00:00
Over the years, I started dropping into my emotional intelligence, where the first part was my cognitive development, my mindset, then my emotional intelligence. I've always considered myself to be in a relationship with my feminine. But in that time, I realized my work was so much about ignoring what's really occurring for me so that I could get the desired result. And that just wasn't working. That just wasn't working.
And so I dropped into this and I noticed so many of my brothers are, we're taught to ignore our emotional intelligence. We're taught to ignore all of our feelings, uh, to really, to really allow ourselves to sink into that. And why is that? And I started unpacking that which we could, we could go there. Um, but that's started the plant, the seed of the work that I'm doing now and why this is needed.
01:04
Today we're speaking to my boy Raul Espinoza, the executive director for All Kings. All Kings is a peer-led men's group that provides a safe space for men to process trauma and develop leadership skills. In the episode, we dive into how men are often taught to suppress their emotions, which can lead to unresolved trauma and unhealthy coping mechanisms. And those unhealthy coping mechanisms can contribute to high rates of incarceration, especially among marginalized communities. Raul believes that empowering men to explore their emotions and challenge societal expectations can lead to a healthier and more balanced society. Welcome to the show, Raul Espinosa.
02:02
Welcome to the show, my dear friend and brother, Raul Espinosa. What's up, brother? Thank you, brother. Thank you so much for having me, man. I really appreciate it. Oh, I'm so excited to talk to you. I'm so excited about the work that you're doing. I'm so excited to share with my listeners the amazing work that you're doing with All Kings. You know, let's start there. Let's, you know, so you're the executive director of All Kings. You've been with them for how many years now?
About four years, we're about four years old and I joined them when we were five months old and then COVID hit the next week. And so pretty much since the start of COVID is when I've when I joined. Famous last words and then COVID hit. Yeah. So let's really bring our listeners into all kings in the world and the work that you're doing. Why don't you tell us about the organization and the work that you guys are doing? Yeah.
So All Kings is a peer led men's group and is dedicated towards mental health, towards processing through trauma and developing leadership. And we mainly work with men impacted by the justice system. So formerly incarcerated men, men in alternative to incarceration programs. We also work with young men at risk, uh, 18 to 28 guys that may or may not have been involved in the system itself, but are living a lifestyle that, uh, it's a lot easier.
for these young men to end up in incarceration because of the system and because of their environment more than living an abundant lifestyle. That being said, it's a space for all of us to show up and do our work, any male identifying participants to show up and unpack whatever's going on in there and the trauma that we've experienced in our lifetime and also the trauma of what we were projected to be as men in the world, whatever that looks like.
It came with a certain societal expectations and we come to visit what those expectations are and those belief systems are about ourselves and how they hinder us from cultivating the life of peace and joy and showing other people that we could do the same thing together. So that's in a nutshell that's what we do. There's like 27 different podcasts we can do with that right there. Okay and how did you end up in this world and how did you decide to get involved?
04:22
As you know, I formally ran Live Loud, which is a is a impact storytelling through photography and film. And I was living around the world for quite a bit. I'll tell you the immediate story that kind of got me into to all kings. Yeah, but my purpose through Live Loud was working with grassroots initiatives around the world. So I was living in the favelas of Brazil to Iraq to India and Senegal. And just plenty of places where in these crevices, the people that are kind of drowning in circumstances are rising above them to take care of their own people, like these, these hidden heroes around the world. Uh, and so I was documenting and doing that work. I came back to New York and this is in a time that the me too movement was really, really taken just a lot of just flight and you were seeing me too everywhere and you know, I grew up as, you know, and I'll share for your, your listeners.
I grew up in an abusive household where there was a lot of domestic violence and there was a lot of just chaos, which I'll unpack later, but I grew up around an abused mom and sisters. And so when this Me Too movement was out, it's like, why aren't men talking? Where are the brothers at? What do we do? How do we take ownership for how we participated in this? And so I started passively working on this film that it just stayed a seed of an idea.
But I came across this film called The Work, our founder is a director of that film. And it's about doing this type of transformational healing work inside of Folsom Prison. And something about it really stood out. It arrived in my life in a time where I was letting go a lot of who I thought I was and really being confronted with this idea of my own masculinity and being a man and what that means to me and what I was enduring because of it.
And something told me to be there. Something's like, it's not quite it. I like to be abroad. I don't like to, you know, work with maybe American organizations just because I feel like there's so much luxury here and privilege here. And I'd rather work in places that need drinking water and are, you know, just working against higher circumstances. But something told me to be here and I rooted, I took, you know, my, my years of coaching and facilitating and I showed up and not that long after.
06:45
I became the executive director of it, driving the mission forward.
So you got there and a few months you were in charge. That's how I do it. That sounds about right, yeah. That tracks. Okay, so this is so fascinating because these aren't conversations that are just being had, right? Like I think, we're both in this coaching world and I feel like a lot of women gravitate to coaching and self-development and that industry, not exclusively, but primarily.
Men are a little harder to bring to the table and have these conversations and get vulnerable and peel the layers and look and all of that. And even as a society, on a societal level, that men are looking at what their role is and what that even means.
Because let's face it, the world is changing so fast and the programming or the conditioning or the socialization, whatever language you wanna use, that we were brought up in, it's not even, or that our parents were brought up in, it's not even relevant anymore because the world has changed so much.
So I love that you are creating this space where men can do this work because I think it's just so critical for us to have that space to do that, to get vulnerable, to get honest, and to just look honestly and see if this design that I was given isn't me anymore. Does it apply? Right. Yeah. I think in my journey as a coach, I've been doing this transformational work for like 16 years now, back when we first met.
08:44
And in doing this work, I saw the beginning stages of my coaching to be very masculine. It was very results driven action reaction, cause and effect, get it done. Beast mode coaching like we're going to get to the other side and we're going to run through the wall and, you know, do whatever you need to do in order to get there. Yeah. And so that and very effective with it. Yes, I loved it. Like very, very effective with it. Like, you know, I mean, like, so it worked. Right. It definitely was some level. Right.
But I think that's the thing. There was something, and we talk about masculinity, and I'm not talking about men and women because all men and women are both masculine or feminine. We both have both. And I think there's this idea that men are supposed to be masculine and women are supposed to be feminine. And now we've branched out of that. And you see so much variety within women to be embodying their masculinity or being in their feminine, this duality that it seems a lot more forgiving than men being in their feminine which seems a little bit more taboo, especially depending on the environment you grow up in. But what I noticed in my first years of coaching was that was really effective for me to change behavior. I wanted to change a behavior within myself, so I needed to apply something different, do something different so I could have a different result. And over the years, I started dropping into my emotional intelligence, where the first part was my cognitive development, my mindset.
Then my emotional intelligence, I've always considered myself to be in a relationship with my feminine, but in that time I realized my work was so much about ignoring what's really occurring for me so that I could get the desired result and that just wasn't working. That just wasn't working. And so I dropped into this and I noticed so many of my brothers are, were taught to ignore our emotional intelligence. We're taught to ignore all of our feelings to really allow ourselves to sink into that and why is that? And I started unpacking that, which we could go there, but that's started the plant the seed of the work that I'm doing now and why this is needed.
10:56
Can we talk, can we break down a little bit the idea of masculine and feminine? Cause I feel like if you're new to that concept, so to layman's terms, it can sound sexual and, you know, when we're talking feminine and masculine, what, can you go deep into that and kind of describe what we're talking about? Sure. So first I want to premises with, I'm not trying to be right about any of this. Actually, a lot of the men's work that I'm doing is the willingness to be wrong and a willingness to go and find out and just see what comes up. So I don't speak any of this stuff as fact. This is part of my own discovery. I think as men, we're very behind in understanding what this actually means for us, because we're so rooted with how we are supposed to be out there and the success that's available for us out there. Like success is more of a carrot than peace and joy for men.
And I realized that when my coaching, I would work with women on just feeling empowered and feeling their joy and feeling this liberation of freedom. And for men, what was working for them is like, we're going to work on your success and your strength and like, you know, doing what you need to do. And so this idea of masculine and feminine. So men focus on the result while women are looking for an experience? Is that it's a little bit so like masculinity, the way I visualize it, a seat is kind of like a linear movement is about progress, creation, destruction, movement. I am what I produce, provider, protector, that type of like old, old conditioning. And brought into this day and age where, you know, we talk about toxic masculinity, but we're talking about patriarchal masculinity. We're talking about the men that rule the world, which is not myself. It's not people of color.
It's not, you know, like it's a different reality of what it is to be a man that we all And to some level, it he's too. Um, and not everybody, you know, because I think a lot of even modern day masculinity was men forfeiting their masculinity to not be abusive, to not be toxic, to not be too much. Uh, and so the way I see masculinity is this linear type of thing where this feminine energy, I feel it is more inclusive. It's more, uh, I mean, nurturing is kind of a default word that we say to this, but it's
13:17
conscientious is taking the different factors, balances, the harmonies here and now while there's power and flame to move forward. But it's so much more sophisticated in my mind where in masculinity, it could feel very boxed. And femininity, there seems to be a little bit more of a harmony in both because in societal norms, women are more taught or it's more available for them to, more accepted for them to be in their emotions.
And the way I also take a look at this is that.
For women, they're allowed to be every emotion except for angry. There's a study with five dominant emotions, fear, joy, sadness, shame, and anger. And so a woman can, if she's happy, perfectly normal, she's sad. I get it. If she's, if she's afraid, cool. So society, like in society, that's, that's accepted as the dance will just stress, not to say any of this is right, but I'm saying in societal norms, that's what's there. But if she's angry, she's bitchy, she's dramatic. She's, she's problematic. Men.
are the opposite. If they're sad, it's soft. If they're afraid, pardon my language, I don't know if you curse here. But they're- We'll find out. Yeah, they're a bitch. Or if they're ashamed, it's small and insecure of them. Even if they're joyful, it's like, what the hell are you so happy about?
We're all jolly for. But anger, we're taught are meant to be powerful or successful. In order to be successful, you need to be powerful. In order to be powerful, you need to be aggressive. In order to be aggressive, you need to be angry. And that becomes our main instrument and tool. So when men feel deep grief, it shows up sometime in anger. And when they're afraid, they want to respond in anger because you scared them. And they're mad at you now. And it's an instrument that we've overused now. And I think that's why I feel we're behind in learning what else is there. What else is our emotion trying to teach us? I love that.
15:16
So I can relate to, you know, I can really relate to what you're speaking about. And I wanna bring an example from my life. So in my former role at Lion Life, I was often in charge of the problem solving and the strategy and, you know, figuring out the growth of the company. And very often, well, not very often, but especially during the pandemic, I got caught in this role of just like powering through, doing whatever it takes, just focusing, just like outworking in a situation, pushing through and almost like a badge of honor, you know, like to the working heart.
And what I started to realize was that I got to a place when I started to learn about this language and learn about these distinctions that I was shutting down my feminine side, that the things that I needed to solve the problem like creativity, like play, right? The innovation that was really gonna
get us out of the jam or take us to the next level that are qualities that are typically more feminine. I was not addressing, I was not feeding that side of me, I was just feeding the side that was just like the push, the work hard, the dominate the problem, that take it. But that wasn't the thing that was going to solve it.
You know, what needed was fresh ideas, what needed to come out with innovation, what needed to come out with play and creativity and flow. You know, and many, one of the, you know, I led a lot of, you know, my sales field and thousands of people. And during the pandemic, I went head down to solve the problems where there were many, you know. I was like, okay, you gotta keep the White House open. You gotta keep the products coming in.
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Because now more than ever, these ladies need their businesses, they need to make money, they need to keep, you know, this is especially the beginning, there was like layoffs and like you know, economic uncertainty, all of it, right? So I went like this.
But what was also needed was connection, letting them know everything was gonna be okay. Taking the time to hear, listen, taking the time to connect with them. That side of it at the end meant more to them than the actual working, because what they experienced was actually a disconnection. Like, oh, Gary's gone. Gary wasn't gone.
Gary was just like, guess, get this done don't let this ship sink. Right. But they missed the person that they had come to know as the, you know, the shine, the lighthouse in the dark. Right, right. And take in mind how common that is, right? To take in mind the, how many, maybe more so in our generation, but how many of our peers say that their father wasn't around because they were working or the father wasn't around for other reasons. And then, you know, like, well, the ad, they were putting bread on the table.
They were working to pay the bills and take care of their family. I'm talking about older society now, but like it bleeds into this. Like we come from a product that to some level of it, right? There's only so much in our ancestry that we've gotten away from that. And so there's, when push come to shove, when we're down against the grid, I'm gonna rely on what the deepest rooted truth I know to tap into.
And that's, get it done. There's this like kind of primal thing that when up against that wall in this fight or flight, okay, I don't have a lot of variety and options or time or space to really think about how I want to plan this out. I just need to get things moving. I got to get things cooking. And so there is that aspect of it that comes into the ingredients. And again, I don't say that exclusively to men because there's some women that are acquired. My mom was extremely masculine. My mom was more masculine than my dad.
19:23
And that is because of her upbringing. She grew up in poverty and then coming from a very destructive household, coming to New York, like she had to be nothing but tough and she saw how cruel the world can be for her. So she was raising me to be the same way. Like she, there was no time for tears. It was like, suck it up, toughen up, man up. The common things that a lot of, a lot of our boys hear and we hear from such a young age.
And not to steer off a completely different topic, but it also depends on the environment that I was mentioning that we go through. Because then at six years old, seven years old, within I start wanting to protect my mom and start to become the only reliable boy or man in her life. I at a young age, I'm being acquired to be her husband. Now I'm no longer her son. I'm no longer the little boy. I need to be the man of the house. Now.
And so much of us grow up so fast that when a woman, and again, I keep on saying this because I also want listeners to be mindful. I'm not I'm generalizing here. But when a woman is very playful and silly, she's very childlike. And when a man is very playful and silly, he's childish. And those are very different ways to relating to this part of us that is so suppressed that a lot of us don't know how to be. Yeah.
20:49
I guess you created my childhood there.
You've been doing all this work in deconstructing. Your masculinity, that would you say it that way? It was my whole avatar, my whole avatar. I was like, OK, I was.
21:16
I got to the place where, yeah, if you don't mind, let's go a little deep, let's go a little deeper. Yeah, yeah, and I think it'd be great if we can kind of cover what was happening, like what was the impact before you started to do this work or what led you to do this work for yourself. Yeah, I'm gonna see if I can nutshell this journey arc because it's been my whole life, man. Like growing up in this type of environment, there's many stories that I had that had me just be like,
Okay, don't trust anyone. Just shut down, be strong, do what you need to do to move forward. Well, my father's been diagnosed with cancer four times. I've wanted to take care of him four times. And it was just like, do whatever I need to do to move forward. And take in mind, I was always a loving, peaceful guy, but at the baseline, I was a hothead. I was angry. I was just so angry all the time. And my anger was like the pilot light on the stove.
It's just always on, it's always ready. And I'll be the loving guy, but you cross me the wrong way. Or you talk to me a certain way, or you trigger me. That anger would just bubble up. And I, my only tools that I knew to do, because as men, we're not necessarily allowed to fully be our untethered anger in the world is just let me hold onto it. Let me contain it. Let me push it down and suppress it. And then when I got into the coaching, so much of reality started shifting that I, you know, I really credit that work too. But it was still another form of suppressing these parts of me, these, these ugly parts of me that I didn't want to let out. And in order to create the thing, and then I started creating things, creating things, I started getting into photography. I got on Nat Geo, New York times, launched a business on, I started, I started just kicking ass, man. I was just taking win by win, but the baseline, I still had this anger, still brewing. And I got to the point of my journey where I started practicing letting go of the idea of who I thought I was. And in that time, it was the good and the bad. It was a part of me that was a bad-ass coach and it was a part of me that was my most ashamed, angry self. I was letting go of all of it and just letting things kind of just flow. And I spiraled a little bit. I got to a place where I was creating so much of my world and it started not making sense.
23:41
Like I started doubting the impact that I was really causing around the world and my work and my purpose I'm away from my family to help people. I don't know. Why am I helping people? I don't know Well, I wanted someone to so desperately come and save me that I'm all around the world trying to save everybody else I'm everywhere because I just needed someone to interrupt Interrupt what was going on for me my pain the things that no one asked me about All the stuff like the things that I was going on with my household. No one came to me said, are you alright?
How did that impact you? Are you okay? I was told to just toughen up about it. This is crazy. Let's just pause for a second. Yeah. So you're traveling the world. You're doing all this work. You're using your journalism and your photography to bring awareness. You're getting involved with organizations. To the outside world, you look like a damn superhero. Yeah. Like for all intents and purposes. I mean, and from the outside world, you're like.
Damn, that guy's living the life. Like, wow, I wish I could give it all up to go do that. Amazing. But inside, it's all trying to prove, trying to, you know, give the love, support, rescue that you felt like you never got. Yeah. So it's generating all of that. It's like this, just, ugh, the stuff. Yeah. Wow. And even more so, I'll take another level deeper.
When I was growing up, I recently discovered more of the statistics around men that commit suicide and men that live with mental health issues and depression that go undiagnosed and unrecognized. And I remember when my father first got cancer and I was taking care of him, I did a year of like 22 hour days, like no exaggeration. I would sleep about two hours a night in this first year that he was really, really sick.
And I didn't talk to anybody about it. I just kind of dealt with it. It just did what I needed to do. And for a good while, I wasn't suicidal, but I definitely didn't want to be around anymore. Like I was just like, man, if God could plop right in front of me, I'd be like, I'm done. Cool. Like take me whenever you're ready. I'm, I'm good. I'm totally okay with leaving now. And so though I was creating all these things in my outside world and, and serving just thousands of people and my work.
26:06
It was still a, I was still in a boat, a boat that had holes in it because my service came from a place of trying to make life worth it because it wasn't worth it before I was just dealing with so much grief and pain and anger that it wasn't worth living before. And, Oh, now I'm helping out. Now I'm alleviating suffering and I'm alleviating my own suffering while I'm at it.
I need this in order to make life worth it. So the thing is that I was constantly creating to try to not desensitize, but to soothe this part of me that was just so tired. And it was so unsustainable because my body was screaming at me to try to get my attention. I felt sadness, I felt shame. And I was just like, just do, keep on doing stuff, keep on doing, keep on giving. And now I've learned more of a ways to relating to my emotions.
that I could start to cultivate more sustainable peace. And I still feel probably in more relationship with grief and sadness and anger than I have ever been now because I'm giving myself permission to actually go there. And so this is just another level of healing that I'm bringing myself to. And these brothers that just didn't have this at all in their environments growing up probably till this day. Yeah.
27:31
It's so deep what you're sharing and the crazy part if we can.
You know, we've been good friends for many years. And I had no idea that was going on for you. Like no idea that was going on for you. And you know, we both have these tools. We've had a lot of intimate conversations.
And you've had, you've done a lot of work and you were still dealing with this. And I just think about how many people are out there caught in this, a similar cycle, right? And it's, you know, don't get caught up in like being literal in what Raul is sharing, but look to see for yourself where you are stuck in some pattern, routine and actions where you feel like you're trapped and it's because you're trying to prove something because you feel you have no option because you feel like you just because you weren't really given the tools or you don't even know to ask the questions like you're just you know um and I'm just really grateful I'm really grateful that you found this and that you like you know someone who loves you dearly I'm just so grateful that you've gotten to do some of this work on yourself man because um you know
Yeah. I love you. I have a framework about that. Okay. If you, if you, there's, there's a quick little way that something that I practice and it's about, uh, I call this like tap. I mentioned tapping into your internal wisdom. Um, and really it's just learning, learning how to listen to your emotions. So I'm a visual creature, right? I think in pictures, that's how.
29:19
I get downloads, I see these images. And so there's this image of joy. And what I see joy is it's like I have something and I'm just pulling it in. It is so dear and I embrace it and I love it and I'm feeling so good, right? And I'm like, I'm really pulling that joy in. Sadness, sadness is there's something I value and it's not here and it's right out of reach.
So if I have my hands, I'm like, oh man, I'm there's something I value and is not here if it's a person, if it's a, if it's a situation, whatever it might be, but there's this absence of this thing that I value. So that's what sadness is telling me. That's my radar of like, Ooh, there's something that you value here. That's not present for you. Right. And when you experience sadness, that's rather than, because I think people, and again, part of my language, people get away or use it away or distract themselves away or drink it away.
Or like, they're like, they experience these things and rather than being a relationship with like talk to me, what are you trying to tell me? It's like, Ooh, I feel sad. Let me try to feel better. Let me go to these fixes that I, that I have to relieve, alleviate this, this sadness. But if I'm listening to that sadness, my, my body's trying to tell me, Hey, there's something that you value and you don't have it right now. So what can you do about it? Uh, so that's, that's that sadness. Shame is something that's kind of like a skin that you don't want. You just want to peel this off of you. Just like,
You're trying to get rid of this. This is a part of how you're interacting with yourself that you know is out of integrity. There's a part, there's a little radar on you that says, you know, you're better than this, bro. You know, this is not for you and your ultimate, what you're ultimately calling in. So listen, if I try to ignore shame and just try to let me just be confident and let me, let me dilute this part that feels insecure. No, man, that's my body telling me there's something more for you here. Listen up. And uh,
Anger is this thing that's outside of me that I resist. I just want to fight it. I want to confront it or run away from it. And what is this thing? Because it holds fear, it holds power over me. And that's why I'm angry at it. And so what is that out there? And what do you need to be in relationship with this? So all of these indicators are part of our emotional intelligence. And if we start to learn how to dance with it and how to be in relationship with it, then we could start tapping into a wisdom that we've ignored, especially men, because we taught, we were,
31:33
We're raised from three years old to get up, dust it off, playing sports, win, conquer, defeat. And we, we spent just decades, just not paying attention to this part of us that's screaming for our attention. And that's, that's the thing that I was talking about, that I was ignoring it by living in abundant, beautiful life, giving and serving and taking care of others. Like I really pride myself on who I, who I've been. And it just wasn't sustainable. I was still in that grief and, and I still am.
But it's okay because now I'm not just trying to paint over the rust. I'm being in a relationship with it.
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What do you see opening up for you now, or what has opened up for you now since you have started to implement these tools and how is life different? Hmm, that's a good question.
32:26
Well, first, it's like doing any type of work. I walk into a deeper new room within myself. I'm like, look at the mess in here. Holy crap. Like I've been, I've had dirty dishes in now for years. I didn't even like, oh, there's so much to clean up here. There's so much to do. All right. How do I want to meet myself with this? And so, it's really contributed to my service to the world and what I offer, what I do, especially through all kings to work with these men that have been impacted by the system itself, it comes from trauma. You know, I'm not trying to excuse anyone's behavior or what happened. And I work with people that have, from, you know, small misdemeanors to they've done heavy time inside a prison for all types of reasons. And it's not to excuse how we show up.
So to premise this, I think we need more grace and patience with men in this learning curve and to give men some grace and some space to be willing to get it wrong if there's an attempt there. And I don't mean excuse or permit abuse. I don't mean that. I don't mean tolerate any type of belittling or destruction. But there's so much of it, myself included, that I've been doing this work for a long time and I'm still trying to figure it out.
And so what's changed in my life is a deeper rooted relationship with myself, a more grounded relationship to my purpose in giving. And there's also this excitement to be in my emotions and let it teach me and steer me because now I could full like the level that I could love now is vastly greater than the level I had my capacity to love from before. Like when I could show up with my family and I had a lot of love to give before but now there's just
There's so much of it being married back to me. I have moments and I still struggle with this, but I have moments of deep gratitude for me being me. I didn't feel that before, man. I had moments of that. I had like little spikes of it. And then 15 minutes later, like, all right, now what back to work. And now that, that feeling is starting to become more sustainable. That being said, the flip side of the coin is that when I'm in grief, I'm like bent over holding my stomach in a way that I never felt the pain before, so I'm like, great. It comes with both.
34:47
But that's the work, that's the journey. Beautiful.
Let's go back to, you brought up the “All Kings” and the work you're doing there and the impact on these men. I think it's interesting to dive into that a little bit because, you know, we kind of make the connection, but I want to be really literal about it. I mean, on some levels, we're saying that this lack of communication, this lack of men having the right tools, this lack of men knowing how to do this work and having the permission to fully express themselves is related to the massive incarceration problem that we have in this country. I mean, I think the latest statistic.
I don't do you have any? I mean, I feel like there's, I know, I know for a fact that we are as a country, the United States has the most incarcerated people on the planet. By far, by far. Yeah, by far. Not even just because of the amount of people here. I mean, like percentage per region of people that are incarcerated and it's, and it's systematic oppression. It is, you know, the, the U S is.
The last time I remember looking at this, it was like 14% black, uh, and about, or like 15% black, 13% Latino. Let's say, let's say that. So in this, in this percentage of, of let's say 28% of, of the community of that are people of color, we make up 75% of the incarceration system. And it's a vastly disproportionate amount of how many of our brothers that are locked up.
And so I say this in relationship to this because when I said that we say, there's a saying, heard people, heard people, as we know, it comes from a lot of this trauma. It comes from a lot of ways that were unmet. And we talk about the circumstances. Let's say you would line life being in the pressure cooker to really deliver me taking care of my dad with cancer, being the pressure cooker ready to deliver.
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Now let's take a world of more extreme poverty, violence, substance abuse, these environments that have been targeted and really diminished by the centuries and generations. And we're not going to get into the whole unpacking of how these neighborhoods came to be. But it was very intentional. And there's information there. And so when you have generations where fathers have been incarcerated for even like the smallest things to being away from their families, and the mother is forced to you know, work two jobs or try to do whatever to sustain and handling it the best way they know how I look for my father and my brothers in the streets.
That's where I feel safe. That's where I feel protected. That's where I feel accepted. That's where I feel seen. And that's the only place I really know how to be myself when I was growing up and like, I'm not a hood dude at all, at all. But like, I grew up in this, this like feeling angry mom working two jobs. She's not really there. There's no money for after-school programs. I'm wearing sneakers that were last year's old. I'm like,
I would put white out on my joints because they were so old. And I didn't, we didn't have money for new ones. Like I was outgrown these thinkers. So like these things that I was just taught to endure, I didn't start having language for it till these last four years being with all kings. And some that again, to keep it very real with you, there's trauma. I haven't used that word, abuse, molestation, neglect. These are words that I've never, they weren't part of my vocabulary. There was just something that I dealt with before.
And now it's like, holy hell, there's all this stuff that I'm holding. And so you take that, put it in a pressure cooker and extreme things when people need to do whatever they need to do to survive. And in the instrument of being angry, people make decisions that in their mind was the best way they knew how to hold it 16 years old, going to, going to prison for life. And it's, it's just absurd of working with these guys that it did.
You know, 20, let's say this one guy I remember working with did 25 years, did a piece of work around his anger and just bursted down crying about something that happened with his mom when he was five that he never let out. It's just been brewing in there ever since curating his entire reality, how he sees the world, how safe he feels, how he has to respond. And so what we do in this space is it's a safe place to come and be in our story and unpack what's really going on down there.
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And though we work with justice impacted and adverse young men as made for all men, one of our guys says, not every prison has walls that you could be in prison more mentally, emotionally, spiritually free than someone out here stuck in here, just tormenting their reality, doing what they think they need to do. And when you ask them how they're doing, it's like, I'm fine. I just went in. What I mean by that is I could tolerate this level of suffering. I'm used to it. Just no one touched anything.
And why do we think men are the perpetrator of violence in our communities? Why are we the, like a lot of the trauma that men go through is from like family upbringing, isn't their environment. A lot of the trauma that women go through is that plus the abuse of men. And it's like, there's, that's why we're behind. There's this such a core part of us that we've been wounded and this work is not common, especially for communities of color to reflect and take a look. So that's why we do that.
Yeah, not at all. You may have done so much on back here. We're definitely going to have to have you back and keep digging into this. But I did want to touch on something you said.
This whole idea that... I think what I wanna say is, I wanna make sure that people don't hear this as we're trying to defend or take anyone off the hook for any actions that they have taken. Like, you know, but we do wanna, I think, provide context. Not as an excuse, but if what we're really looking to do is solve a problem.
And if what we're really looking to do is rehabilitate these men, which is really the intention of jail, it's meant to be a rehabilitation. I think, I mean, or at least it should be from a society point of view, because if what we're really doing is farming people off, put hooking them up, like, well, what does that say about us?
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But if what we really want to do is rehabilitate these men or change the statistics, not to mention the social impact, not to mention the economic impact, the cost of this.
We have to ask these questions and we have to do this work of looking at some of these root causes and unpack the generational trauma that's been there for decades or for centuries. So we're not trying to take anybody off the hook, but I think it's really necessary to look at this holistically and say there is a problem here, and the way that we're addressing the problem isn't working, it's not sufficient. We really do need to start having deeper conversations about how we're going to create a shift in this way, because it's just not working on so many levels, from the violence to the jails to the way that we're raising our children.
I mean, we can go on and on and on about all the ways that this is not working. So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I completely agree with that. And that's where it gets a little tough to do this type of work out. And I think when I talk about, I have to be very careful about my positioning and my phrasing. When I speak to people, like we do men's work around this type of stuff. And most often than not, I get like, wow, that's yeah, that's really great. Um, we hear about women's empowerment which totally needs to happen is like continue happening.
You know, women need to be given more power, more rights, more like, I think the, the motion that we've been creating these last a couple of these last decade-plus has been amazing progress. And we're so far from done. We're giving women their, their rights to power in, in multiple political forms and business forms and all that. So that, that is something completely to the side.
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Right? I absolutely agree. And I think that needs to happen. Um, and it takes something for that to occur. It takes also conscientious men to understand the balance of harmony that needs to be embedded into this. In order to do that, we need to make space to educate and inform and empower masculinity in men and not, and that is so taboo to hear for people like empowerment. No, no, no. Men are already too much in power. I'm like, I'm not talking about that dominant power. I'm not talking about patriarchal power. I'm talking about
informed and embodied power. I'm talking about feeling liberated within themselves. Because if you are oppressed, men or women or whatever, whatever gender you are, if you are oppressed, if you're going through the barriers and boundaries of your own limitations within your reality, how much joy or pain do you cause out in the world? Right? If you are struggling from any type of circumstance, be that internal or external, it's going to reflect on how you operate in the world.
And so we need to create a space for a safe place to go and be like, yeah, let's unpack that. And there's some really like unhealthy stuff that shows up on our weekend, but it's the first time the guy has courage to actually take a look at that belief and like, Oh yeah, that belief doesn't work. And I've been believing that all the, all along. And I get where it came from. I get the root of it now. And now something else becomes available, but if we don't make space for that, then it's kind of like, um,
I mean, we get, we just get into the all types of positions on societal norms, but no one, no one becomes right by just trying to defeat or belittle what we think is wrong. We have to understand why they're operating from that in the first place in order for us to create a behavior change and a culture change. And so it takes us being willing to take a look first.
Yeah, and it's almost like in order for you to be willing to look at your privilege and look at, you know, because the patriarchy is there to maintain power, right, and dominance. So if you, in a lot of what you look a lot of these systems, that was, that's what they're in place to do.
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So it's almost like if you're going to have a conversation about relinquishing power and relinquishing your dominance, you really, you almost can't do that without doing this type of work. Right. Right? Because you have to have the conscientiousness, you have to have the openness, the vulnerability to dismantle all that.
And if we don't have these conversations you're just going to be in instinct mode, which is going to have you trying to hold on to your power and your dominance, because that's where your safety comes from. Especially if it's working to some level for you, especially if you have, let's say you have a family, you have a home, you have a job. Man, I utilize my old programming to get me here. Now you want me to be vulnerable and risk it all? How is the world going to receive me this way?
How am I going to be accepted? How am I going to sustain whatever I had to build? I had to be this in order to get here. You want me to jeopardize all of that by tapping into a different version of like, and also the way that we've conditioned so much to suppress these emotions. And I have this massive closet with all these stories and all this shame. You want me to open that thing up? Like, I'm good. I'm maintaining, you know?
So there, it is a lot, it's terrifying to have to go to these places. It's all ask. Yeah, because we also expect, we're in a world where we're talking about how we want our men to be more emotionally attuned and vulnerable. We say that and to be real, to be very real, man, like the world is not very open or accepting for men to fully be there. Because if I go and I cry the first day and the public's like, yeah, I mean, he was in touch with his emotions, that was really beautiful. By day three, it'll be like.
Hey, I need you to be the man that I know you to be too. I'm also counting on you. And the only way I could be in my feminine is if you're in your masculine. You know what was wild? I recently dealt with this in my most recent relationship where subconsciously the more masculine and more in this ways like shut down or emotional or like just this contained, like don't need anything. I'm like in a sense of like and complete ownership of my world and not in this relationship. I'm like, I got me.
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Then she could be completely in her feminine. I'm like, I'm in both. And I've done a lot of work to get in here. I'm not trying to forfeit that feminine part of me either because it's taken me a lot of efforts to be accepting of that part of myself. But the world is not necessarily ready for that. So when we do work with our guys, by the end of our weekend, when we do our retreats, and when we do our programming, we tell the men to put their shield back up.
Like all this work that we did to take the shield down and take put the armor down. When we're walking out the world is not ready for you this way. They're expecting you to come back the way that you came. So we need you to put the armor back up. The practice here is learning how to take it off. I can't wash my hands with gloves on. I have to learn when can I take the armor off, cleanse, clear, replenish, do whatever I need to do, um, take a look at my internal hemisphere understanding in a safe container, and then when I'm done, let me go out because the world is still expecting me to be a certain way is going to take me a while to really embed this practice in my reality. And that's the unfortunate truth, but if we meet each other with grace and patience and the willingness to be wrong and come to the table with these discussions, I think we can make a lot of progress.
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Well, I definitely want to have you back and just. Talk about how this dynamic plays in relationships and just do a whole episode on that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's what's gonna get fun. Yes, yes. I guess I got stories for that one, too. Oh, man, this was such a good conversation. And. You know, for me, on a personal level, it's like, you know, as a gay man, I often have to be in a conversation of the norms of what masculine mean or what being a man means don't always apply to me.
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And then also discovering in how many ways I still play into those, right? Because, you know, I've had to come to, you know, when you come out, you kind of have to go, okay, I'm not gonna play into the norm because the norms don't really fit to me. But then I still find myself with the conditioning and playing out that stuff. So you're still in the matrix, if you will, even when you think you're stepping out of it. Yeah. So this is a really juicy conversation and we can keep exploring this. And thank you so much for hanging out with us and sharing your insights. I definitely, you definitely will be back, brother. Yeah, I really appreciate you having me.
I'm just having the space to think out loud and talk about this stuff. The more we can be discussion of confrontation with self, I think the more liberated we're gonna be. So thank you for creating this. My pleasure. Can you share with our listeners where they can learn more about All Kings and where they can find you, sir? Sure. So our website is allkings.org. And yeah, we are on social media platforms, but we're really absent. We're a tiny team and we're growing. It's gonna be a very exciting year.
But if people want to get more information, there's all kings.org. They could check us out. And again, it's for all male-identifying participants. We've had queer men, we've had trans men, we had non-binary. It's not exclusive to just men itself, but it is a men's group to unpack about how those conditions, like what you just shared, Gary, about, you know, though you, when you came out, you thought you forfeited it, but there's still some deeper coding, it's a space for all of that to show up and to, for us to reflect and do our work. Um, and so that's, that's what we, we stand for.
Yeah, it's a really beautiful website, really well-designed. They've got some great stories in there of some of the people that have been through the program and some of the work they've done in their lives. And if your heart is inclined to do so, there's also a place for you to donate. Definitely please go give these guys some money. They're doing really amazing work and they're a very small team and every little bit of this helps. You know, because you...
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It just allows more men to go through these programs and do this work and unpack this stuff and bring more healing to the world So, please go All right, brother. I love you so much. Thank you so much for being here and uh, we'll have you again soon Thanks a lot brother. Love you, too
I hope that at no point did we come off as boohoo poor men. That certainly wasn't my intention and I don't believe that it was Raul's either. I think it's important to acknowledge that men have historically been in charge. And if we're going to have a serious conversation about making social change, we also have to examine the root. And that includes examining what it means to be a man and how some of the old programming has been both beneficial and in many, many ways harmful.
The work of reflecting requires you to drop the armor and take ownership over the changes you wanna see in yourself and others. And this process requires creating a safe space. This is true for women and men alike. Creating safety can come in many ways. Often it can come from the community of your friends and family. But more often than not, it has to be designed by going outside of your social circles and yourself.
There's a great deal of resources and books out there. Books and podcasts like this one can be really helpful in opening the door by planting seeds and teaching you some of the concepts. And in my experience, you need a deeper process like therapy, coaching, or some type of personal development program like what All Kings provides in order to create a more permanent shift. Whatever your process for getting there is, it's fine. Just be sure to engage in your process by creating the safe space that you need to do your work. If we all had the courage to do that, I believe the ripple effect would spread through society and cause all kinds of generational healing. And that will lead to some of the true social change that we want to see in the world. Until next week.