Speaker 1: Hey, hey, Tony Gassin's here popping in another episode. Now,
want to talk to you about setting standards, because this
is one of the things that I see a lot of,
is the lack of standards. Because if you don't take
the time to set your standards before going into a
relationship or going on to a job, or going into anything,
then you'll be presented with some things that are beneath
you and you'll end up accepting it because you never
established in your own mind that this is not okay.
So you have to sit down and really take the
time and think about how you want to be treated.
So often I get these questions about, you know, why
the men do this, why the women do that? How
do you get somebody to do this? How do you
get somebody to do that? The answer is, you got
to know what you want. You gotta set your standards,
and you can't let the world tell you what you
can not have. And that's one of the things you'll see.
There are people who say, hey, I want someone who
is attractive. I want someone who is responsible, I want
someone who is ambitious. I want someone who is faithful,
who is caring, who is kind, who is compassionate, who
is understanding who is loving and devoted?
Speaker 2: I want that package.
Speaker 1: And guess what that.
Speaker 3: Was Tony Gaskins, the voice of reason has returned to.
Speaker 4: The scene of the conversation. And somebody was asking me.
Speaker 3: Recently, and this leads to me right into our topic tonight.
You know, who are you and why does your voice matter?
Speaker 5: In?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: The landscape of relationship content creators? And I thought that
was a very interesting and fair question, and I can't
planet any better. I had no idea that Jill Monroe
would have Kendreck g.
Speaker 4: As the closing.
Speaker 3: Interview of her episode, and it's just a perfect lead
in for me, cause I'm gonna tell you right now,
I'm not like any of these folk.
Speaker 4: And that doesn't.
Speaker 3: Mean I'm better than the rest of them or but
I'm in it for a different reason. You know, a
lot of self help is strategy based. How to get
the person you want in ten steps, or how to
heal your attachment style in sixty seconds. A lot of
this stuff is strategy based. My work is totally different,
and I thought, man, today, I need to reintroduce myself
to my listening audience. I'm different than what anybody else
got going on who is Zoe Williams and why does
my or his voice matter?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: A comparative investigation into what fundamentally distinguishes me and my
philosophy of intimate relationships from the dating strategy, gender politics,
mate market economics, trauma, healing, self worth, faith based, clinical
and pop psychology frameworks, dominating black relationship media, and whether
my work asks a fundamentally different question. I think the
question my work is asking is not simply how do
we find, keep, fix, survive or leave relationships? But what
do our relationships reveal about the consciousness, conditioning, culture, history, wounds, beliefs, perceptions, desires,
and definitions of love we bring into them. I'm listening
to Kendred G talking about how love is unconditional man,
and this is no disrespect to Kendred G.
Speaker 4: Shout out to her.
Speaker 3: Much respect to her. She's building a brand and it's amazing.
But listening to that, I can say I respectfully disagree.
There were some things that I agreed with, but the
love piece I totally disagree with.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, you know it sounded like.
Speaker 3: A business plan for love, a marketing pitch for love.
Love is conditional. Love is based on conditions. Well, let
me just say this quite simply. I always defer and
default back to when one of my favorite people in
the world was on the show, Doctor Joshanna Johnson, when
she was talking about, you know the love languages and
how they are born out of attachment wounds.
Speaker 4: Well, so are the conditions and the expectations.
Speaker 3: That's one of the things that separates me from other
content creators. And I say separate. I didn't say elevate.
I didn't say that makes me better than But I'm different.
I'm coming from a different perspective. I say need is
the original sin Adam and Eve kicked out of the garden.
That was the first time they felt separation from God,
when the need and the yearning for God possibly was born.
D you see this is the work I'm doing. Relationship
is a spiritual environment that reveals you to yourself. A
lot of people have strategies for how to get what
you want from the person you're with. I tend to
see that as a type of or maybe a form
of manipulation. They're not giving it to you willingly did
they ever want to give it to you? Tonight's topic,
who is Zoe Williams and why does his voice matter.
Speaker 4: Now I look at relationships, or look.
Speaker 3: I look at the relationship content world, and I see
something that should make all of us a little uncomfortable.
We have never had this many people telling us how
to love. Men are being taught what women want, Women
are being taught what men fear. We have experts on standards, boundaries,
red flags, attachment, masculine leadership, feminine energy, high value behavior, healing, marriage, submission, narcissism, emotional, intelligent,
biblical order. So why are we still this confused about
one another? Everybody's an expert, right. That question bothers me
because I suspect the problem may reach deeper than just
bad advice. Every piece of relationship advice carries an invisible
philosophy inside of it. Somebody has already decided what love means.
Somebody has already defined a successful relationship. Somebody has already
determined what makes a man valuable, what makes a woman desirable,
what healing should produce, what marriage proves right, what leadership
looks like, and what a healthy person should want.
Speaker 4: I want to know.
Speaker 3: Who gave those definitions permission to become truth. Kevin Samuels
could make you confront your position, right in the romantic
market place. Do you know many people when I first
came to KBLA confused my philosophy with Kevin Samuel's philosophy.
Totally different because of my Andy said, because of my aggression.
How I speak with definitive certainty and passion. Oh, he's
Kevin Samuels. Well, listen deeper. Didn't they teach you to
listen in school?
Speaker 4: Right? Well, let me say it again.
Speaker 3: Kevin Samuels could make you confront your position in the
romantic marketplace. Tony Gaskins can challenge your standards and choices.
I fundamentally disagree with both of those positions. Right, wounds
are choosing, unwitnessed unhealed wounds are doing the choosing, But
I digress. Steven speaks Right can ask you whether unresolved
pain keeps interfering with the love you say you want.
Speaker 4: Hell, we even got doctor Cheyenne Bryant.
Speaker 3: Let me go to another doctor, Brian doctor Thelma Bryant.
Right can bring trauma, culture, authenticity, and liberation into the conversation.
Ejan levan ZANDT can walk you toward the spiritual root
of things. R. C. Blake's can bring your identity before
God into the room. Those are serious contributions. My question
usually starts acting up after the answer arrives. I'm sorry,
I woo Tell me to choose better, and I want
to investigate the chooser. Tell me to know my worth?
And I want to know whose currency are we using.
It is type of questions I'm asking. Tell me a
man needs to lead, and I want leadership to show
me its identification.
Speaker 4: Who taught you what leading means? Is it service? Is control?
Speaker 3: Is it responsibility? Is it a combination of all of it?
Speaker 4: Is it fear? Wearing authorities clothes? I want to know.
Speaker 3: These are the type of questions I'm asking. Tell a
woman to raise her standards, and I want to know
who built them? Wisdom, pain or humiliation? Who built your standards, ma'am? Wisdom,
pain or humiliation? Who built your boundaries?
Speaker 4: Wisdom? Pain or humiliation?
Speaker 3: Discernment, social comparison, fear of ever being embarrassed again? Who
are the architects of your boundaries? Of your standards? What
if your expectations are built from a secret desire to
have your partner regulate your emotions? I'm asking the questions
of who's the author of the expectation who's the author
of the boundary? Tell me somebody is toxic, and quite
possibly they might be. But I still want to know
what happened inside you when you met them, What made
their behavior recognizable to you, what kept you anchored in
the situation, what made leaving difficult? And what meaning you
attached to the entire experience. These are the type of
questions Zoe Williams is asking. This is where my work lives.
I am interested in the question underneath the question. The
relationship may begin as the subject, but it rarely gets
to remain there. A conversation about cheating can become an
investigation of identity. Attraction can expose culture hiding inside of chemistry.
I'm asking the questions, how did you build this intellectual
architecture that makes you think you know what you're doing?
When we come forward, the voice of reason will continue
to introduce himself to you. Storytime with Zoe Williams. That
song matters to me.
Speaker 4: This was the first.
Speaker 3: Time that I've recognized that I was afraid of love.
I was with a young lady. She was a couple
of years older than me. I was around eighteen or nineteen.
Speaker 4: She was like twenty one and she was really serious
about me.
Speaker 3: She was locked in, she was tapped in, like she
was pouring into Zoe, and it frightened me. I literally
played that we we on our way somewhere. She's driving
and she had a I think it was a nineteen
ninety Nissan CenTra. It was red with the black windows. Yeah,
like she had her stuff together. She wasn't from Pasadena,
she was a little further out.
Speaker 4: She was from West Covina, oh Man. But she was
a sister. She was pouring into me.
Speaker 3: But I was young, I was foolish, and I was cute.
So I can remember us going to the movies. I
want you guys to get to Nuzo. I remember us
going to the movies and Andy, I want you to
start this from the top. I was going to the movies.
We were going to the movies. And because she made
me uncomfortable, because of how much she cared about me.
Speaker 4: It scared me. There was one time.
Speaker 3: It was Christmas and I think my mother and I
were at a like a family Christmas get down right,
it was a family Christmas party. This girl knew that
I never locked my back door, because this is how
she would come in and hang out with me.
Speaker 4: This girl.
Speaker 3: Came into the crib. I was still living with my
mother at the time. She came into the crib, brought
a tree, decorated the tree, put a gang of gifts
under the tree for myself and my mother, and it
frightened me. I'm just giving you the insight of what
got me on my journey. Andy, play it from the top.
Speaker 4: Let's go. I want you guys to do it.
Speaker 3: This is the reason why I'm playing the record. Wait, wait,
hold on, hold on, hold on, Andy, Dan, we on
the way to the movies, and I tell you, I
put this record on on purpose. And I told her,
like I'm like eighteen nineteen.
Speaker 4: I tell her, I dedicate this to you. And she
listened to it and she was like, what let it play? Andy,
I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: Let's that a man's deans man, oh man, I'm not
that a man would be bound to dog his.
Speaker 7: Es. How many victims in here, how many people say
he did this, he did that, he left me, he
took that, he did that, you know, and when you
do that, you deified the.
Speaker 4: Problem that I guess, in my opinion, the trust comes
in that I'm like, oh, everyone's a great person.
Speaker 6: I can give them whatever they want.
Speaker 8: And what about boundaries?
Speaker 7: People violate you when you don't have clear boundaries because
you don't tell them how to behave in your life,
and they run the mark.
Speaker 4: They run the.
Speaker 7: Mark because you don't have clear boundaries. Now, Venus, you
just said on the tape that you'd rather be in
a dead end relationship than be alone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, how are you defining alone? Not having somewhere to
go on Friday night? Why can't you go out with
your girlfriend? Get get it out of here?
Speaker 7: I did.
Speaker 3: I love Iyanla. I would love to have Yanla on
so we could discuss this. Do you remember the scene
in the Matrix when Neo becomes the one after he
is shot several times by Agent Smith and he effectively dies.
Do you remember the scene he's blasted on a few
times and then it's over. When we come forward, I'm
gonna give my counter thought to Yana Vanzette.
Speaker 9: Hey, Hey, good morning, How y'all doing well? Good afternoon.
I know people will be tuning in all over the world. Hey,
how you doing. Yeah? I know that h as a
Kyle Walker and John p Key doing a you know,
a holy ghost battle today, So I thought I would
play Hezekiah Walker's better today?
Speaker 2: Hey, Christina, what's up?
Speaker 5: John?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's gonna get better because God is in control.
What's up, Honey? Be me, what's up missus? What's up Jessica? Hey,
how y'all doing this morning?
Speaker 8: Saying Hi?
Speaker 4: Everybody?
Speaker 2: Welcome?
Speaker 4: Hey Devon Franklin. I want him to get to the meeting. Potatoes,
don't ever depart.
Speaker 2: Hey, Hey, my sister Lisa in the house. What's up?
What's up? Let's how you doing? Get better?
Speaker 10: I know it may not be better right now, but
you're declaring it's gonna get better.
Speaker 2: Hey, tricks from the ton of Daytona.
Speaker 10: Be took the man and put him in the garden
of Eden to work it and take care of it.
The Lord God took the man, put the man into
the garden of Eden to work it and take care
of it. All right now, this this is before there
was the creation of the woman.
Speaker 2: So here we are.
Speaker 10: The garden of Eden has been created, and God creates man,
puts man into the garden of Eden. What was the
man's responsibility to take care of it and work it?
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 10: It's interesting that the introduction of man in the Bible,
in the word of God is synonymous with work, responsibility,
accountability too.
Speaker 3: Often no disrespect myself in Devon Franklin, we went on
a trip together man down to Steve Harvey's. Steve Harvey
had an event in Houston or yes, I think it
was Houston Dallas, one of those places where Steve actually lives,
and he had a huge event for single mothers and
myself in Devon Franklin, which we went down there. We
were chosen to go down there to speak to the
young boys that Steve was mentoring. But I played Devon
Franklin to say, you got content creators out there that
use the religious framing, the hierarchical framing. God put man
here for responsibility and d D. I'm not here to disagree.
My job here is totally different than Devon Franklin. I'm
here to tell you what the purpose, the spiritual purpose
of relationship is, not the societal, not.
Speaker 4: The agricultural, not the gender base.
Speaker 3: But the psychological, spiritual side of it, the metaphysical side.
That's Zoe's point. Who is Zoe willing? This is what
Zoe does right that love saw it record, I was
with the same girl. It's a wonderful record. She was
such a sweetheart.
Speaker 4: I was cheating. I just wasn't tapped in. I was
cheat eating, but she was serious. She was playing Karen
White and Babyface singing together. Ah.
Speaker 3: This is when I realized something is wrong with me.
And it was that young lady that got me on
my spiritual journey.
Speaker 4: Right. I was like eighteen nineteen. I didn't even know myself.
Speaker 3: But it was that relationship that served as the catalyst.
Later I figure out attachment styles. Oh, I'm anxious preoccupied.
I'm always running after the woman that's running. The women
that run to me, I tend to ignore them because
they're there. That's the dichotomy of the anxious preoccupied attachment style.
Speaker 4: If you chase the anxious, they don't really respect it DC.
And that was the first time that was triggered in me.
Speaker 3: She was there, she was present, she wanted to love
on me, and I felt triggered.
Speaker 4: I felt awkward. D See Zoe Williams's work is a
little different.
Speaker 3: I merge the philosophical, the psychological, the metaphysical. I don't
merge the dogmatic, the social constructs. I don't merge those.
Speaker 4: DC.
Speaker 3: Once I got on my spiritual journey, I started to
see Oh, this is what relationship is really about. That's
why I don't do the strategy ten steps to get
her to see you in a different light, ten steps
to get anything you want from anybody.
Speaker 4: I don't do.
Speaker 3: Self help disguised as influence, like how to influence anybody
to pick up artist stuff.
Speaker 4: I don't do that.
Speaker 3: We've got callers on the line. I want to get
him in here right now. We got Lamont from Akron, Ohio. Lamont,
what are your thoughts on tonight's topic? My friend, no profanity, Lamont, Yes.
Speaker 11: Sir so.
Speaker 12: So, I just wanted to say the first time I
saw you he was on Black Men Revealed and back
in the nineties, mid nineties whenever it was.
Speaker 3: Man two thousand and four, two thousand and five, actually
was that.
Speaker 12: Was oh four?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 12: Oh wow, yeah that was Yeah, that was a long
time ago. So, uh, like what brought you to no,
how like to uh to get on your journey to
become the scholar that you are, Because like when I
saw you on that show a couple of times, and
you like you knew it. It's like you knew what
you were talking about, Like when you were talking to
the one pastor and the other guy. But like you,
like you knew everything, that not everything. I guess you
could say you knew everything, but you knew what was
going on no matter what they came at you with
on the shows that I seen you on, Like, like,
what what motivates you to do that?
Speaker 3: Pastor Singleton was on that show with me initially and
we're still good friends to this day.
Speaker 4: Uh, let me do this.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna answer your question. You stay right there, don't
go anywhere. When we come forward, because we're up against
the clock. I want to answer Lamont's question about what
motivated me to go on this journey when we come
forward more from the VR.
Speaker 4: Good morning.
Speaker 13: I am so excited to be here, and in the
spirit of revival, I am reminded about what happens on
the third day, and so it is a divine setup
that we are here for resurrection. It is a divine
setup that everything that was meant to dismantle and to
destroy and to diminish you did not get the final say.
And so here we sit because the blood still works.
I am, in my spiritual eyes even more excited to
see you than I am in my natural eyes, because
in our natural eyes We can only see what we
chose to wear today, and if you decided to put
on a little lip glass, but in the spirit, to
know that you're spirit has gone from the fetal position
to sitting here today. I am especially on assignment for
those who could not sleep last night. This is the
answer to prayers. And so I am glad and thankful
for the tradition of starting with poetry, and in that spirit,
I'll start with are we on Andy?
Speaker 4: Who was that young lady that was doctor tholm'brien.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love her work.
Speaker 4: Anyway.
Speaker 3: People think because people are Christians or whatever, that I
don't still.
Speaker 4: Rock with them, but I do.
Speaker 3: Come on, I'm from Chattanooga Baptist Church, Chattanooga, Like, come on, now.
Speaker 4: Listen to me.
Speaker 3: It's all together, It's all one thing.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: Lamont from Akron, Ohio was asking me a question and
I wanted to answer him. It's tied into that first
relationship when she broke up with me. Right when that
young lady broke up with me, Man, my attachment wounds
were triggered, and it literally sent me on a spiritual
journey after I crashed out, sent me on a spiritual
journey like my friends who grew up with me knew like, oh,
this broke up. This breakup was heavy on him. It
flipped him inside out. And as I started to study
and read, and I mean I'm a voracious reader everything philosophy, psychology,
quantum mechanics, consciousness systems. I started reading everything This is
me at nineteen, I started.
Speaker 4: Consuming at all because.
Speaker 3: When she was pouring in, I was uncomfortable, didn't know
how to receive. And then when she took it away,
DC's need as the first sin manifested itself in me, like, oh,
this feels like my mother not being available, because my
mother wasn't available emotionally. So it triggered a whole bunch
of stuff and I went on a religious like. I
started reading the Bible, studying religions. I just like really
dove into knowledge, all types of esoteric knowledge, spiritual knowledge.
Speaker 4: And that's what got me on the journey. I hope
I answered your question.
Speaker 12: Brother, I just wanted to say I can be grief.
You said that, and you said, like mother wasn't there
for you, you know, emotional understand that that's just me, you know,
in my life. But like I said, man, I just
wanted to you know, see what understand how you got
on the journey that you got to. Like I said,
that's the first time I saw you, and you know,
I saw you doing other stuff and that's what brought
me to you know, you know other see other people
that you've been around, so you know, but absolute to you.
So for real, like and I wish that like the
like Black Men revealed, I wish that they had that
show againment or something you know close to that, you know,
to to open people's minds on book the things.
Speaker 3: Man, Well, I appreciate it, brother, but I got a
question for you. Guess what you just did?
Speaker 12: What's that?
Speaker 3: Come on, Laman, I gotta tell I tell you. When
I say guess what you just did? You say I
brought Akron Ohio in the building.
Speaker 4: Let's do it. Guess what you just did? Lamont.
Speaker 12: I brought Akron Ohio in the building.
Speaker 3: Whoop, Akron Ohio is on the board. If you want
to bring your city in the building. No you got
to do is call me on one eight hundred nine
twenty fifteen eighty. Were gonna jet to Detroit, Michigan. Reggie
is on the line. Reggie from Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 4: What are your thoughts on tonight's topic.
Speaker 5: So what's up? Man? I've heard you maybe at least
fifteen years. It was back in the Fox Whole days
when I started listening to you. And one I guess
the biggest gift you've probably given us is the gift
of perspective. You know, it's not you never tell us
what to think. You just give us tools to look
at an issue and look at ourselves in a different way.
And so you never tell us what you think. It's
only that we are thinking. And I think that's the
lasting thing. It doesn't just last, it out last because
you keep asking the question of yourself, Okay, how am
I looking at this thing? Is my vision correct for
the time that I'm in? And that's that's really valuable
to me. You know, some of the things that you
ask it are you know, what are you afraid of?
And usually the situation just stops with you identifying the
thing that you're afraid of. You just kind of shy
away from it. But you you're like, okay, you you
identified this thing, all right? What about it scares you?
And you just keep asking those questions, just you know,
unwrapping that onion that's there and you get to a
deeper sense of yourself. That's something you can take away
from this, from this program, and it's something that you
can apply to your life every day. So I've done
this for goodness at least it's he is now. So
I mean, that's the gift that you've given me, and
I just appreciate you for it.
Speaker 4: Man, Man, I appreciate you, man, Thank you. Man. It's
all love.
Speaker 3: And it's been a long time since we heard from
Reggie from Austin, Texas. It's no longer Austin, Texas is
d Detroit.
Speaker 4: What up though? Hey, guess what you just did.
Speaker 5: Reggie brought Detroit in the building.
Speaker 4: Detroit is in the building.
Speaker 3: We hey, man, we miss you. I hope to get
you back in here sometime soon. Listen, I want us
to understand I come from a different perspective. That's what
I want us to understand. I'm never trying to sound
like anybody else. And when I do mention other people's work,
I like to cite them. But I know the way
we view relationships is broken and it needs to be fixed.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 4: Love is not enough, but God is love. Wow.
Speaker 3: I need somebody to fulfill my needs needs, One of
my fundamental beliefs is that need.
Speaker 4: Is the first sin. Right, a mother.
Speaker 3: In many anthropological research and cultural research, you will find
that the mother.
Speaker 4: Was a deity figure, a god figure, the mother. So
imagine when the mother.
Speaker 3: Is inconsistent with regards to the child's need, and then
the child develops a strategy. This is what people are
teaching in a relationship today is strategy.
Speaker 4: Why because the.
Speaker 3: Wound that was created needs a strategy in order to
be satiated. And if you never unchecked that, never turn
that switch off. As you transition into adulthood. The strategy
is to all operating. Well, this is how you show
up in relationship in order to get what you want? Oh, well,
you don't. Love is not enough. You don't necessarily need love.
I mean it's all conditional. I can love you based
on what you do. Well, if it's conditional, how can
you stop the doing and transition into the being? That's
one of the fundamental thoughts, right that Zo brings to
the relational.
Speaker 4: Field right when we come forward, Just no, I haven't
even touched the surface.
Speaker 14: Maybe continue, It's what we were talking about yesterday evening.
Speaker 1: Who was seeing.
Speaker 14: That this is not a lecture.
Speaker 4: With a view to.
Speaker 14: Convey information. We are together having a conversation, you as
a separate human being who are separate at all, with
the speaker. We are walking down a day and gooded,
plenty of shadows and birds singing. We sit down together
and talk about the whole problem of existence, which is
very complex. And as we are friends for a long time,
we have many days to talk over these things. And
we are neither convincing each other about any subject. We're
not trying to persuade each other, We're not trying to
overcome the other through arguments or sticking dogmatically to one's
own opinion prejudices, but rather together and I hope you
are doing the same with me. Together, we are going
to look the world as it is on the world
that is within us.
Speaker 3: So from the very beginning I brought Christiana Meriti right
to the forefront these shows because his philosophy, his philosophical approach,
his style of questioning right socratic in nature. It inspired me.
I discovered him in the nineties. Every time I got
into a relationship there was a wreckage. I realized the
acquisition of knowledge was not enough. People are asking, how
does Zoe get to talk about this kind of stuff,
because in order to gain any modicum of insight, there
were pieces of me that had to be confronted. And
in that confrontation there was a recontextualization of who I
thought I was. In other words, an actual destruction of
an old, old architecture, an old belief system, an old
structure that lived within me. And just when I thought
I was starting to understand things intellectually articulately, I started.
Speaker 4: To realize, Oh, you just only know the words. You're
not embodying the words though. I started to understand that.
Speaker 3: Many broken hearts, many disappointed people in my life because
I was still trying to figure.
Speaker 4: It out right.
Speaker 3: But that initial serious relationship when I was in my
teens set me on this journey of the acquisition of information.
It didn't come until my mid to late thirties that
I recognized that, yes, you have accumula a lot of knowledge,
but you have not downloaded any of it. You can
speak it with eloquence, but you cannot live it. It
was a guru that I was studying in the nineties
by the name of Sethya Sai Baba.
Speaker 4: Who said these three things.
Speaker 3: He said they must be an alignment or it's not real.
Speaker 4: Thought word.
Speaker 3: Indeed, they must be integrated the thought, the word, and
the deed, the action, the behavior, the embodiment thought word. Indeed,
if those three are misaligned, there's more to learn, There's
more to know about oneself. I'm trying to give you
an understanding of my.
Speaker 4: Approach, my philosophical approach to relationships. I do not.
Speaker 3: Believe the crisis in modern relationships begin with people lacking information.
We may possess more relationship information today than any generation
before us. We have dating coaches, therapists, pastors, psychologists, masculinity teachers,
femininity teachers, marriage experts, attachment specialists, social media commentators, red
flag lists, compatibility tests, communication formulas, and endless instructions about
what men and women should expect from one another. My
question begins somewhere else, entirely, what if the person consuming
all of that information has never seriously investigated the consciousness
interpreting the information.
Speaker 4: That question sits at the center of my work.
Speaker 3: I am not primarily interested in teaching people how to acquire, manage,
keep control, or correctly perform in a relationship.
Speaker 4: That is not what I do.
Speaker 3: Although the majority of folk in this field will try to,
you know, make it seem like they can teach you
how to do this in thirty quick steps in the
six week masterclass.
Speaker 4: No disrespect to them, get your money.
Speaker 3: I want to know what intimacy reveals about the human
being who entered it entered into it?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 3: What does your attraction reveal about the essence of who
you are, the substrate beneath your mask? What does your
idea of intimacy reveal about that portion of you?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: What does rejection disturb within your spirit? What does betrayal
expose to you, within you, to you?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: What does commitment threaten inside of you? What architecture does
it threaten? And philosophical architecture, psychological architecture. What does commitment
threaten within you? Why does one person feel like safety
while another produces panic? What part of your history participates
in what you presently call chemistry?
Speaker 4: Did you hear the question.
Speaker 3: What part of your history participates in what you presently
call chemistry? Compatibility, masculinity, femininity, loyalty, disrespect, abandonment, love, or God.
This does not make my work superior to Tony Gaskin's work,
or Steven Speaks or doctor Thelma Brien or Kevin Samuel's
Eon Levanz and RC Blakes.
Speaker 4: Or anybody else.
Speaker 3: This doesn't threaten anybody's platform or work.
Speaker 4: My work doesn't do that.
Speaker 3: Many of them address dimensions of relationship life that deserve examination,
and in certain areas, have expertise that I do not.
They possess an expertise that I do not. Right, the
distinction lies in the question I refuse to stop asking
what sits underneath your answer? If someone tells you to
know your worth, I want to investigate the architecture that
taught you what worth meant?
Speaker 4: Who established the value? Do you understand? I want to know.
Speaker 3: If someone tells you to choose better, I want to
invent instigate the chooser. My philosophy begins where relationship advice
often ends. Typically, the relationship advice world is giving advice
to a person who wants to then use it to
change a circumstance, to change a situation, to get ultimately
what they want from something. Typically, the advice is not
centered on becoming the authentic true self or finding self
resonance resonance within this? How do you resonate within you?
Without judgment, without verdict, without self prosecution DC They come
to you and say how do I get this? How
do I do that? I don't do that. That's why
I say my philosophy begins where relationship advice ends. I
use intimate relationship as a doorway into higher consciousness, identity, culture, psychology, spirituality, perception,
and the hidden assumptions through which human beings experience one another.
This is why I believe my voice matters in this space.
I am not asking people to merely become better at
intimate relationships. I am asking whether relationships can make us
more conscious of the person who keeps creating them.
Speaker 4: That's what my work is about. We got callers on
the line. I want to get him in here right now.
Lee Roy from.
Speaker 3: Inglewood, California, Legendary Inglewood with legendary Leroy.
Speaker 4: He has returned to the scene of the conversation. What
are your thoughts on tonight's topic?
Speaker 8: Well, first and foremost, can you hear me clearly?
Speaker 4: Yes, sir, all right, wonderful man.
Speaker 8: While everybody was giving you your eulogies, I said, let
me chime in and give.
Speaker 5: Him my right.
Speaker 4: A eulogy for real.
Speaker 8: Yes, you know you were Jesus kind words you know,
good word you know, and these people are they're calling in.
Speaker 15: Like you know, so I remember you were twenty five
years ago, so you know when I found you, it
was fifteen years ago. And you know, and I remember
when I first found you as well, and it was
like the first time ever I saw.
Speaker 8: I felt this negro thought he was fine, here we
go and you and you were and you are you
wiser now? You were smart then, but you're wiser now,
and you so much kinder. Shitler, No, you are man.
You know, you used to go a hard body. You
used to go in I mean blazing, and now you
be treating you know, the religious people that the NFS
a lot kinder. And when I was listening to you
share about how this young lady in your teenage years
ignited you towards this journey, I got sensitive inside, you know.
I started thinking about lyone or Ritchie another, breakups on
what now hello, yeah, no, you know what I mean,
And it was like, you know, it's painful oftentimes when
we get on these Johnnys, and then it leads to
a certain type of loneliness until we learn how to
come back to ourselves. And sadly, most of the people
that I know for a fact that I deal with
They haven't done that much work. They would rather argue
with me than the sources that I share, and they
would get mad because me acknowledging that I'm incomplete. But
yet it's still qualified to give them answers to question
that they've had for ten or fifteen years, and they
ain't getting answers for from the places that they're going
to get them from. All I said. I said all
that to say, brother, fail your journey. I love yourself
definition being issue in real time right and acknowledging that
up front so that the adepts can get what they
need and the ns can get their bells wrong without
you beating up on them like you used to. You
kind of pulling the people's hands and moving them along
in a better way now. And I just want to
thank you for being a very good, thin thing and
a kind individual with the teaching. Appreciate you.
Speaker 4: Guess what you just did, good brother man.
Speaker 8: We brought Inglewood, City of Champions in the building.
Speaker 4: Yes, sir, Inglewood in the building. If you want to
bring your city in the building, all you got to
do is call me.
Speaker 3: One ain't hundred nine twenty fifteen eighty Listen There's more
to come when we come forward.
Speaker 4: Await, hold on, hold on story time, the music. Oh
my goodness, Faith Evans, what is this night?
Speaker 3: Ninety four ninety three, I'm just becoming a music executive.
Loud RCA Records Senior VP of West Coast an R
Steve Rifkin, hired me man oh Man as Chevitz. This
is when I was dating the Laker girl. She was
already in a relationship Scorpio. She had been in this
relationship for about.
Speaker 4: Six years. I met her in a club in Pasadena.
I was there to see an artist. She was with
her friends. She was playing pool. She had a some
type of brace on her knee because she injured herself
on the court. Right.
Speaker 3: Gorgeous, beautiful little scorpio. Oh five, my god.
Speaker 4: I was twenty four, she was twenty seven going on
twenty eight, and.
Speaker 3: We locked eyes. I gave her my card, Yeah, she
took it. She told me she had a dude. I said,
it's cool, and then I received a call at my desk.
The next day, I was at Loud listening to demos.
I think at the time the demo had was ras
Cast and I love Rascast. I was like, oh, I'm
gonna sign this guy. But I got this phone call
and it was the young lady.
Speaker 4: She told me she was in a relationship. It was serious,
and I was like, all.
Speaker 3: Right, that's cool. But then she asked me to go
to the movies, and that's when I knew, yeah.
Speaker 4: I'm in here.
Speaker 3: And then she tried to play the older woman thing
on me, like, oh, you don't know what to do
with this, you young you, and I.
Speaker 4: Told her, I said, be careful, be careful. She didn't
believe me. And what's interesting about this relationship.
Speaker 3: I don't want to go into the details, but this
song found out the girl could sing.
Speaker 4: She put this record on.
Speaker 3: In the car and she was singing like she was
literally killing it. I was like, Wow, this girl is amazing.
Until her dude found out, Hey.
Speaker 4: Play the record. Let's go play it from the beginning Farocian.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's one of the best times of my life.
She lived in the back house, you know, and I
would just slip in, slip out. And then one day.
Speaker 4: Her father saw me walking up and he told me.
He was like, hey, man, let me talk to you
for a second.
Speaker 3: And I go talk to him and he says, what
do you see in my daughter. I was like, oh wow,
here we go.
Speaker 4: He said, what do you see in her?
Speaker 3: He said, she's twenty seven, she's still watching Disney movies.
He said, but I watched you at an event we
were at. He said, you didn't interact with none of
the people, none of the family members.
Speaker 4: He said, I saw you.
Speaker 3: You went into the line library and grabbed three or
four books and sat down the entire time. I went
somewhere with her with her family, and he was like,
I need to know who you are, and when I
tell you, the relationship with me and the girl went away.
Even though she was she was wrapped around me like
an anaconda down in the Amazon.
Speaker 4: Man. She was whoo, she was bad whoop.
Speaker 3: But the relationship went away because she was already with
someone but her. Her father and I became friends because
he was fascinated by my mind, and we stayed friends.
Speaker 4: Until he died. Me and the girl's father became road dogs.
Speaker 16: He was older and he was wild, but he saw
something in me, and he was like, He told me, literally,
you can't be with her, but because she's beautiful, and maybe.
Speaker 4: The sex, he's got to be the sex.
Speaker 3: He was talking to me raw He was like, Yo,
it can't be nothing else because I saw what you
was reading.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: When we come forward, it's not over. You're gonna learn
some more about Zoe William Hello.
Speaker 17: I'm Howard Steele. I was privileged to study and work
in England for eighteen years, beginning my doctoral studies at
a time when doctor John Bowlby still kept office hours
at the Tavistalk Clinic, where he spent most of his
working life.
Speaker 11: Tachment is an integral part of human nature, from the
cradle to the grave. It may be it's very prominent
in early childhood about it's true of you today.
Speaker 17: Doctor John Bowlby was a psychiatrist whose life spanned most
of the twentieth century. He devoted his life to understanding
and promoting mental health, seeing the origins of such health
as being the ability to rely on another person when
we are distressed.
Speaker 13: It's kind of hard for me because I didn't know
at first how to treat.
Speaker 17: My children so ch and to share joys with them
as well.
Speaker 4: You know she's gonna become with somebody, you know.
Speaker 3: That Gosh, that attachment piece is heavy. That troop record,
that's a sleeper record.
Speaker 4: A lot of people slept on that deeper album. Only
When I Laugh is the name of the record. Tonight's
topic is deep.
Speaker 3: I'm sharing so much about myself and my journey and
what distinguishes me from a lot of the social media.
First off, I'm in school for psychology. I've written books
before I was in school that people who were in
school used to write their dissertation to. If you don't know,
you better ask somebody. The Relationship Dismount how to stick
the landing when exiting a toxic relationship. Last week we
had a young lady shout out to Jasmine up in
Washington State. She caused the Relationship dismount book to go
viral because of an impromptu conversation she had with an
African American couple in a park and randomly the couple
suggested my book. That video when she came on the
Voice of Reason, what was it last week? And it
was last week Monday, I believe she came on and
that video was at eight hundred thousand views. She dropped
at August sixth, That Monday was the ninth or the
eleventh or tenth or something.
Speaker 4: Four days later it was at eight hundred thousand views.
Speaker 3: It's now at one point three million views, and that
caused the relationship dismount.
Speaker 4: My book, The Skyrocket. Doctor Joshawna.
Speaker 3: Johnson says she even used my book as a lightweight textbook.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 3: I had a friend down in Kentucky, went to Kentucky State.
He used my book to write his dissertation. We have
a brother that used to come on the show quite frequently,
Tony Massey. He wrote his dissertation to the Relationship Dismount.
Speaker 4: This is all before I went to school for this stuff.
Speaker 3: Doctor Alan Berger, who just wrote the forward to my
latest book, he too, ooh, you're a natural therapist. I've
got fifty years in the game, and you're a natural therapist.
Speaker 4: But I don't claim any of that.
Speaker 3: The only reason why I went back to school is
because my uncle, who's eighty years old, convinced me. He said,
you've already done the work. Just go back and get
the paper.
Speaker 4: Just finish it up.
Speaker 3: I'm sharing who I am, why my voice matters. But
I'm here to tell you I created load bearing mind
shifting concepts like the Holographic Relationship, the Shrouded Lighthouse, and
the relationship Dismount books well before I decided to go
back to finish up right, But just in case you
need further distinctions, here's some concepts that I'm pushing on
this platform. You already know need as the original sin,
the belief in lack before the relationship even begins, like
I need this person to fulfill my needs. I know
it's psychologically counterintuitive, and I'm trying to upend and turn
over every apple cart that these old, dead white men created.
I'm trying to destabilize all of those theories. My radical
move is to ask whether psychological need begins with a
metaphysical mistake. I lack something essential, therefore somebody outside of
me must provide it for me.
Speaker 4: So I've framed it as need as the original sin. Right.
Speaker 3: Sure, we need in a developmental sense when we're children,
but we don't have to need as adults. We have
the capacity to fulfill our own needs internally self esteem,
self worth, self approval, self validation, self satisfaction, happiness, self acceptance.
We have the power to do that, but we outsource it.
Speaker 4: Why.
Speaker 3: That's why I've I've pushed and leaned into need as
the original sin.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Once that premise gets installed, the premise of I lack
something essential therefore somebody outside me of me must provide it.
Once that premise gets installed, love can mutate into acquisition, validation, possession, control, reassurance,
and dependency. Right, the partner becomes responsible for repairing an
alleged absence in the soul Oh My Shrouded Lighthouse book
repeatedly distinguishes inner revolution from external desire and asks whether
we can love without requiring another person to conform to
our expectations. Right, I've got more concepts that I want
to share.
Speaker 4: Are you ready?
Speaker 3: Because I'm trying to distinguish my voice from everybody else's.
I know everybody A sam relationship is a mirror. But
they're not telling you that's Christianna Murti. They're not linking
Ross Rossenberg, right, the human magnet syndrome. They're not linking
it to attachment theory.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: The avoidance and the anxious folk are typically attracted to
each other. Like ross Rossenberg points out that the narcissists
and the codependent are attracted to each other. They just
throw it out there superficially, relationship is a merriat. Yeah,
but what does that mean and how does that show
up clinically psychologically metaphysically spiritually, they don't go that deep.
I'm not here to crucify. I'm not here to pathologize.
We need every voice.
Speaker 4: But I'm distinguishing mine.
Speaker 3: Tonight when we come forward more from the VR ladies
and gentlemen, we rolling down.
Speaker 4: PC right now. My playlist has always been my co host.
Speaker 3: Come on, man, y'all know we in here cooking the
night this last time you heard this John B record,
we turned up tonight the Voice of Reason sharing a
bit of himself. I've been on one lately and this
is like a primer. Who is Zoe Williams? What is
his philosophy? Why should we even listen? Why do we
even care?
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 3: I was sharing, you know, need as the first relational sin.
Speaker 4: I don't believe.
Speaker 3: We're supposed to fulfill each other's needs. I believe our
needs were supposed to be fulfilled in childhood, and when
they weren't, a survival system kicked on, and then we
carried that into adult relationships, and then we normalized it.
I think we're I think that's what spiritual evolution, self
actualization or self realization as para Mahanza Yogananda called it
the Buddhists call it moksha or nirvana. I believe when
there's this transcendence of the small ego, you understand that
there is communion with the source of all that is
the source, the foundational reality of existence. Quantum physicists call
God consciousness right infinite consciousness. I believe these ancient spiritual
practices could teach us how to get there. Some people
go ayahuasca, or they lick the frog, but they get
outside of the broken, fragile, little ego that needs. I
believe love is a conduit, or intimate relationships is a
conduit for that. I believe it's a spiritual conduit that
ends needing, but it may end the relationship too. And
I believe many of us are okay with need. So
long as we're needed, here we go.
Speaker 4: Another concept I have.
Speaker 3: I added on too Krishnamerti's work in my Holographic Relationship
book the relationship as a holographic event rather than a
two person transaction. Krishnamurti gives relationship as a mirror. I
deliberately say the mirror is the mirror. Metaphorm is insufficient.
Your relationship becomes a multi dimensional return of history, trauma, belief, environment, identity, culture, god,
and accumulated experiences. In my Holographic Relationship book, I explicitly
argue that relationships represent your whole story rather than an
isolated present interaction.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: I believe that the intimate holographic connection has lineage.
Speaker 4: Right, its systemic.
Speaker 3: Relocation into intimate relationships is part of your distinct or
part of my distinct architecture for relationships. I also use
quantum mechanics as a relational questioning language. Right, This is
one of This is one of my little tricks.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: I love quantum mechanics, I love quantum physics in general.
And I built an entire relationship vocabulary around collapse, entropy, entanglement, uncertainty,
fine tuning, and information.
Speaker 4: Again, that is the.
Speaker 3: Holographic Relationship book where I took these scientific principles and
applied them to intimate relationship.
Speaker 4: This was my twenty nineteen book.
Speaker 3: Right, And like I said, it separates me from you know,
conventional dating content.
Speaker 4: Right. Kevin Samuels is.
Speaker 3: Not organizing mate market analysis through uncertainty and entanglement. Gaskins
is not instructing boundaries through holographic information theory. Thelma Bryant
thema Bryant is not her clinical framework, which is amazing
work does not depend on quantum relational analogy. That isn't
to say their information is more important than mine and
mine is less important than theirs. Like I said, I
believe every voice, every perspective has value, and that has
been part of the culture of the Voice of Reason show.
In terms of the callers, I don't tell you how
to answer, and I don't push back on your answer.
I allow you to share your perspective. Right, That's important
to me. Another concept that I talk about that differs
from everybody else, the observer is inside the relationship experiment.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Of course, I'm interested in the wave function collapse of
quantum mechanics. Right, and it becomes psychologically important when joined
to bias, perception, and observation. Again, my Holographic Relationship book
explicitly places personal history and bias beside the observer question
and ask how judgment participates in the experienced relational reality?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: Can you objectively diagnose a relationship while your history constitutes
part of the apparatus performing the diagnosis? I ask these
types of questions, right.
Speaker 4: A lot of people are not asking.
Speaker 3: These questions, right, And that's Okay, I just want you
guys to understand we are different and we are valuable.
I also talk about relational fine tuning. Rather than asking
merely why did I choose this terrible person, my metaphorical
or metaphysical inquiry asks why this particular person activates this
particular thing in you at this point in your development.
I ask that that's part of my philosophy. Of course,
I have merged Western attachment theory with Buddhist non attachment.
Right most relationship content creators inhibit one side of this
apparent contradiction. Western psychology ask how attachment organizes relationship. Buddhism
investigates howluces suffering.
Speaker 4: I've merged the two.
Speaker 3: You put Boby or I put Boby and Buddha in
the same room. Of course, we talk about duka. Do
you understand what I'm saying duka, which is suffering? So
I just wanted to reintroduce myself to people who might
be new to the channel spirituality, psychology, metaphysics, quantum mechanics, consciousness,
right Eastern traditions, African traditions, the collectivistic society and their traditions.
Speaker 4: I merge them all right.
Speaker 3: We don't leave out psychology. Psychology is welcomed as well,
but I'm merging it all because we need a broader,
more expansive answer for some of the questions that maybe
just psychology alone can't answer. Listen, I start the conversations.
It's up to you to finish them. It's not my
job to convince you what to think, but I do
want you to think about what we talked about tonight.
Speaker 4: When we come forward, it'll be a new week and
I'll have four new slappers for you. I'm Zoe Williams,
and I'll holler