, tell them that you
know you like be truthful. I think that's more than anything else, is
just be truthful with yourself or what what you're doing and what you're not doing
and if you're and then telling them to if you haven't an issue, if
you haven't a problem, to police, come talk to me. If you
can't talk to me, talk to somebody else, like I tell my children.
If you can't talk to us, then talk to God. If you
can't talk to God, talk to the elder, talk to the talk to
somebody. It's always talk to whoever you feel comfortable talking to. But just
talk, yeah, you know, and just get that. How do we
help someone of them play when they when they need to talk to someone,
Well, how do we have for the symptoms out this is getting to a
point where I need something. Well, that's gonna be a mark question right
there. Let's be jumping here. You know, we notice takement. Big
boys don't graft, you know, and yet still as men, we died
ten years younger earlier than women. And because of the fact that what is
happening is you have to we have to look at the psychological new psychological also
different things that is happening within our assystem. No. Anto one, you
talk about the way your dad brought you up. One of the problems that
we have is that our parents, a lot of us, most of us
comes easily say that our parents did not teach us how to emotion and you
regulate because they didn't know how to do that. They come from a system.
It's not like most of us come from either the Caribbean or Africa or
wherever we're coming from, and they don't know how to do that. So
basically what happens is that when we get these pressures, you have to think
about there's something that we a hormone that we call cordisol, not cortisoon,
cortisol within the system that is that is responsible for a lot flight fight flight
and fight flight freeze flop mode, the kind of thing you know of which
cordisole mixed with different other hormones can either get you out of the situation,
put you you know, fight your way out of the situation, or you
freeze or your flop. The problem is is that we don't know how to
regulate. And because of that, you find that while women has the tool
of crying, there are two ways cortisol comes out of for our body,
were two major ways, really crying, two tear drops cortisol comes out of
our body, and by exercising. But it's how we exercise that would bring
cortisols out to the body. Now, a woman would cry, and she
would have a good cry, and she feels good about it. But because
we were taught big boys don't cry, we keep it in. Cortisole stays
there and it's a block on so it blocks a whole lot of other good
hormones and other good things. When the cortisol hits things like for men,
testosterone and so on and so forth, cortosole produces a whole lot of different
crazy results in both men and women. Yeah, so there are a lot
of things that we need to understand about what is happening to our bodies when
we hold in these things. What we've learned to do as men is basically
just suck it up and move on, you know. And I learned a
hard the hard way when I first keep to England. I learned the hard
way in terms of not saying anything to anybody, because it came to a
point where one day, I remember when I came to England with six years
within me being in England, and one night I said to my wife,
I said, are you going to I'm grew up in Canada. Are you
going to Canada with me? She's like, I don't know. And I
said to her, if I don't get off this island, I'll put the
gun to my head. And then she realized that I was going through ten
years of depression because in my life I've never seen so much rain in a
country in my life. I could not handle it. You know. At
this point in time, I'm half through my art because there's so much rain
happening now. But basically, these are the things that we've learned as men
that you know what you shouldn't basically say this, You should talk for you
should. You know, it's difficult for a man because if we show a
little bit of emotions, people just want us to show very little emotions.
If you show too much, you're a way. If don't show, you
don't have any emotions. So a lot of times with us as men get
caught in a rock and a hard place. We don't know what to do
because emotions it is so much on us because we don't know how actually do
this. No one teaches a man how to dispel these feelings what's happening the
No one teaches us how to do that. So that's one of the difficulties
in being a man in church in their day to day life. How do
we do this? And I think that's what you're talking about, Antoine,
both Antoine and Andrew in terms of how we need to start to speak up
about this other stuff. And I haven't even this is not even the surface.
I'm scratchy because to the fact that there is so much when we need
to look at our behavior patterns, behold in a lot of things, and
and then what we do it comes out in like volcanic effect. You know,
we just blew for you know, the de straw that broke the camels
back, and we blow for things that really actually doesn't even need that.
So these are the things that we need to talk about and in our churches,
in our homes. How do we deal with that, How do we
basically help our young men to emotionally regulate because we're seeing them doing some crazy
things out there in terms of cause of the fact that they don't know how
to deal with the emotions. Yeah, no, trust me, I'll shut
it there for not I was going to what you're talking about. So like
with the church, I know, I know, like growing up in the
church, we usually have rap sessions. We don't do that anymore in their
church. We used to give the youth manning boys and girls and just chop
it up. Sometimes we just have the boys. Sometimes we just have the
girls, you know, like you even will separate them, have all the
all the girls and then all the boys. And you have like the elders,
or you have like Antoine or Andre not even an elder, just a
member of the church. They may be going through some things that can that
can relate to the children. And talk to the children and you know,
try to get them to understand or try to get them to open up and
what you just said, like to teach them, you know, like it's
okay to feel, it's okay to not not you know, not the hold
it is. It's okay to let it out. I don't know how the
churches out here that in that aspect, because you know, in the sense
of I know we have some like a Y was a thing of that we
did on a regular basis. I know, some churches do AY here,
some churches don't. And then after AY then we would have the session and
you know, oh you have it in between like lunch. After lunch we
have like an hour or thirty minutes or forty five minutes of a session before
you had a Y. You know, like we spent the whole day in
church. I don't know, we don't do that like that anymore here in
the UK. This was in the US. I think that would be a
good way because I think the church is just as much needs to get involved
and helping our young people as much as also at home, because as I
say, you know, it takes a village to raise a child, and
I think some somewhere along the way, we got away from the village and
we just went to you know, like just leaving it to the parents.
And even though the parents it is the responsibility of the parents to do that,
I think it's also good. Sometimes you know, you gotta look at
the parents to see do they need help? Then they need some instruction,
Do they need some kind of guidance on what they need to on what they
need to do or to help with their children that may be giving them a
hard time because sometimes parents, as parents, sometimes we just we get so
emotionally stressed that we just kind of notot give up, but we just kind
of like become what's that word, like I don't know what to do now?
Like you know, we're just like we're at our ends rope and we
don't know what to do. Can somebody help me in? But there's no
help coming, and then that's when everything kind of goes off the rails.
But you agree with that, mark or am I little after myself? I'll
see this the problem we have. Let me give an example, and this
is some I'm not seeing all churches, but sometimes I look at it from
this perspective. I remember a number of years ago I had the young people,
and I call it jam session Jesus and me right and and and and
the young people were coming and we were discussing the kind of issues and they
were flocking and bringing friends from their school and so on and so forth.
Uh, and sometimes us as adults feel that, you know what, we're
talking too much of the worldly things. And so what did the guys did
was a few elders came and they hijacked. They hijacked and next thing,
you know what is for us when for us men a lot of times when
we don't want to go deeper in conversation, we just moved towards religiosity.
You know what, somebody do a vest but somebody do something and we go
to the Bible. And I'm not saying that the Bible is not important.
It is. But the young people need to talk about these issues. That's
what is hindering these young people. The reason why a lot of AYS programs
are dying within our churches is because us as adults have no connection with what
is happening to the young people now. And so our programs are still stuck
in the sixties and seventies. And basically the young people are in the twenty
first century, So what is going to happen? We are still singing songs
like love is a flap, flow and high when the young people are basically
stabbing each other. If I can jumping off the back of that that I
haven't been in the church for a long time. I used to. I
grew up a shafter church. Then I was in KA church a very very
long time. And thinking back on it now, I can't really put opin
on the reason why I haven't been there, but I know when I was
young, was bored. It was boring. It was boring for me.
There were periods where it was really lively. I don't I can't remember all
the posses that we had in but some were, you know, quite with
it if you like. The youth loved the church, and there's a lot
of a lot of a lot of things going on. There were music days
and youth days and all this kind of stuff. But then after that you
just got really boring and really dull. And what that meant is I was
drawn to things outside the church. Yeah, my brethroom's at school and stuff,
you know. And because these are the guys, because I'm not really
being taught about, you know, the world and how it's going to affect
me mentally and emotionally, and all this stuff from my dad so much because
he didn't know how I'm getting that from my friends who also don't know how
because they're in the same position anyway. So we're just kind of it's just
a bunch of uneducated people, I feel like about the world teaching each other,
you know, and we don't really know what's worth and just struggling our
way through life and all that kind of stuff. And I've often thought that,
you know what, there's there's times where I felt that the Seventh day
Adventist Church, if it adopted some of the ways that I've even seen the
Pentecostal churches do things with the youth, will be in a much better position.
There's a lot of a lot of guys that I went to church with
back in the day offered in Strafford, and they got to Sunday Church now
Pentecostal Church. And the reason why they do that is because they're getting a
lot of they're getting a lot of environment. They talk among each other and
like Mark said, they talk about things that are going on in the world,
relevant things. They always bring it back and they always tie it back,
which is great. Yeah, but they're talking about things that because look,
we're in church one day a week, you know, we're in church
one day out of the seven days. The other six days were in the
world. So most of the things that impact us are outside, and if
we're not talking about what's going on outside, then then then what help I
think? I think what you also not just that, I think what Mark
just said, Well, you just said, actually when men like they hijacked
children don't like to be judged. Yeah, And that's part of the And
I'm just being I'm just being frankly honest. I mean, I've seen I've
seen some sessions where I've had you sessions in the church and the elder just
just pray to God and it will be okay. Doesn't always work that way.
God is the main focus of what we are talking about. But we
need to be able to to bring, like you said, bring the twenty
first century into it and be a little bit, you know, off cuff
or be a little bit off off the beaten path, you know, so
that we can relate because, as you said, like you know, after
it just becomes like it just becomes boring and you're like, oh, they're
just gonna throw a whole bunch of Bible verses at me, and that's not
what I need right now. You know, the Bible verses can come at
points throughout the conversation, you know, to make a point. But when
you just thought bombarding all Bible verses, are you just going as Mark sid
just with the with that that out of just biblically all the way through it.
Sometimes some people, especially when they're not in the especially when some of
the members are not even of the church. And that's how we can get
more young people into the church, if we can show that we can be
more proactive and not judgmental, because I think that's that's the main thing is.
You know, it just comes off as being judgmental. Oh, you
know, you do this, You're gonna go to hell. You do this,
You're gonna you're not gonna be saved. You do this, you're gonna
you're gonna die. You know. It's it's not it's not that we all
sin and come short. But it doesn't mean that because I sin, I'm
gonna die. I sin, ask God for forgiveness. God forgives me.
I move on. I try not to make that sin again. That's that's
how God has That's how I was taught, you know, That's how I
was taught in the sense of we're gonna make mistakes, but God forgives us.
And it's funny because God forgives us, but we can't forgive each other.
We always holding onto the past. We always holding on to what you
did negative was holding on to what the problem is. You know, instead
of trying to fix the problem, we want to keep talking about the problem.
That's not fixing the problem. I just thought throw that out there in
that In that sense, I want to ask a question Mark, how do
you I think I think Andrew actually asked this question, but I'm asking you
again about how do you know when when we do need help? As a
male, like, how can we how can we decipher? But how can
we recognize for ourselves? Because I think sometimes it's men we don't even realize
that we need help. We we kind of just push and push and pushing,
and we start working too much over I know I've done it where we're
just working and working and working, but you're just hurting yourself more and more.
So, how can you? What do you? How do you?
How can you? What are some point recognize when someone needs There are certain
behavior patterns, psychological, physiological symptoms that comes about when us as men,
basically we get snappy. Some of us basically get more quiet than we are.
Some of us withdraw we tend to basically get more aggressive a lot of
times. Here's a few things that happening to our young men. Also in
terms of the addictions. You have to not going to get into the pornography
and so on and so forth as much as yet, but you know,
pornography and substance addiction and uh and so on, an alcohol and these other
things. So there's a lot of things that happening. You find that men
start to lose weight and start to lose the motivation, going into depression and
these anxiety something also big among men that we don't really and truly even notice
because of the fact that men do comfort anxiety. Wherein you can you look
at the man and he looks very comfortable and nice and so on and so
forth. But I call it the swany fact. You know, I'm pretty
out of the top. But then look under the water and my foot is
paddling like crazy because I'm trying to figure out about the family. I try
to figure out about work. Next day, someone I'm I'm being bullied at
work. I'm all these things, am I go the man in my home,
all these things men are thinking about. But because of the fact that
we all look uniform and I normally talk to my wife about this uniformity Christianity,
we all look alike, and we there not basically talk each other about,
actually, how are you feeling what's happening? And that's where one say
you've got a prayer about a prayer. Pray sis the pray because I may
not be able to take on what you will regard to take on me,
and so you keep your stuff to yourself and I keep mine to myself.
And so a lot of times we sit down and we look at the men
in church, men on a whole. You see them struggling. But because
we all basically work thought that we should not. Here's my mom and I
know a lot of us parents will say, don't air your dirty laundry in
public. Then basically we just to ourselves. They say I did when I
was writing a research paper when I was doing my as traumatologies, and it
says a black man is twenty times more likely to commit suicide than his white
counterpart. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And because of the fact that and
what I wrote it on is what I wrote the paper on is it is
the normal normalization of PTSD and complex complex trauma within the black and ethnic minority
community. Before we even go out as black men, we are already seen
as dangerous. We don't even have to basically do anything or open normal.
We see all these things basically common us and we have it, and we
can sit down in church and talk about these things, but we don't because
of the fact that we just want one more sermon. I stop listening to
not that I stop listening to sermons, but I'm I'm gonna say this.
I don't need another sermon to take me into heaven. I made that decision
already. What I need is a brother or a sister to help me to
get there, not a sermon. And if all of us have basically made
that decision to make it into heaven, then the Bible is right, Jesus
said. But no, what how we make disciples out of each other is
not by a sermon. It's by our life and by how we basically deal
with each other. So we are doing we all focus in. That is
why the church also is dying, because we focus in inwardly and we're imploding
when the message should go outwardly. Yeah, that's the thing that's on that
subject of I was just thinking because as myself personally, I agree with you
on that aspect of the church. The church is the main cog and what
we need. But I think also too, as fathers, it's our responsibility
to, like with my with my family, we have worship every every night
even if we don't have and doing that worship is weird because sometimes you know,
my children sit down. My wife is very in tune with their feelings
one than I am. And I admit that because I'm out most of the
day. So I come in and I can see sometimes something's not right,
but she's already got them from when they got home, and then she'll say,
hey, something's not right with junior, or something's not right with your
daughter, you know. So then I started observing it when I get home,
and I'm like, okay, So when we have worship, we'll we'll
bring the biblical part with the worship, but then also in the worship we'll
also sometimes we'll end up having a thirty forty five in hour session of just
talking like what's going on on, guys, how is your day? Tell
me how your day went, and then let them express how they feel Okay,
how can we fix it? How can we deal with it? How
can we you know, navigate through this. Even if they go to bed
late, I'd rather them go to bed late, but go to bed and
a good frame of mind, then to go to bed and that frame of
that all that stress on their head, you know, because then it stresses
me out all night and then I can't sleep. So you know that that's
just one way for me personally that I would deal with my stress. And
then also like passing it on to my kids and then being transparent. I
think as parents we can be more transparent to our kids and how we handle
stress and let them see how we handle stress. Like me and my wife,
we will have a disagreement in front of our kids, but then will
make up in front of our kids, so they see, Okay, mom
and dad, they had a disagreement, but you know what, they came
together, they had a discussion, they fixed it, you know, because
I think that's another thing too that we don't teach our kids is how to
fix the problem that you are having, you know, not that go behind
closed doors and fix the problem, because they don't know what are they doing
in the room. Why do they got go in the room. Wh what's
so secrative? What are they saying? What are they doing? You know,
so we know we do it in front of them. So we have
a disagreement, we have an argument because look I'm married. I mean that's
gonna happen. But then we will come, we'll we'll have a meeting at
worship and say, okay, guys, you know we had a disagreement.
This is why, but this is what we're gonna do to fix it,
or this how we're going to fix it, and we explain, you know,
to them. And I think it allows your child to see that it's
okay to sometimes blow up. It's okay sometimes to get frustrated. It's okay
sometimes to like I did something wrong. But if I be truthful, if
I be honest with myself, if I be honest with my peers, I'll
be honest with my future spouse, that we can get through this. I
don't know what you think of subject, go ahead, go ahead, and
you can time. Yeah, definitely, A few things, A few things.
First of all, I didn't know where to start with. All right,
I'm going to start by putting a text. We'll circle back around the
Bible doesn't tell you not to get angry. It tells you get angry and
sitting not. There's not the wrong with getting angry, it's just how you
manage that anger, how you deal with it, and how you deal with
others in that state of mind. All right, I'm going to partner that
for a second and circle back around in terms of you know, when you
want to, like going somewhere, you get those safety alerts, and the
thing they tell you is make sure you're off the mask first, and then
help the one next to you. Right. So, I'm thinking of this,
I'm listening just said, I'm thinking, I really love what you what
you should in terms of you use your family worship time to kind of address
various things. But I'm going to take a step back and say, we
need to learn as men how to manage our emotions and how to identify and
manage our mental health. As we understand how we do that, we can
then help those around us for boys, et cetera. But we need to
understand that first so we can then help them. Right. Also, in
that family setting, the family worship plan that you mentioned, I really like
that. I think I would want to add to that that sometimes allowing whether
it's the child or whether it's your brother in to talk and say what's really
on the mind. It doesn't necessarily mean that you need to give them a
solution or action plan. Sometimes they just need to vent. I don't know.
I don't know if if any of you have watched that show on Apple
TV plus Ted ted Lasso, but they have this kind of powow dog session
where the guys they can talk about something they're struggling with. Yes, yes,
yes, yes, yes, yeah yeah yeah, And every now and
again they have a chat about someone kind of talks about what they're going through
and everyone hears and maybe identified sometimes and then it ends. And there was
one guy who's really not too too good with handling's emotions kind of really bust
out and said what was on his mind, Like I can't be doing this,
I'm struggling this and I don't understand what to do. And then we're
kind of yeah, I get where you're coming from, right, And then
they kind of ended that what is that it? Yeah, I mean I
can just talk. Yeah, it doesn't need to be or I love to
hear what this is what you need to do and this is oh you should
wrong. Sometimes it's just good and having that space is out and just be
real with how you're feeling and having someone that you can trust, because not
everyone I can tell stuff to. And we know this, we're all growing
up in the church or being in the church or even just in the world.
You know, you can't tell her what you did this. But if
you have that one or two people around you that you can just really just
chop it up or just let it out and not have to worry in the
back of mind are they going to tell the next body or the next body.
That is so therapeutic I find and I my brother is one person could
do that way for example. That's that's one person for me. And maybe
you have one or toilet people that I could do that with. I don't
always tap into it because it's hard, honestly, some of the stuff that
you sometimes dealing with. I can't feel like I need to keep it close
to my chest. I can't let it when you know what I'm doing.
I'm that duck on the pond feeling smooth, everything looks cool, calm,
I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead. I like I like the worship every day.
I think that's really good, Pedro. And I also like the fact
that what you just said andre about sometimes you just gotta let him speak.
And I've got a thirte year old son and he's going through what he's going
through. Now, you know, someone is out, Yeah, hormonal change.
Well, when I say, you know, feeling out, I mean
I don't. I don't mean, you know, people think that it's sexual.
I don't mean in a sexual way. I'm talking about like feeling themselves,
you know, like they're like, I'm getting, I'm getting I'm becoming
a man. I'm becoming a man, you know. People people, that's
that's what people think of it as that, oh you know, but no,
it's more like I'm becoming a man. So I'm gonna rise up on
my pop so every now and a rise up with my parents every now and
done, you know. Yeah. So he's not so much rising up.
Sometimes he just looks miserable, and I know his body's going through whatever it's
going through and so on, and I need to always ask him or fix
your face or while you're looking miserable or that kind of thing. But then
I kind of realize it. Sometimes I just need to just leave him yeah,
just just leave him, you know, because he's figuring it out a
little bit. So I think sometimes we want to we we especially for thinking
about men heal, sometimes we want to fix. But sometimes I think in
order to fix, sometimes you also allow them to self discover what maybe is
doing within themselves. And every time I've done that, give a bit of
time and he's he comes around and he's fine, okay'll come to you after
a couple of days. They I'll be like, you know, Dad,
I was I was feeling this way yesterday, you know I was feeling Yeah.
Yeah, definitely because I have a pressure in my mind right and now.
Let me say, like even in the worship, sometimes I kind of
misspoke because I made it seem like we fix it every time. Sometimes you
just say, okay, that's how you feel. Let's, you know,
sleep on it. We'll come back to it when you feel, you know,
ready to talk about it, you know. So it's not like it's
always because I don't want people. Yeah, I definitely agree with both of
you in the sense of you can't always fix the problem. That's the next
problem we have as men. We try to fix everything right then and there,
or we want it to be you know, like sort of or like,
you know, situated, But it doesn't always work out that way,
because even for us, it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes we
need an extra day or two to kind of get our thoughts together, get
our get our the thoughts in our heads together so we don't say it the
wrong way or say it, you know, mean in the meanway. We
gotta get our minds straight ourselves before we can express how we really feel.
Because, like you said, you know something you get angry, you know,
but it's how you handle that anger is what shows you know how what
type of man you are or you know what type of person you are in
that aspect, you know. So definitely, I think that when it comes
to emotions, the wrong thing that we say is good and bad emotions.
Emotions are not good and bad. God is the These emotions are God keeping,
no matter what it is. Anger, all these things that God gave
it, we use them wrong mm hmm. And we use them wrong because
of our childhood issues that we're coming with and the coping strategies that we've used
to actually fix things. We use these emotions wrong. But they're not wrong.
They're not bad they're not bad in any way, we just use them
wrong. And so in terms of let me give you an example one you
guys were talking about it in terms of my nephew called me and said,
oh, Mark, he has his son in thirteen, and he basically was
close to his son until around age ten. But then when he started the
little boy started to become, you know, change and turn into you know
he because his dad left him when he was that age and he had no
more material you'll other, and how to bring up a child after ten eleven
twelve thirteen, He didn't know what to do. What why do Mark,
because and I think a lot of us as men, we've lost parents or
fathers or whatever it is, and we don't know how to move on in
terms of what to teach this child first and first be gonna need to start
to again skill herself up. Maybe just maybe your churches need to start to
look at men's ministry and work with that from that perspective also, but also
as I think it was you on one that says something you don't have to
I said to him, why do you have to always do something or say
something? You know, take him out for an ice cream or whatever it
is, and just sit there and listen. Shut up. You know,
you don't have to basically solve him everything for him. Shut up and listen
to him and let him talk. You know. Please, you are present,
be present for this young man, you know, and and yes at
times because us as many are mister fix it. We need to fix everything,
and we need to fix it now. Next, you know, we
just fix it next, next, next. We can't do that. We
have to be able to keep you know, these indie young ones in our
presence. Yeah, okay, we're gonna put a pen in it. We're
going to come back in a minute, but we're gonna play a song.
I had it now I don't. Oh yeah, I am by James fortune.
So hopefully Zanya has heard me and she will start to play the song
I'm here. Give a shout out of your hair, all right. Two
Peter one in three tells us that God has given us everything that we need
for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him. Everything. I have everything,
I have, I have reathing, I have the great. I am
brow byes for the great. I am grow by love. I have everything
I have time, I have agreeing b Thank you Jesus, I freezing because
the great a great idea. Oh byes, oh fucking the great eye.
Oh bye? Can your strength is made perfect and not weakness A swim when
by you almost shrimp, when you almost when great the gay? Oh byes
the gray. All my needs are supply because that's everything the good He's holling
enough, fuy there, don't I thank you because of whoever I need,
you to be whoever I need because you are. You're ba. You can't
win it away when his drum people help with the type of trouble you got
flat when I'm cool fla, when I'm held for rank racks. No,
I can't you your head as putandic you wi steverything, said s s.
Nobody you we pishcuse you? Thank you well? See you taking secure?
Suppose you stop? Thank you? Jees It's all right. So we're back.
I am by James's fortune. We're gonna go into now we're gonna talk
about some coping strategies strateged I can't even say the word coping mechanisms that we
can that sometimes man go into when they are dealing with mental stress or mental
health. So with that we're going to ask mark to go into and talk
about that a little bit. Yeah, there are a few things that bussess
men do when we It's across the board, both men and women. But
a lot of times you find that aggression is one of the ways that we
use to hope as men, to hope either aggression, substance, misuse.
You find that we actually do self harm at times. Men. We you
know what we also do, behavioral avoidance. We disassociate from the family and
all these things, emotional suppression, those are escape and avoidant behaviors that we
do. One of the other things that we do what they call we call
it maladaptive coping strategies. We do different things just the pup because of the
fact that the tension that because we were not taught how to emotionally regulate properly,
then we developed That's what maladaptive coping strategy is. Because we were not
taught how to emotionally regulate properly. I think it was andre that says precious
stress because we were alive comes how you cope with it basically makes the difference.
And because we grew up in homes that our parents did not teach us
how to do this, we develop different things. You have the little schoolyard
bullies, and you have the you have things like guys do things like pornography
and all these things. It's just to cope with the stress and the pressure
that we are going through. This is another one somatic complaining. That's you
know, you know that individual, we're in the moment you beat them,
you start to complain about the dear bad life, what is happening to them.
Constantly, people start to keep away from them because they just keep sematic
complaining and it is a way of basically, you know, is attention seeking.
Most of the things that we do also is attention seeking because of the
fact that we're saying that, you know what good attention, bad attention,
I'm getting attention. So these are the different things that we do. You
find that people we develop very bad issues hoping strategies because of the fact different
different I would say that different societies have different bad hoping strategies. So,
yeah, those are just some of them. They are numerous, and each
individual can basically come up with their own bad coping strategy depends on their home
origins, where they're coming from. That they can develop bad coping strategies so
yeah, that's basically it. I think what we need to look at is
good hoping strategies to actually replace those bad coping strategies. And I think it's
something that we as men need to start to look at because of the fact
that I always say to people, where are you going? Because as men,
let us sit back and look at it this way, we were not
most of us were not taught anything from our dads other than either violence or
anger or whatever it is. Then where are we going? Because we all
need a blueprint in terms of what the where are we, where we're going
to, where we're going to when we get there, how will we know?
Because I can keep pushing myself and pushing myself and don't know when to
stop. So we definitely need a place destination. Okay, I'm going here.
I Pedro talk about worshiping and so and so, and that's an absolutely
beautiful idea. As men, we need to start to share these things with
each other in terms of the little good things that we are doing within our
little pocket of families and syvill we can try these and different good coping strategies
to get it. To get this biye, So Pedro, that's just in
terms of the bad coping strategies. We'll look at the good coping strategies in
a few I think, all right, all right, that's a lot to
take. I think, Antoline, you had had a thought that you had
about one coping strategy that could help with what would you said you had on
your on your mind that you wanted to talk about. Well, I thought
maybe it was more of a solution. But I think maybe finding a solution,
we can find that coping strategy. I don't know if this is fat,
but when I look at maybe this is just in films and series and
stuff like that, but it looks like things like therapy. It's something that's
not necessarily seen as a negative in certain countries. I think in America it's
not necessarily seen as a hooha as such. Tell me if I'm wrong,
because I don't know. But in over here, if you do therapy,
you look weak, you know. But there are sometimes things that are done
in Sunday churches that I've seen where they do therapy for people that get married.
So maybe if we could have a solution where we provide therapy to kids,
young boys, you know, whether whether we feel they need it or
not, that might actually uncover issues earlier, and then maybe from that we
could find whatever cope and strategy might work, because I would imagine Mark,
you would say that it's going to be different for everybody. Right, Everyone's
going to have to find that good coping mechanism that works just for them.
But to find that is I think requires some sort of solution and action.
And I think if we and that's a community effort as well, and that
would actually start with the church, if we were to say, all right,
let's involve ourselves more more in some way with the youngsters in a routine,
routine, routinely manner. Maybe you know, every Saturday, then there's
a there's a fifteen minute slot as an example, after church where every child
can speak to, you know, a designated person who talks about how they're
week was and all that sort of stuff. Maybe we can these things and
then help them to find that mechanism, that strategy that helps them to overcome
you know, these issues that they come across. I think it is difficult
because in America, therapy is something that's normal. Everybody send the child to
therapy. But here again, wants a young man see another young man or
hear another young man go to therapy, he's gonna get bullied because of the
fact that he's seen as we So we're gonna have to find and because most
of us are coming from cultures that which therapy is not something that is a
norm. The African culture, the Caribbean culture, especially us as men,
we find it hard to go to therapy as men. Why do we think
that our young boys will walk? You know? So maybe just maybe is
if we as men start going and show the young men that well it is
okay, it's okay to basically deal with these situations, then they will be
able to actually say well okay, because it's by example. And I think
that's one of the things that we need to look at. The next thing
that you need to also look at is okay in terms of we can use
the we can use the men's ministry and so on, as the teen's ministry,
the youth ministry. We can use these areas to start to have conversations.
I know of a Pedecostal church that what they do they use the teen's
youth and so on ministry and from those discussions they basically refer these individuals out
and I think that's the link because of the fact that they are trusted individuals
in those organizations. What that knows we're not capable of dealing with this situation.
We need to refer out. Okay, but in our church is an
elder whatever this think I can deal with this situation when I don't have the
skills, you know, And that is why we end up. The children
are not trusting us because of the fact that you know, I and I'm
not gonna say, but the fact is that we need to basically have these
conversations with the young people started in Sabbath schools in you know, we need
to start it somewhere wherein we can see. Okay, Look, the whole
idea about this is to see those young individuals who are struggling with mental health
because they are, but they're not going to come and talk to us because
they don't trust us. And I think that's one of the big problems problems
that's happening in the church, that young people are not finding enough adults to
trust. And when they do find an adult to trust, that adults need
to start to focus on I need to refer to someone that can actually deal
with this issue. M and then I have a question mark with the counseling
in your opinion, like as an adventist, is it okay for us to
go to a How can I put it to the counseling, to a secular
counselor or to a Christian counselor whether it will make a difference or it just
depends on the individual that you're dealing with. Does that make sense what I'm
saying? It makes a lot of sense. I will say this about Cornerstone
all our counselors because some people get mixed up with what is Christian conselin and
what is just regular constlin And that's what I'm asking the question. I'm sure
some people are thinking. I'm sure some people are thinking it right now as
we're talking, and different people say I'd rather see a Christian chong selor first
thing at Cornerstone. All our counselors are basically certified counselors. They are Christian
conseling is not okay, let me just speak on Cornerstone and Cornerstone alone.
Cornerstone is a sad the England Conference initiative. Okay, we have qualified counselors
that with different genre of therapy you can go to any other counselor and have
that those same therapies that we offer in Cornerstone. However, with us at
Cornerstone, you have someone that understands your religious persuasion. Okay, so then
basically you have kids that are struggling with different issues, can basically talk about
these issues even from a religious perspective, and someone understands. But when you
actually think about a Christian some people, when they talk about a Christian counselor,
what they actually need is a Bible study. And that's not Christian counseling.
Yes, so then because of the fact that the issues that people are
bringing may not need at that time a Bible study. And so so that's
where Cornerstone, even though we can include the religious aspects within your consoling session,
it is still about you basically dealing with or processing those traumatic your traumatic
past, and not me saying, well, you know what, you need
to go away. I have known of people that come to me and say
this consol said, I need to go away and pray more, and these
are things that's not it. It's about basically helping people to move forward and
move away from their past. That's it. So Cornerstone I said. When
I was studying counseling, and I tell even my non Christian colleagues about what
Cornerstone was doing. They were like, please, please, please, can
be common work for your organization. You know, Cornistone has an excellent counseling
and and I think that as a church or a lot of people in church
or churches are using it. A lot of people out of our churches are
using it, and so it's an unique it's a unique organization because a lot
of us have are very skilled in what we do. So in other words,
you're in the twenty first century, not not the sixties. Cornerstone,
Yes, Cornerstone is Yeah, that's That's what I was trying to get to.
It is like we need to because I think sometimes, as we said,
we get so bogged down with the past and what we worked in the
past. So it's going to work now, but it's totally different now than
it was in the past. You know, we have to we have to
be able to adapt. We have to be able to feel it out,
adopt, investigate, you know, talk and then go from there and then
make a conscious you know, a conscious decision based on what it feels to
us. If it would help us or not. So that's that's how I
was trying to get with that with that question. I like that you said
that, Pedro, because it's one of the things I always wondered, is
if it was a thing. Firstly, I didn't know, so so thanks
Mark. But also, well, they understand what the youths are actually going
through if they're not with the times, which is what you're basically saying,
Pedro. Now we're looking down. There's there's young boys that are stabbing each
other, that there's there's there's something that's instilled in the mentally that's causing that.
But if you're not somebody who can relate or understand even elements of their
journey and why they are where they are now, I can't see how you
will be able to communicate with them. They don't you know, they need
to speak to someone who they feel gets it, gets the struggle, gets
the lifestyle that they've had to lead or they are leading, or or where
they've come from. M hm, you know, go ahead, andrewa something
to say. I was gonna echo want one said. In terms of when
it comes to mentoring, young people need to beild to. You don't necessarily
have to live the same lifeesel that they're living or have lived it. Sorry,
not necessarily, but you do need to be identified with where they're at
and be real with them. Young people have evolved in there. We know
when when we're just being given fluff, if someone can't identify what we're going
through, it feels like a per conversation. And your people will switch off
very quickly when they realize that, if they realize you do not, you
cannot understand. And to be sure, okay, I have teenagers. Most
times they don't think I can identify what they're going through. That's most times.
Okay, I'm already in the backfoot, Dad, you don't understand.
You don't get it. We were never children before. We were never children
before. Right, So there's that, there's that layer of it, but
even beyond that layer, or even deeper than that layer, because you can
if you have a real conversation with you before and they're not too much of
their feelings, they can they can they can accept that Okay, you may
not be really the exact same thing I'm going to know, but you get
it. You can get it. But that only happens with me. To
have a real conversation I remember, and this is I'll share from part of
my experience. My son said once to me he thought I was perfect.
He thought I never kind of messed up. And I was like, where
did you get that from me? So I must have I clearly messed up
right there already and given him the impression somehow that I was always a perfect
child, never made it a mistakes, never did anything wrong, blh blah
blahlah blah. And I'm kind of breaking on that or breaking on that illusion
that missed. No. No, it opened up the gate for him to
have more real conversation with me, and that then makes a huge difference in
terms of being able to help someone hope with something that's really wearing anown mentally
or emotionally, and having an outlet to explore what they're feeling and just be
able to share it, if even if it's not for advice purposes, but
at least to share it and then see where we go from there. Yeah,
when you were talking, Aure, I just had a thought. As
parents, as we say, you know, we were children growing up,
but it was handled differently. I think we have to fight against that urge
to try to handle the problem the way we was handled when we were younger,
because it's different because like now this hope, we're talking about mental health
and getting in people to talk. You know, when we were young,
you didn't speak. Unless you spoke, you were spoken to. You know,
my father was from the South, So like to this day, if
you're not saying my name, if you could be around me having a conversation,
I won't listen to your conversation unless you say my name, because it's
just ingraved is engraved in me that I just don't eavesdrop on conversations because like
the parents are talking, you don't say you don't listen to the parents conversation,
you know. But today's kids they're all like my children, me and
my wife having a conversation, and all of a sudden, my daughter be
like, but no, You're like, wait a minute, why are you
in our conversation? But you have to understand now, you know, Like
that's the way children are. They're very attentive. They want to they want
knowledge, they want to know what is going what is going on, what
is happening, why is it happening? How is it happening? And I
think we have to as you say, I'm trying to like come to the
twenty first off, you know, even letting another thing too is like letting
our child, letting people, even another man, like you said, just
vent, just talk, we have a habit or something. Just cut like
you know you're not supposed to do that or you know, back in the
day, we handled it this way, and we try to handle it like
we are in the sixties and seventies and not like we're in the twenty first
century. So I just want to just I don't want that just pop in
my head, but I just want to just bring that out. Yeah,
that's good. Had it. When your son says you don't get it,
you won't get it. Yeah, exactly like he said, you're perfect because
yeah, because he's he's looking like he's looking like, oh, you know,
Daddy's perfect. So that now you put a lot of pressure on him.
You don't. And the thing is that, like you said, it's
not that you was you fail on purpose, but we do fail, we
fall down. But you know, you realize that you're putting undue pressure on
your son because he's thinking, I got to be perfect all the time,
and you don't even realize that you're even putting that kind of pressure on your
child, you know, to be like, oh, he thinks I'm perfect,
So therefore he's he's trying to be perfect and he's making mistakes, and
that he's getting frustrated because he's not able to immolate what my fault, what
my you know, what his father's doing, you know. So and then
they go into that dynod spiral and then we don't realize that they're even in
that space, you know, because then they don't want to talk about it
because we don't talk about it. So it's like it all starts. I
think it all starts with us as fathers and as men to be able to
just express ourselves, as hard as it may be, sometimes as hard as
it may hurt. Sometimes we just need to be more adaptive to talking and
letting people and letting our feelings out there, even if it's going to hurt
us. Sometimes it's gonna be hard for us to do sometimes. Well,
that makes sense, Mark, because I say, you look like you're thinking.
I was thinking what you're saying, and it makes a lot of sense.
I think that one of the things about us as men, and that
is why the mental health issues that we have is that we have a lot
of narrative of what may happen if we only open up, you know,
if I only open up, then the not like me or and that's not
only men, but I'm talking about me, talking about men. But so
we have these narratives that we tell ourselves before we even open up, and
then we say, oh, you know what, They're not even gonna listen
to me, so I'm not gonna say anything, or who's gonna care about
it? So I'm not gonna say anything, And so we keep those every
time. And that's and again that's a maladaptive hoping strategy. Every time we
basically want to say something, every time we want to speak our mind.
You know what, who's gonna listen to me? They may? And those
are the things that we bring from child, those kind of negative thought patterns
that basically I'm either gonna be shut down, I'm either gonna be basically dismissed.
I'm either gonna somebody's gonna be offended, you know, and so on.
People are saying, speak your mind, speak your mind, and when
you do speak your mind, people are offended that you speak your mind,
and so you don't mind anymore. So So these are the things that we
do and we go through as men in terms of how we deal with this
sort of stuff. And it's about us saying to ourselves, Okay, look,
we're gonna have as men for us to help each other. In terms
of the mental health issues, we're gonna have to come together a little more
than we're doing. And we're gonna have to have part or and and and
then pray after you know, so talk about this, then pray after Most
of the time we end up when we don't know what to do, we
run and fill it our time with scriptures and whatever it is, and deflect.
And we need to have heard talk in churches and and and then also
the churches need to be able to be able to accommodate these conversations because some
people say that conversation is not for church, that conversation is not for church.
And you think to yourself, come on, you know you want to
talk to about sex in churches. Churches, some people will shut you down.
It's not the appropriate timer, it's not appropriate. And then we have
children walking around having babies and we chastise them because of the fact that we
cannot deal with our own emotions when we didn't have to talk. Yep,
check them out the church, this on them, shut them away all that.
Yeah, and then we wonder and then yeah, that's a whole other
subject. That's a whole other talking point show. As then you put in
the chat early a TP jam session. Yeah you know so, So I
do think that Look, as churches, we need to say look, and
the Bible is encouraging us to actually do this, that you know what,
we need to come together. This is how this is how the world know
that we are His disciples when we come together and have these talk and be
comfortable enough to share our feelings and be comfortable enough to be vulnerable. Vulnerability
and man don't go along. So basically we need to be vulnerable with each
other and so that we can be able to support each other. Other than
that, this mental health issue has in church is going to continue and we
need to understand this God has I think God has been protecting us as a
church because of the fact that I think that this is His church whatever it
is. However, we've had a lot of near misses in the years and
people haven't done. People have tried but haven't been succeeded. And you haven't
succeeded and so on as so forworth, we need to have these conversations.
Yes, all right, well we're getting really like. That's why I wanted
to get right into it because, like I said, two hours ago,
so you look look up and it's like, oh my goodness, almost seven
o'clock. So but I just wanted to just bring up some of what you
just said for me. I'm this from my personal perspective as a man,
like I said I think I said earlier. I think when as a man,
if you can get to a point where you can just not when I
say not care just in the sense of like, I just feel like I'm
not gonna let myself get so mentally stressed that to make you happy. So
I'm gonna say how I feel. And I've learned that being here, I've
definitely have come across that where I can rub people the wrong way because I'm
just gonna spit. I'm just gonna spin it out. I'm not gonna hold
it. I'm not gonna, you know, sugarcoat it. I'm not gonna
beat around the bush. I'm going straight through. I'm an set fire.
I'm just gonna boom and my feeling is. If you like me, you
like me. If you don't, you don't, But at least you know
how I feel like. When you get to a point as a man,
you want people to respect you. Not everybody's going to like you. So
as long as you respect me, that's all I ask. You don't have
to like me. You don't have to like my viewer. I don't have
to like the way I am, you know, but that's just how I
am. As long as my family's okay, if it, I'm okay with
it. That's how I feel. That's how I get through my mental issues.
Sometimes it's just like you said, because I find it just makes it
easier for me in life. I'm not holding onto things that I used to
hold onto in the past because I just say it boom. That's what I'm
gonna I'm just gonna tell you. Once I get off my chest, I
can come and talk to you like I can tell you off, and then
a minute later come and talk to you like nothing happened because I've let it
off my chest. Because it doesn't I think we don't. Just because I
don't like something you're doing doesn't mean I don't like you. I just don't
like what you're doing. So when you can get you know, through that,
that through that myriad of field where you understand that, then we cool.
But like I said, that's just my personal opinion. We're gonna need
to have final thoughts. So Antoine, you can go first and give you
a final thought you know of the show and yeah, yeah, first,
thanks, We have about a minute and a half. Yeah, thanks having
me and invite me to Talksanya, good, good chat. My final thoughts
are that, yeah, we just need to do more and we need to
reflect, look inwards. We need to discover ourselves I think a little bit
more first, and then we need to teach upwards from as young as possible.
And I think if we do that, we will be creating a better,
better space for them going forward. All right, Mark, any final
thoughts. We have about thirty seconds. Yeah, I just I'm absolutely grateful
that to be as men are able to have this forum to just talk about
this, and this is just for me. I think this is the beginning.
Maybe we should have this a lot more, a little more often.
Yeah, all right, Well, Andre Unfortunately his battery died, so he
was unable to give his final thoughts. That's why he's no longer on.
Yeah, so I want to thank you both for joining us. It was
a really good shot. Thank you for all your points, Antoine, Mark
and Andre if you listen, well you're not listening because his phone has died.
But Zanya and Angela, you've been on the show too, but you've
just been listening. So we want to thank you all for joining us.
This is talking point. We want to thank you all for joining us.
We want to just say a quick prayer before we go, and then we'll
we will sign off. Let's pray heaveny five. We want to thank you
for bringing us together in this talking point show that we can talk about the
issues of men's health and men's issues and hopefully to somebody listening that they maybe
get some points and some views on how they can handle themselves, as we
never know what people are going through as well. Right now, we ask
Lord that hopefully this conversation will help somebody to navigate the field and navigate the
path that they are going down right now. And we won't say we want
thank you Lord for just allowing us to be able to talk freely and honestly
about mental health and that not only is it helping ourselves that we're helping other
people. So we thank you for this. Let us all have a good
week, and we thank you love, for your prayer, for your love
and your grace and your understanding for this U Premi your holy name. All
right, guys, so this is talking. We want thank you for joining
us today and we're gonna be signing off. So my name is Pedro,
and there's Antoine and there's Mark Zanya and Angela. I just signed us all
uf. Thank you for joining us and have a good week, guys.
Be safe. Radio London inspiration for the song h