Episode 53 | When Hope Isn’t Enough: Surviving the Waiting Room of Life

Episode 53 | When Hope Isn’t Enough: Surviving the Waiting Room of Life

This isn't a polished episode. It’s a raw archive from April 2025, sandwiched between the reality of my life today in 2026. Two years of silence, a brush with the unthinkable, and the realization that all the "woo-woo" techniques in the world—meditation, manifestation, visualization—didn’t keep the fear at bay when my wife was fighting for her life. In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on what it’s like to live in a state of hypervigilance. We talk about why we try so hard to control the uncontrollable, why we look for assurance in external systems that don’t have the answers, and what happens when you finally stop trying to "get over it" and just face the moment. If you've been conditioned to suppress your emotions to survive, this is your permission to put the armor down.

Episode 52 | Freaks, Ho’s, and the War on Normal: Why We Judge (And Why It Doesn't Matter)

I was sitting on public transit, listening to two strangers tear an actress apart, calling her a "ho" simply for existing outside their narrow version of "normal." It hit me: we are all living in a prison of our own design, projecting our insecurities onto anyone brave enough to be themselves. In this archive episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on the words "freak" and "ho"—labels I once used to judge myself and others—to show you how they are just tools used to keep us small. If you’ve ever felt like the object of someone else’s "righteous" scorn, this is for you. We’re talking about the cognitive dissonance of judgment, the myth of the "normal" life, and the absolute necessity of living on your own terms. You aren't a freak. You're just living a life that someone else is too scared to even imagine for themselves.

Sunday Stroll 08 | The Ugly Truth About Grief, Guilt, And What We Don’t Say Out Loud.

spent Friday in federal court, and the date of my next deadline—July 31st—hit me like a freight train. It’s the 27th anniversary of my son Malachi’s death. Most people want you to be "brave" or "romantic" about grief. They want you to pretend you had this perfect connection. The truth? I didn't know him. I was terrified. I was resentful. I was a young Black man in Ohio holding a dead infant and worried, above all else, that I was going to prison because no one would believe me. We don’t talk about that shit. We don't talk about the guilt, the jealousy, or the fear that the "rules" of family and love were things we were never taught. If you’re carrying a secret you’re terrified to say out loud—if your grief is mixed with shame, or your experience of "family" is nothing like what the world tells you it should be—this episode is for you. We’re stripping away the "pretty" version of survival and looking at the raw, jagged reality of how we define ourselves.

Sweating, Donuts, Cartoons, and the Voice in Your Head That Won't Shut Up

It's 10:12 on a Saturday night in St. Louis and it was hot enough today to slap you the moment you walked outside. I've got two chocolate glazed donuts in me, blood pressure medication side effects I won't bore you with, a bunch of archive episodes scheduled and one contemporary one I forgot to post, and a wife in the next room who watched 70s Saturday morning cartoon themes with me last night while I got unexpectedly emotional about watching them with someone for the first time. That's where this episode starts. That's also, somehow, where the whole thing lives. This one is about the inner voice. Not the spiritual version. The actual one — the one that tells you you've earned a third Guinness, that your black ass needs to sit down and shut up, that nobody wants to hear from someone who's been through what you've been through. The one that works harder against you than any person ever has. Including the ones who actually hurt you. We suppress that voice. We hide it so people don't think we're out of our minds. We perform being fine while it runs constantly underneath. And then we wonder why nothing changes. I'm not okay with that anymore. Haven't been for a while. The free workbook is at www.theloveofyourlifetime.com — scroll to the bottom. No email. No catch. Just the work.

Episode 51 | I Have A Felony. I Am Not A Felon. — And Yes, There's A Difference. And Who Might You, "Be?"

I have a felony on my record. I'm not going to soften that or dance around it. What I am going to do is make a distinction that changed everything for me — and might change something for you. There is a world of difference between I am a felon and I have a felony. Between I am an alcoholic and I had a drinking problem. Between I am an abuse survivor and I was abused. One collapses the experience into your identity permanently. The other keeps them separate. I have a pair of Doc Martens. I am not Doc Martens. I have a felony. I am not a felon. When I believed I was a felon — when I had fully internalized that label and everything the culture attaches to it — I couldn't get a job, couldn't provide for my family, couldn't imagine doing a podcast, couldn't see past the shame of what that word meant. The label was running the show. When I changed the language to I have a felony — something shifted. Not the record. Not the circumstances. My relationship to them. This episode is about the self-concept work that lives in the words we use to define ourselves. About the labels we've inherited, internalized, and never questioned. About what happens when you finally ask: is this who I am, or is this something I experienced? And yes — at the end, I'll tell you what the felony was for.