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? I want that package. And guess what that. Was Tony Gaskins, the voice of reason has returned to. The scene of the conversation. And somebody was asking me. Recently, and this leads to me right into our topic tonight. You know, who are you and why does your voice matter? In? You know? 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. As the closing. 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. And that doesn't. 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? Right? 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. Shout out to her. 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. I'm sorry, you know it sounded like. 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. Well, so are the conditions and the expectations. 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. Now I look at relationships, or look. 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. I want to know. 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? Right? Well, let me say it again. 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. Hell, we even got doctor Cheyenne Bryant. 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. Who taught you what leading means? Is it service? Is control? Is it responsibility? Is it a combination of all of it? Is it fear? Wearing authorities clothes? I want to know. 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? Wisdom? Pain or humiliation? 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. This was the first. 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. She was like twenty one and she was really serious about me. 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. She was from West Covina, oh Man. But she was a sister. She was pouring into me. 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. It scared me. There was one time. 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. This girl. 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. Let's go. I want you guys to do it. 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. 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. Let's that a man's deans man, oh man, I'm not that a man would be bound to dog his. 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. Problem that I guess, in my opinion, the trust comes in that I'm like, oh, everyone's a great person. I can give them whatever they want. And what about boundaries? 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. They run the. 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. 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? I did. 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. 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? Hey, Christina, what's up? John? 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? Saying Hi? Everybody? Welcome? Hey Devon Franklin. I want him to get to the meeting. Potatoes, don't ever depart. Hey, Hey, my sister Lisa in the house. What's up? What's up? Let's how you doing? Get better? I know it may not be better right now, but you're declaring it's gonna get better. Hey, tricks from the ton of Daytona. 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. So here we are. 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? Hmm. It's interesting that the introduction of man in the Bible, in the word of God is synonymous with work, responsibility, accountability too. 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. The agricultural, not the gender base. 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. 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. This is when I realized something is wrong with me. And it was that young lady that got me on my spiritual journey. Right. I was like eighteen nineteen. I didn't even know myself. 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. If you chase the anxious, they don't really respect it DC. And that was the first time that was triggered in me. She was there, she was present, she wanted to love on me, and I felt triggered. I felt awkward. D See Zoe Williams's work is a little different. I merge the philosophical, the psychological, the metaphysical. I don't merge the dogmatic, the social constructs. I don't merge those. DC. 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. I don't do. Self help disguised as influence, like how to influence anybody to pick up artist stuff. I don't do that. 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. Sir so. 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. Man two thousand and four, two thousand and five, actually was that. Was oh four? Yeah? 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? Pastor Singleton was on that show with me initially and we're still good friends to this day. Uh, let me do this. 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. Good morning. 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? Who was that young lady that was doctor tholm'brien. Yeah, I love her work. Anyway. People think because people are Christians or whatever, that I don't still. Rock with them, but I do. Come on, I'm from Chattanooga Baptist Church, Chattanooga, Like, come on, now. Listen to me. It's all together, It's all one thing. You know. 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. Consuming at all because. 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. And that's what got me on the journey. I hope I answered your question. 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. Man, Well, I appreciate it, brother, but I got a question for you. Guess what you just did? What's that? 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. Let's do it. Guess what you just did? Lamont. I brought Akron Ohio in the building. 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. What are your thoughts on tonight's topic. 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. Man, Man, I appreciate you, man, Thank you. Man. It's all love. And it's been a long time since we heard from Reggie from Austin, Texas. It's no longer Austin, Texas is d Detroit. What up though? Hey, guess what you just did. Reggie brought Detroit in the building. Detroit is in the building. 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. Right. Love is not enough, but God is love. Wow. I need somebody to fulfill my needs needs, One of my fundamental beliefs is that need. Is the first sin. Right, a mother. In many anthropological research and cultural research, you will find that the mother. Was a deity figure, a god figure, the mother. So imagine when the mother. 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. Why because the. 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. Field right when we come forward, Just no, I haven't even touched the surface. Maybe continue, It's what we were talking about yesterday evening. Who was seeing. That this is not a lecture. With a view to. 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. 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. To realize, Oh, you just only know the words. You're not embodying the words though. I started to understand that. Many broken hearts, many disappointed people in my life because I was still trying to figure. It out right. 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. Who said these three things. He said they must be an alignment or it's not real. Thought word. 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. Approach, my philosophical approach to relationships. I do not. 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. That question sits at the center of my work. I am not primarily interested in teaching people how to acquire, manage, keep control, or correctly perform in a relationship. That is not what I do. 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. No disrespect to them, get your money. I want to know what intimacy reveals about the human being who entered it entered into it? Right? 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? Right? What does rejection disturb within your spirit? What does betrayal expose to you, within you, to you? Right? 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? Did you hear the question. 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. Or anybody else. This doesn't threaten anybody's platform or work. My work doesn't do that. 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? Who established the value? Do you understand? I want to know. 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. 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. Inglewood, California, Legendary Inglewood with legendary Leroy. He has returned to the scene of the conversation. What are your thoughts on tonight's topic? Well, first and foremost, can you hear me clearly? Yes, sir, all right, wonderful man. While everybody was giving you your eulogies, I said, let me chime in and give. Him my right. A eulogy for real. Yes, you know you were Jesus kind words you know, good word you know, and these people are they're calling in. 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. 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. Guess what you just did, good brother man. We brought Inglewood, City of Champions in the building. Yes, sir, Inglewood in the building. If you want to bring your city in the building, all you got to do is call me. One ain't hundred nine twenty fifteen eighty Listen There's more to come when we come forward. Await, hold on, hold on story time, the music. Oh my goodness, Faith Evans, what is this night? 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. 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. Gorgeous, beautiful little scorpio. Oh five, my god. I was twenty four, she was twenty seven going on twenty eight, and. 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. She told me she was in a relationship. It was serious, and I was like, all. Right, that's cool. But then she asked me to go to the movies, and that's when I knew, yeah. I'm in here. 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. Told her, I said, be careful, be careful. She didn't believe me. And what's interesting about this relationship. I don't want to go into the details, but this song found out the girl could sing. She put this record on. 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. Play the record. Let's go play it from the beginning Farocian. 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. Her father saw me walking up and he told me. He was like, hey, man, let me talk to you for a second. And I go talk to him and he says, what do you see in my daughter. I was like, oh wow, here we go. He said, what do you see in her? 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. He said, I saw you. 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. Man. She was whoo, she was bad whoop. 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. Until he died. Me and the girl's father became road dogs. 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. The sex, he's got to be the sex. He was talking to me raw He was like, Yo, it can't be nothing else because I saw what you was reading. Man. When we come forward, it's not over. You're gonna learn some more about Zoe William Hello. 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. 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. 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. It's kind of hard for me because I didn't know at first how to treat. My children so ch and to share joys with them as well. You know she's gonna become with somebody, you know. That Gosh, that attachment piece is heavy. That troop record, that's a sleeper record. A lot of people slept on that deeper album. Only When I Laugh is the name of the record. Tonight's topic is deep. 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. Four days later it was at eight hundred thousand views. It's now at one point three million views, and that caused the relationship dismount. My book, The Skyrocket. Doctor Joshawna. Johnson says she even used my book as a lightweight textbook. All right. 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. This is all before I went to school for this stuff. 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. But I don't claim any of that. 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. Just finish it up. 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. So I've framed it as need as the original sin. Right. 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. Why. That's why I've I've pushed and leaned into need as the original sin. Right. 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. Are you ready? 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. Right. 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. But I'm distinguishing mine. Tonight when we come forward more from the VR ladies and gentlemen, we rolling down. PC right now. My playlist has always been my co host. 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? So? I was sharing, you know, need as the first relational sin. I don't believe. 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. Another concept I have. 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. Right. I believe that the intimate holographic connection has lineage. Right, its systemic. 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. Right. 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. Again, that is the. Holographic Relationship book where I took these scientific principles and applied them to intimate relationship. This was my twenty nineteen book. Right, And like I said, it separates me from you know, conventional dating content. Right. Kevin Samuels is. 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. Right. 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? Right? Can you objectively diagnose a relationship while your history constitutes part of the apparatus performing the diagnosis? I ask these types of questions, right. A lot of people are not asking. 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. I've merged the two. 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. I merge them all right. 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. 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