Alcoholism, Self-Sabotage, and Wokeness with Africa Brooke [S4 Ep.08]

Hip-hop is always called out to any qualities in America. But even within it, nothing's ever been equal. This season, Lauda the Narayat Podcast is tackling sexism, homophobia, and all the unwritten rules that hold the entire culture back. Listen to the Lauda the Narayat Podcast from NPR Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey y'all, my name is Justin Richmond. My new show started from the bottom is a podcast right interview people who had to strive and struggle to reach the top. Women, people of color. Those who weren't part of the old boy's network. How did they beat the odds? From media fire brand, Charlotte, me, to God, to personal finance guru, Susie Orman, to heavyweight fighting champion, Francis and God. Hear their stories in their own words. Listen to Sutter from the bottom, wherever you get your podcasts. We're never treated that way. Need you all to myself. Forever I'll be true. We could ball into death. Before I can love you, I must fall from myself. Girl, let me make the plans. We'll get lost in the flesh. My wish is your command. Got you all to myself. All to myself. All to myself. Yeah, all to myself. Yeah, I got you. Got you all to myself. All to myself. Yeah, all to myself. Yeah, I got you. The track you just heard is an excerpt from my brand new album Amor Fatih. You may remember the music video as I put out last year, blasphemy, straight A's and forward. This new album features all three of those singles plus seven brand new songs. Now I put my all into this project and it's a real representation of my passion for music. So if you want to listen to the whole thing, click in the description or search cold X-man on Spotify, Apple Music or wherever you listen to music. Now back to the podcast. Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman. My guest today is Africa Brooke. Africa is a London based consultant, writer and life coach. She's a host of the Beyond the Self podcast. We talk about her background growing up in Zimbabwe and her experience as an immigrant to the UK. We talk about her journey from alcoholism to sobriety. We talk about her essay, Why I'm Leaving the Cult of Wokeness. And we talk about the notion of self sabotage. Africa is essentially a life coach for high profile clients. And at some point, this conversation basically turns into a life coaching session for me. We talk about my own habits with alcohol, as well as the ways in which I might engage in self sabotage. Anyway, Africa seems to be very good at her job. And I hope you find something of value in this conversation. So without further ado, Africa Brooke. Africa Brooke, thank you so much for coming on my show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited about this. As am I. Good. So, um, so before we get into any topics in the world, I just want to focus on you a little bit. And you're upbringing and how you came to be the person that you are, right? You're this, I don't know if you would call yourself a life coach. You are a coach. And you focus on issues related to self sabotage and well being. And all of these things that many of us deal with sobriety and all kinds of things that will be relatable struggles for many people in my audience. Self censorship. So before we get into those topics, I just want to get to know how you came to be this sort of person. You were born in Zimbabwe, right? Yes, I was. And, um, you know, when someone asked me that question, I always think to myself, what is the simplest way that I can put forward so many things? And I was born and raised in Zimbabwe. And I left the country at nine years old. It wasn't just me by myself. It was me and my older sister. And the work that I do today is really influenced by my upbringing, actually. I think that's why I view the world in such a different way because I think people hear the way that I speak and make so many assumptions about where I might be from and what my life experience has been. But I have from the age of zero to nine years old, I experienced so many different things in Zimbabwe. And I grew up in a two-parent household. And my parents, for the most part, very loving in their own way. And when I say in their own way, I think culturally, regardless of where you're from, there's specific nuanced ways that people show love. And for me, my parents were not sort of words of affirmations type of people, you know, telling you that you're beautiful and kind of cuddly and touchy. They were very much in survival mode. And I think that was because of the country that I was born and raised in. It was at a time where there was economic breakdown, there was a lot of corruption in the country, a lot of things were changing. So my parents, for the most part, were just on survival mode. And I'm one of four. I'm the third child. And I just had to grow up pretty quickly. I think that's something that's really important, a very important part of my story, actually, that I had to grow up very, very quickly. I did experience at childhood that was enriching and fun, but I had to have independence from a very, very young age, which I think is a common story for a lot of African children, actually, especially with immigrant parents coming to the UK or to the West. But also another important piece of this, which ties into my sobriety, which I'm sure we'll talk about. But I grew up in a home where my father was an alcoholic. And even though he was a wonderful, wonderful man when he was sober, I mean, Maxwell was just the most charming man. If you walked into a room, you'd be able to feel him. He was compassionate. He was very understanding. He was a teacher. So he was very smart and very curious and interested. And these old qualities that I truly believe that I got from my father as well. But when he drank, he would be the complete opposite to the person that we knew. He was not just verbally violent, but he was also physically violent to my mother and to all of us. We never knew what version of my dad were going to get after he'd been having a drink. And it also meant that it wasn't just about me and my siblings having to grow up very quickly, but it meant that we had to have a certain level of alertness and awareness from a very, very young age. And that pretty much shaped my childhood a lot of the time in terms of distrust. Just not being able to trust whether it's men, but not being able to trust the people that were meant to look after me, including my mum, who tried her absolutely best. She's fantastic. But she was also in survival mode. She was also becoming a shell of who she was. She was also facing the reality of living in a country like Zimbabwe, which used to be one of the most fruitful countries in Africa. It was even referred to as the bread basket of Africa. And having to face the reality that it was not the Zimbabwe she used to know. And she was going to have to make a decision, a difficult decision to leave and to figure out how she was going to make a life for herself and her children. So she left Zimbabwe when I was maybe seven or eight so that she could set everything up here in the UK. And in Zimbabwe, my mum was a geologist and she was doing very, very well. Mining was a very, very big part of Zimbabwe in the economy. Still is to a degree. And she was a geologist and she was doing quite well. We were by no means rich, but we had a fulfilled life. We didn't struggle in any way. Or at least she didn't allow us to see if we ever did struggle. But in moving to the UK, all of that was irrelevant. Every degree that she had, being a geologist, it was irrelevant. There's no mining in the same way in this country. So she had to go into the profession that most immigrants do, which is nursing. So she had to start with absolutely nothing. And by that time, 99, my dad's drinking had got even worse. It was he was at his worst, but he was the one that was looking after us when she came here so she could set everything up and he was supposed to follow as well. His health declined. His mental health declined. He got even more aggressive. And again, it sort of warped my idea of the people that are meant to, the people that are meant to look after me in my mind are supposed to be loving and caring. They're supposed to be present, but he was physically present. But in every other aspect, he was not. And so my mum had to start from nothing. She had to be a nurse. And I mean, she absolutely loves it now. She enjoys her work now. She's still a nurse, but she's been doing it for such a long time that it's just, it's just become part of who she is. And she likes it and she's very good at what she does. But at that time, that adjustment was very, very difficult. And when I was nine is when we came to the UK and it was a huge culture shock. Did your father come with you? No, he didn't come. He was supposed to follow maybe a year or so after that. But he ended up passing away in 2004. I'm sorry to hear that. Thank you. From health complications related to alcohol. And he was only 40 years old. And for me now as a 30 year old, I realized how young that is. So it was a very different culture here, very shocking. I remember even one of the things that I remember common is when we were on the train coming from the airport, I remember finding it so odd that people sort of just sat in their seat almost as if there was like a cubicle around them just really stunned, they sat in their seat and no one talks to each other. Because I'm from a culture where if you're on the bus on the train, people will be chatting and laughing. You'll find out that you're from the same tribe or a different tribe, but there's some kind of connection. Just things like that were very kind of shocking to me. And also, I'd never seen so many white people in one place. I'd just never seen anything like that. And maybe I'm not the only person to say something like this. And I've said it many times, but it was one, it was probably the first day that I realized that I was black. I'd never had to think of my race ever. I just never had to think about it because you're surrounded by people that look like you. Of course, I had seen white people. Of course, you see them in TV, et cetera. I had just never been so hyper aware of how different I am. So that is a big part of my upbringing. And I think that context is important because when I think about the work that I do today and the conversations that I'm trying to have, I think that perspective can't be missed. That I have nine years, my most formative years where I grew up in a very different culture where the idea of quote unquote being black is just not a thing at all. Because to me, I'm Zimbabwe and I'm from the Shona tribe. And yeah, so I think I'll kind of just in terms of my early childhood and upbringing, I'll sort of just land there. Yeah, so a couple of thoughts that provokes in me. One is it's interesting. The cultural difference was brought out on an airplane because I recently heard someone who I believe was either Caribbean or West African talk about the same thing. And she was a mother and she had a baby. And she talked about the different experiences she had carrying a baby on a plane when it was mostly West Africans versus mostly Europeans. And when it was mostly West Africans, there was this congenial talk to everyone spirit. And there was also an ethos of sharing the burden of having the baby on a plane, right? So the baby would be crying and she would just be exhausted. She's been traveling and she would pass it off to somebody who would then placate the baby, give her a stranger, right? And when she was on a plane with Westerners and Europeans, it would be unthinkable to pass your baby to a stranger. So the burden was all on her. She was unable, exasperated, exhausted. And eventually people just started giving her these glares of get your baby to shut up. But she can't because she has no more energy, right? It was, I thought that was a very interesting way to convey the different cultural background of different people's and how that can affect a situation. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, that was my, I always remember that. And even the way the architecture here in London, I've been able to see the people in the community. And I remember in London and the UK is in terms of how people kind of live. I found it so odd that people kind of live so close to each other, but no one speaks to their neighbor. Most people, it's unheard of that they sort of just hang out and speak to their neighbor and just knock at their door so they can have a chat. I think maybe outside of London, maybe when you're more in the countryside or smaller communities and villages, you still have that sort of communal thing. But all over Zimbabwe, that's just the default, regardless of whether you're in the city or elsewhere. So I always find those sort of moments and memories very interesting, but then you quickly adjust to environment. So do you feel that you've become more Western in that respect? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think I try. I do. I do now and I'm very happy about that because I try my best to, but I think there's something that happens naturally when you become used to an environment. You also just adopt other people's behavior. That's just the way of being. And I find, I think there's something also about London where it's almost like there's a suspicion of kindness. I don't know if it's like that where you are as well. I'm from New York. So yes. There's a huge suspicion of kindness. Right. So people will think you're high or drunk. Can't remember what comedian does a stroke, but they say someone told them to have a good day and they said, don't tell me what to do. That embodies London. That's what I want to hear a sentence. Yeah. So I always find that interesting, but anytime that I talk about my upbringing, I realize just how much that's an important piece in who I am today. So this other aspect you mentioned of when you grow up around all black people, no one thinks of themselves as black because blackness and whiteness are only thought of in contrast. Right. If there's nothing to contrast, you just think of yourself as people or your tribe or your family. That was interesting about that is, yes, I've heard that from many Africans from Caribbean as well, Jamaicans who come to America and don't think of themselves as black till they land here. It's also something I've actually heard from Americans that grew up in a more segregated time. So that's something Condoleezza Rice has said who grew up earlier in Jim Crow. Something Thomas Sowell has said, one of my favorite writers that also grew up under Jim Crow's segregation, they both said that it wasn't until they were maybe nine or ten when they saw their first white person in real life that they began to actually understand that they look different and that could have implications. So it's something that is not only seen among immigrants, but also among Americans too of a certain era. And what's interesting is that that time is usually spoken of positively and that fact is usually spoken of positively as a bulwark against any sense of inferiority. Right. If you only grow up around black people, you never had any reason to feel that you might be inferior to the kids that look different because there were no kids that look different. So I'm curious, is that what you're getting at when you say it's important to understand who you've become that you grew up zero to nine in a mono-racial environment? Yeah, I think that's definitely part of it actually. And I think also by the time I was ten years old and I'd started school, we moved to an area. When we first came to the UK, we were living in Kent, which is outside of London and it's predominantly white. Kent is huge, but they're different towns and different villages, et cetera. And in the town that we were living in, it was predominantly white. I would say aside from my own family and this boy called Curtis and his family, we were the only black children in school, the only black children. So then my race was further highlighted, but it wasn't just highlighted in a sense of observation. It was made obvious to me by other children because of the jokes that they would make because of the accent that I had at the time, the accent that I didn't even know that I had. It was because of my nose and where they assumed that I lived. You know the typical stereotypical things that children will say. So my race was made, I had to be aware of it in a different way to that time being on the train and realizing, oh wow, I look different to most of the people around me. But the most interesting thing is that at no one point even then did I think that white people were bad. I just didn't. And I know that's not the common story for many people. I think those experiences can be extremely traumatizing for many, many people. But to me for whatever reason, I didn't find it, it didn't penetrate my spirit maybe in the way that they hoped it would. But I think for the most part it was kind of just ignorance and a lot of the things that were normalized in the early 2000s. But it didn't make me feel that there was something wrong with me because I am black. And I think it's because the home that I would go to after school every single day, it was just normal again. I was in Zimbabwe again. My race wasn't a big thing again. And even in school, the friends that I had who were mostly white, actually all of them were white, were so kind to me. I wasn't friends with curses because he was older than me. But he was friends with my sister because they were in the same year. And the friends that I did have, they were so loving, common, they were so kind. They were just the nicest people. And I never looked at them as in, oh they're white and I'm different. They didn't make me feel different. So I think that was able to counteract the very few kids that were quite mean. But even then they weren't kind of taunting me every single day. But their comments did stick. But again, they just didn't penetrate me to a place where I started to think that white people were bad. It just didn't do that. Although I acknowledge that it can for a lot of people. So I think even though even in childhood I was targeted because of my race, verbally targeted because of my race. And still for whatever reason I still didn't view white people as bad. And I never felt wrong about my race. The people that were holding me on a day to day basis and school my friends were also white. So I think that's something that I hold on to as well. And I think I've carried that same mindset. Even as a teenager when certain comments were made about my race. Even though interestingly enough when I moved to London as a teenager. Most of the derogatory comments that I received about my race were from other black children. Because now I was suddenly too white because I had kind of grown up in Kent. So surrounded by very different type of culture surrounded by kids that speak in a different way. So naturally I will start to speak in the same way. So by the time that I moved to London, I wasn't black enough. Which is the most interesting thing. But I still with all of that I never had the sort of mindset that there's something wrong with me because of my race. Or I need to perform a certain way in order to be considered black. And I think it's because of the home that I grew up in. I still speak my mother tongue. Shauna is the language that I speak with my family. We don't really have conversations about race in that way. So I think that also helped a great deal. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have trouble sleeping after a long day? Do you also love free podcasts? After years of struggling to fall asleep, I discovered meditation and hypnosis as a way to calm my body and mind before rest. I studied in those two disciplines for years and now I host a podcast called Sleep Cove that helps millions of people around the world fall asleep every night. Subscribe to Sleep Cove wherever you listen to podcasts right now for a better night's sleep starting from tonight. On the Friendly A Theist Podcast, we know religious extremism infects every major pillar of society. Politics. You can't just say we're the forward party of religion. Where do you think the bigotry is coming from? Women's rights. They claim to be pro-life. This guy never talks about the life of the women. At the same time, where society seems to be getting less religious. How does that make any sense? I'm Hemant Mehtan. And I'm Jessica Blinke-Gright. Every week on the Friendly A Theist Podcast, we dig into the latest news stories involving faith and culture. Find us wherever you get your favorite shows. So take me through your teenage years and your later teenage years. Did you have a goal about what kind of work you wanted to do or what kind of person you wanted to become or were you just sort of living day by day? I didn't know. I didn't have any specific goals, but I didn't want to be a musician. Oh, is that right? I really wanted to be a musician. You didn't know that. No, I didn't know that. Yeah. Did you play an instrument or sing? I sang and I still do. Still sang. I sang. I wanted to be Stephenix. Wow. I truly believe. That's awesome. I truly believed that by the time that I'm 18, I'm pretty much going to be Stephenix. And for those that don't know, she's the lead singer of Fleetwood Mac, my favorite band. So I always wrote music and wrote stories and told stories from around the age of nine or ten. And I always say this, but my first story that I wrote when I was ten years old was called The Storm That Killed the Angel. And that's a pretty profound title, I think, for a ten-year-old. But it's the first story that I wrote. We were dealing with some shit. I think I might have been. But I've always been, just creativity runs in my veins with all of my family members, my sisters and artists, my other sister is an avant-garde hairstylist. And we're all just very, very creative people. So from a young age, music is something that I've always been drawn to, writing lyrics all the time. I still have the lyric books from when I was that young. And I truly believe that I was going to be in a band, that I was going to be a rock musician. And I've always loved jazz, I've always loved blues, I've always loved hip-hop and R&B and dancehall and fusing different types of music. I didn't know this about you. That's a lot of jazz and hip-hop musician. Yes, I know. And I didn't know that about you. Isn't that interesting? By the time this comes out, my album will have dropped. My rap album will have dropped called Amor Fatih. Oh, that's incredible. And hopefully I'll do some shows in the city. Yes. But besides that, I do still play jazz gigs. And that was my whole life at one point when I was 18 and 19. Really? Yeah, I was at Juilliard to become a jazz musician, a jazz-trumbonist. I ended up pivoting to philosophy at Columbia, but I've continued to play jazz gigs. And it's still a source of great pleasure for me. That's incredible. Finding that out about you, because Winston, our mutual friend, told me, and I was just blown away because I know you from your work and your thinking, but you're also very philosophical in your approach. I don't know how to describe it. There's kind of like the word that comes to mind is like a sensuality and a creativity, even in your words and the way you speak. So it didn't surprise me, but I was like, that's amazing. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. I can hear those interests. You too. So that's what I wanted to do for a very, very long time. I see. Yeah. So when did you begin life coaching and creating content in the, I guess, broadly in the self-help genre? Yes. Although I don't know if you would identify with that. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but when did you start developing that side of yourself? You know what? It happened accidentally. I could never have guessed that I would be doing the work that I do today, but I, actually, I say it happened accidentally and it did, but also what I do feels right. I've always been similar to my dad, who was a teacher. I've always been a very curious person. I've always loved to read and I've loved to write and I'm, I have so many questions. Before I have answers, I always have so many questions that I have. I just have so much fun exploring things. Why do we behave in the way that we do? Why do people make the decisions that they do? Even as a young child, I had those sorts of questions. And something that I realized, maybe from when I was about 13, is that a lot of people, including my friends and even some family members that were older than me, would always come to me to ask me what they should do about something. I was kind of always that person that people trust with their inner thoughts, with their struggles, with any kind of adversity. I've always been, for whatever reason, people are drawn to me because of that. And I realized that I've had that from a very, very young age. And I was led to the work that I do through my struggles with alcohol and drugs. So I mentioned earlier on that my dad, he was an alcoholic, a very serious drinker. And similar to what ended up happening with me, for him, it just started as fun. You know, as just something that he does occasionally. And then it became something that he does pretty much every single day. But there was still an element of sort of fun to it, you know. And then it became something that he needed to do in order to survive. That he couldn't stop. Even if he wanted to, he just was not able to stop. And when I was 14 years old, I had my first drink. And it was before I moved to London. I was still, actually I was probably 13, 13, 14. It was before I moved to London, I was still living in Kent, where there was a very big drinking culture. I mean, the UK in general, drinking is a very big thing. Yeah, I don't think a lot of Americans realize, just, I mean, we, Americans, we think of ourselves as a culture that drinks, for sure. Right. But I've seen, I think I saw a WHO data saying that the average Britain drinks twice as much in a year. Man. Which is really mind boggling. It really is, especially teenagers, especially even preteens teenagers. And I don't know exactly what it is now. I've been reading a lot of things that says young people don't drink as much now, but they do more drugs. So I mean, it's not a, it's not better, but in the early 2000s, even mid 2000s, the drinking culture was so expensive. It was so extreme, especially white Britain. There's just a very different type of relationship with alcohol than, let's say, immigrants. But for me, because I lived in an environment where drinking, especially as a 12 year old, 13 year old, was so prevalent, I fell into that. And I think a lot of people were able to fall into that and kind of get out of it. But from the first time that I drunk, I blacked out. Blacking out is drinking to a point where you can't make any short term memories. So you have sort of short term memory loss. And I thought it was completely normal. I thought it was just part and parcel of drinking, but it wasn't. And I trained myself to drink in that way for 10 years. So from the age of 14, up until 24, I was a blackout drinker. Every time that I drunk, I wasn't able to have just one. Even if I wanted to, there was almost like this mental and physical compulsion to just continue having more. And it came to a point where that way of drinking and that behavior that I trained, it didn't give a shit if I was at a baby shower or at a rave. It's almost like I had a commitment to drink in that same way every single time. And what starts as fun, because when you're 14, 15, 16, 17, some things, it can still be a little bit endearing. Everyone is doing the same thing. But then some people grow. Most people grow out of it. Most people are able to use discernment to say, okay, I'm in this specific environment. So having one drink is the reasonable thing to do. But I had just rewired my mind in such a way where it felt near enough impossible to have just one. And when I did have just one drink, it would feel like I'm torturing myself because there was kind of this thing that I had to feed. And underneath, it was very low self-esteem. A lot of trauma that had been unaddressed from childhood. A lot of shame. I had a lot of sexual shame as well, which I uncovered later on in my sobriacy. I felt I had a lot of abandonment wounds as well, being left in Zimbabwe by my mother. Even though logically I understand what she was trying to do, she had to leave so she could come to the UK, so she could set everything up for us. But in my mind, an honest subconscious level, she had left us with a parent that was so incapable of looking after us, a parent that continued to harm us, even though he was physically there. So I ended up replicating the exact same behavior of my dad. You know, those stages of it being fun and him being just like a fun party person that you always want to be around. And then just starting to drink a little bit more than usual, but there's still a bit of fun to it. And then getting to a point where you have to in order to survive. So that's the exact part that I followed. And I tried to consciously get sober seven times and I relapsed every single time. From the age of 19 to 24, those relapses happened. I lost so many friends. No one, the party was over. It was done. But I was still going. I couldn't even stay in the same job for longer than a few weeks. And if I was in the same job for a month, it felt like such an achievement. But then I would sabotage myself again. And I always picked jobs. I worked in sort of members clubs and fine dining restaurants. I picked jobs that made it easy for me to hide my drinking in some kind of way. Because if I was working in a members club to be at the front desk, you need to be sort of energetic. You need to be able to not necessarily entertain, but you know what I mean? You need to have a certain personality and bubbly and sort of outgoing. So I was able to hide my drinking in that way. So you were drinking on the job? Yes, I was. I was. Or I would be out the night before and then just go on a binge and just come to work straight after. And you're sort of still drunk. And you're sort of, yeah, you're sort of still drunk. And then in the beginning, maybe they just thought it was kind of my character and who I am. But when it comes to the point where they can smell the alcohol seeping out of your pores, it's a bit of an issue. Yeah. So I would just find myself in these cycles of destruction. So as someone that has always been interested in psychology, what's actually happening to me? What's driving this behavior? I was reading a lot of things behind the scenes. I knew that there was something wrong. I knew that. Was there something about your drunk self that was attractive to you that made you kept going back to it so compulsively? Yes. That was such a good question. There was a sense of freedom. Yeah, there was a sense of freedom. Freedom from insecurity being the biggest one. Just by the nature of drinking, your inhibitions are so low that you feel like you can do anything. You feel like you can do anything and be anyone. I think that's the key piece actually. You can be whoever the fuck you want to be. And especially if it's around strangers, they don't know that this is not the real you. But you get validated and you get affirmed for that version of you. So you have to keep on becoming that version in order to feel good. So for me, that's what it was. It was kind of chasing this version of Africa that I'd created. And I was giving her all of the credit for my qualities, you know, whether it was the confidence or being able to share all of the things that I would like to do. Share all of these ideas that I had. But in the light of day when I was sober, I would feel insecure about them. But if I'm drunk or high, I can tell you all of these things that I want to do and what I'm working on. And you know, the music that I'm writing and I can sing, I was never able to sing sober. I was never able to sing sober, not even for my partners or my friends. I needed to have had a drink. So it was that version of myself that I was sort of obsessed with and other people were as well. So it was like a feedback clue. Right. Yeah. So when you were drinking, were the people around you happy that you were drinking or was it a case of, oh God, Africa's getting drunk. Someone needs to help her. She's going to do something horrible. Or was it Africa's a super fun drunk, get her another drink? Uh-huh. It was the latter. Yeah. So that makes it a special heart because, yeah, that makes it especially tough to stop drinking because your friends want you to drink. No one thinks anything is wrong. Right. I was a sloppy drunk. I wasn't falling around everywhere. There might have been occasions where it was. Oh, if you were blacking out, you may. Yeah. Well, I guess your friends would play the next day. Yeah. And for the most part, for some people, and this is the scariest thing about blacking out, sometimes, and I have a feeling a lot of people listening will resonate. Sometimes you could be in a blackout and no one else can tell. Yeah. Everyone thinks you're fine. There might be a glaze in your eyes and maybe the people that know you best will be like, common. What's happening? That's the scariest part of it. People might not be able to tell. So I would make commitments, say I would do certain things that I was still doing music at this time in my late teens, early twenties. I would make commitments, have these wonderful opportunities, say that I'm going to do all of these things, but then in the morning, I have no idea what I promised I would do. So I was letting down a lot of people. I was letting a lot of people down. So when you say you lost friends at this period, it wasn't because of how you behaved while you were drunk. Was it because you were? It was. It was. Yeah. Because I would end up doing certain things, and these could be very subtle things, but when I say my friends, I'm not talking about party acquaintances, or because they all loved it. We were all doing the same thing. But the people that really knew me could see the character switch. So they became quite uncomfortable with that, that I could really be this version and do and say certain things or lie about certain things because pathological lying was a big part of my drinking as well. Huge, huge, because I felt inadequate in so many ways. But when I was drinking and high, I could create this character. But the people that knew me best knew that that wasn't true. So I think there was a level of distrust that made some people distance themselves. And it wasn't a case of people saying to me, Africa, I've noticed this and this is wrong. People sometimes just naturally distance themselves because it's easier than having to sit you down and say, I think there's something wrong. And I had one friend who's still my best friend, Roxanne, who in 2016, which is the year that I finally got sober, she sat me down. And she's probably one of the few people that has truly loved me unconditionally. And we met when we were both when I was 16 and she was 15. So we met in the early stages of us passing and doing all sorts of things together. And she was with me in all of those relapses. And she sat me down in 2016 and she pretty much gave me an ultimason, which no one had ever done. No one had ever called me out on my bullshit ever. My family had tried to, many people around me had sort of tried to in very subtle ways, but no one had ever done it in such a direct way. And that conversation that I had with her, although I still didn't get sober after that, it really landed exactly where it needed to. And months later is when I finally decided to give sobriety another try. I thought I was going to fail. I didn't think it was going to work. I thought it was just one of those things that I'm saying and then nothing is going to change. And because many people around me had taken them on this ride of I'm not going to drink again, I'm not going to do drugs again. It's going to be different this time. There's only so much enthusiasm people can have. After the first year, after the first four, it's like, okay. And I was like, okay, I only have one friend left. And I'm in a job right now that I actually really enjoy. And I was in a relationship at the time with a man who truly loved me and had been with me in my process of trying to get sober. It would be together for two years at that point. There were the only people that I had around me by that time. I was in full self-subotage mode and it had become my norm. I wasn't used to any sort of peace. And she gave me an ultimatum. I didn't get sober then. I ended up trying sobriety again a few months later. And the thing that made it different here, which ties into the work that I do today, is I was reading something. I can't remember. I think I was reading or listening to an interview with Carl Jung. And he was talking about the shadow. And just being able to hear someone else talk about how multilayered we are really changed my entire life. Because I truly believed that this is all I am. This is all I ever will be. I'll be a fuck up for the rest of my life. And there's just no changing it. So when it came across the concept of shadow work, everything that happens in your subconscious, that we can be all things. We're not just one thing. You're not just good or bad. You're so multilayered. And there's so many things that are running. This sort of subconscious programming that is constantly running. And you have to bring awareness to certain things in order to be able to change it. It really just ignited my mind in a way that I just never experienced before. And then it just took me on this journey of wanting to understand other things that are happening on a brain-based level. Why do I find myself in this cycle where when things are going so well, when my sobriacy, for example, the longest I'd been sober was maybe six months. And then I'd start to feel kind of uncomfortable that things are going so well. And then I would start entertaining the idea of just one more drink and make a justification to have that one drink. Even though a part of me knows that it's not going to be just one. Because that's not what I want. And then I end up on another four-day bender. And then I'm back in the cycle again. But it actually feels quite comfortable. So I discovered what shadow work was. And then I was led on a path of just reading more, consuming as many things as possible. And I was still sober at this time, maybe three weeks sober. And I was so proud of myself that I've been able to go this far. But I'm not just doing it alone now. I kind of have all of this information that allows me to understand what is happening. It allows me to understand that just because I'm having the thoughts of, I remember this was my thing for a while, I thought, seeing as alcohol is the problem, maybe I should just stick to coke. And then I let that just because you have those thoughts, you don't have to entertain them. You're not your thoughts. You can play the role of being the observer. So I was learning so many tools that completely transformed this part of my sobriety. Was AA a part of your... I went to a few meetings, but it didn't resonate with me. And it didn't resonate with me because I didn't quite understand why every single time I get up, I have to say, my name is Africa and I am an addict every single time. I'm sort of reaffirming that as part of my identity. And I know that it works for a lot of people. I have friends who've been doing it for decades and it works. But for me, I felt that I think language is very important. And the words that you use to speak onto your identity are very important. So I felt very uncomfortable to have to say that every single time I am Africa and I'm an addict. I guess my assumption is part of the reason that helps people is because for so many years of trying to get sober, I've been trying to convince themselves, maybe I'm not an addict. Maybe I can have that one drink. And so the mantra... It's part of my health. Like an acceptance, yeah. And I completely understand that. But I think for me, it was doing something else that didn't feel like progress. I think I preferred to find just an alternative way. I preferred to find an alternative way. And I was able to get the support that I needed through friends, through reading, through listening to different mentors. And I think stories were a big part of it. You know, listening to other people's stories. People that have experienced so much adversity and struggle and relapse so many times, but they were able to get up. They were able to cultivate resilience. So I was able to get my needs met in different ways. And AA being in the meetings was actually really beautiful actually because there's no judgment. There is no judgment. And you can bring anything to the table. And no one is going to look at you as if you're evil, as if there's some kind of moral failing on your part. So it was very useful. But in terms of where I wanted to go, I just didn't see it as the thing that was going to be supportive long term. Look, you're not going to live forever. As much as you might want to, it's just not in the cards. And what that means is that if people depend on you, you need life insurance. Policy Genius was built to modernize the life insurance industry. Their technology makes it easy to compare life insurance quotes from America's top insurers in just a few clicks to find your lowest price. With Policy Genius, you can find life insurance policies that start at just $39 per month for $2 million of coverage. Some options offer coverage in as little as a week and avoid unnecessary medical exams. Policy Genius has licensed agents who can help you find the best fit for your needs. They work for you, not the insurance companies. That means they don't have an incentive to recommend one insurer over another so you can trust their guidance. There are no added fees and your personal details are private. No wonder they have thousands of five star reviews on Google and Trustpilot. Your loved ones deserve a financial safety net. You deserve a smarter way to buy it. Head to PolicyGenius.com or click the link in the description to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save. Once again, that's PolicyGenius.com. The whole thing is fucked up. You're on the edge with Andrew Gold and that was true crime legend Amanda Knox. If you like interviews with the most controversial and extreme people, then your love on the edge with Andrew Gold. Here's me talking to a real life psychopath. How would you feel if somebody just started strangling me? Well, I do not feel connected to you Andrew. I take you inside cults such as extreme Islam. I feel I was going to die out there. Before we delve into the darkest minds. Was the violence? Yes. Find it wherever you get your podcast that's on the edge with Andrew Gold. Once you got sober were you able to reconnect with some of the friends you had lost? Yes, I was. I was maybe about a year or two in when I was fully grounded in my sobriety and they knew that I was different and they knew that I knew what I was taking accountability for. It wasn't just sort of a reactionary apology of trying to get people back. I knew what I was apologizing for. Another thing that was important that I was going to lead up to is I came across the term self-subotage, maybe six months into my sobriety. And that was also another kind of light bulb moment which gave me language for everything that then came after. And self-subotage is essentially when you get in your own way. Maybe when things are going well you decide to pull the plug. Or you feel quite uncomfortable when there's no drama or chaos in your life. So you feel like you need to inject some drama in some kind of way. Or maybe you feel like you're not deserving of good things. You feel like you're not worthy. So you always have to just find a way to just shake things up a little bit. And that described my experience to the tea. And about a year or two into my sobriety that's when I started getting trained in things like positive psychology and developmental coaching. Because I knew... Even example of self-subotage. Yeah, absolutely. I can give my own personal example which I've spoken about before but I know that a lot of people resonate with this. Let's say you are in a romantic relationship with someone. And it's a very loving relationship. And things are going well. You love this person. This person loves you. You've never felt so understood. Actually, maybe on some level you've always had a suspicion that relationship is a very loving relationship. And things are going well. You love this person. This person loves you. You've never felt so understood. Actually, maybe on some level you've always had a suspicion that relationships always end bad. One person is always going to cheat. Or you've just always kind of had negative beliefs on some level. Conscious or unconscious about relationships. But now you find yourself in a relationship that actually goes against all of those beliefs. This person fully accepts you for who you are. When things go wrong, they want to communicate and actually make things work. And it makes you uncomfortable. For some reason, you can't even intellectually explain why. But it just doesn't feel good that this person understands you so well. So you start to find something wrong with them. So you can have an excuse to break up with them. There's objectively nothing wrong is happening. Things are going really well. You've been in this relationship for a while. So you might start to feel a little bit suffocated. Maybe you start to view them as being clingy when actually they're just in this relationship with you and they want to be around you. But you start to find something wrong with them so you can have an excuse to pull the plug. So that the belief that you have, that relationships always end badly can be fulfilled. And you can say, see. Yes, funny. I have a very good friend. And I sometimes joke about him every time he dates a girl. He always finds something wrong with her. Like, it doesn't no matter how small. Right? It could be, you know, she's so attractive. We had a great conversation. It's like just like listening all the great funny at this. But it's never going to work because of this one thing. And I always make this joke to him. And I think he thinks the joke is a little bit unfair. And that, I don't know, we'll see how things turn out. But I mean, that seems like a classic example potentially of self-sabotage. Yes. I'm sorry. Do you think you've ever experienced it? Do you think you've ever sabotaged yourself in any way? I'm sure that I have at some moments where I've certainly had the temptation to, not necessarily in relationships, I think. But I would have to go to therapy. And that does the thing. It's really conscious. It is really conscious. That what I find so fascinating and what keeps me so excited about the work that I do is knowing that we have this, we're like a super computer. And for the most part, we're running on this programming that is so ancient and so subconscious that you could be the most self-aware person, the most intelligent person. But there's certain decisions that you will make that are based on that old programming. Oh, I can give you, I think one example of how I see myself self-sabotage is in self-promotion. My loathing of promoting myself and promoting my work, right? Like I will put in hundreds or thousands of hours into some project and then just not want to promote it or not do certain simple, fairly simple tasks to get as many people to consume that as possible. Which doesn't make any sense because I literally want as many people to encounter this project as possible. That's why I'm sharing it with the world. I'm not writing this in my diary. I'm not making this song and leaving it on my computer. I'm putting it out there. But then I'm not going to do simple things to broadcast it. And I felt that resistance in myself and I don't know if that would count as an example of self-sabotage. That's huge common. I work with... This is turning into a therapy. Do you know what I can hear your listeners being like, oh my goodness, because this is so common and it's huge. Because now, 60 years on from my own very personal experiences with self-sabotage and then wanting to understand the driving force behind why we do the things with procrastination is another form of self-sabotage. Where a lot of us have this need and it's kind of linked perfectionism is also another form of self-sabotage because you know there's no such thing as perfect. You intellectually, on a conscious level, you know that. But on the subconscious level, you're striving for perfection. So you won't allow yourself to even begin or to do anything unless the conditions are perfect, unless you know that it's going to be perfect. But that's nothing is going to happen. So procrastination is one of the biggest forms of self-sabotage actually. But the example that you've given is huge because now, six years on, I've moved on from my own subjective experience. I've been studying self-sabotage for a very long time now. Just wanting to understand some of the drivers behind it. And I now work with entrepreneurs, people that are hyper-visible, so people that are in the public. I, people that for the most part, need to promote their work. So the Coleman's of the world, the Africa bricks of the world, people that need to promote for them to be seen. But there's a huge resistance to it. Huge resistance. Maybe they'll share something once and think it's done just to kind of get it out of the way. Or maybe when they share something a few times, they think it's too much. What if I'm annoying people? What if people view me as someone that is sort of so self-absorbed or what if the reasons might be? Yeah, I think that's huge. The bull's eye for me. Yeah, it's incredible. But do you ever think that about other people? That they're promoting themselves too much. Certainly not if I like the product. If I like the product, I'm just grateful that it was promoted enough to get into my consciousness. Yeah, because the interesting thing about that. If I dislike the product, then maybe any level of promotion I'm not into, but it's a moot point because I dislike the product. Yeah, that's where the shadow thing comes in, right? Because if I think every time I see other people promoting, I think that they're self-absorbed. I think they're so caught up in what they're doing. Maybe their work is not even that great. Anyway, I'm going to place the same judgments onto myself. So now when I try to do it, I will assume that other people are going to look at me in the same way. So then I'll stop myself from doing it so that I don't appear that way to other people. So it's just fascinating. And I think that's why even when I look at self-sabotage through a more cultural lens, which is what I do now with my work around self-censorship, I see that we're just getting in our own way. We're saying that we want certain things, but our behavior is in direct contradiction with the things that we say we want. And I just find that so fascinating. So while I have you here for this free personal therapy session. Yes. So I want to revisit, I want to run my relationship to alcohol past you. So I'm someone who drinks two to three times a week, I would say. And I never drink alone or am tempted to drink alone. What makes me want to reach for the drink is being in a conversation with someone and feeling any level of social anxiety or discomfort. This conversation is boring me slightly or I'm not being as open as I want to be. These are the thoughts and feelings I have, which make me reach for that drink to have a few drinks and get that shortcut to vulnerability expressing myself as much as I actually want to. So I have a strong desire for social connection and yet I find social connection sometimes difficult to manufacture in the absence of alcohol, especially with a stranger or with an acquaintance, someone that I'm not extremely close to. So that is what it's basically being out and about and talking to people that leads me to reach for alcohol and then inevitably I'm just, even if I'm not quite hung over the next day, I'm just that little extra bit of lethargic. I was going to spend an hour really crushing it in the gym and now I'm only spending 30 minutes or I'm not going at all or I was really going to put in that extra two hours of work on this project and it becomes 30 minutes. And that is really, I wouldn't say it's a huge problem but it's annoying and the ideal situation would be for me to be able to socially connect to the extent that I really want to deep down without having to reach for alcohol in order to do that. So certainly my problems aren't nowhere near the scale that yours are. I think I have a much more moderate relationship with it but there are, I guess there are a reliance on alcohol is just a spectrum with alcoholic at one end, tea toadling at the other and this kind of in between where I imagine I'm probably preaching to the choir for many people having this issue. So no doubt you have a lot to say about alcoholism and the extreme problem. What do you have to say about the kind of moderate problems that people like myself encounter? Oh, I love that. I love that because a lot of people are definitely kind of gray area drinkers. Most people are in the middle, I would say. Although I think depending where you are culturally, I think here in the UK, most people probably pass the gray area part. You know something that came up as you were speaking, it was actually a question. How did you connect with people before you started drinking? Well, I think I didn't connect with most people and then the people I did, I connected with them over shared interests. So occasionally I would come across someone that we just loved the same thing, probably music at the time, adolescence, and through playing music together, sharing music together, we would become very close. Yeah. And that was a window into all the other areas of life and intimacy. Well, now that we became friends over our shared interests, now I want to tell you about this thing I'm struggling with a girl, this thing I'm struggling with my family. Yes. And that's how I generally became close to people. To me, essentially in the examples that you gave, we're talking about communication, right? How can I communicate and connect with people without needing to reach for a drink without it being a need? And to me, I think, and this is something that I had to remind myself, I had this idea that connecting and communicating is supposed to be easy by default. If it doesn't feel easy, then something is wrong, right? When that's not actually true. It's a constant practice. And once I've realized, and I don't know if this gives a clean answer to your question, because I don't think there is one, what I realized was that it is a practice. It is a continuous practice. And for me, a value that is important to me, and I've realized this over time, is courage, having authentic courage. I still have situations where I feel anxious, where I feel a little bit nervous, or just anxious, or I don't want to be somewhere. And I want to have the clarity to know, do I want to be here or not? Do I want to be engaging in this conversation or not? And I allow myself to practice and to be in different situations without trying to walk the experience in some kind of way. So for me, if courage is something that's important to you, then I think it's actually a good thing to put yourself in those situations where you're socially anxious, but you get to just try a little bit more. And if you're not enjoying the conversation, if you're not enjoying the situation, isn't it a great thing that you get to be aware of that? And you get to decide, you always have a choice, do I leave? Something that I was never able to do was knowing when to leave. Because if I wasn't enjoying something, or I was bored, then I would drink so that I can make myself stay. So it's almost like I didn't even have internal boundaries. And I think that's huge. I didn't have the boundaries to be like, Africa, we're not enjoying this, let's go. And finding the right way to leave, if you need to. And if I don't take to you, leaving a social situation can feel like an attack on everyone else there. Fuck you guys, you're boring me. I'm going home. It's about how you leave. It's about how you leave. Because I think that's... It's what have you learned about how to leave. First of all, I had to let go of that binary thinking of if I leave that I'm bad. If I leave, then they're going to think this. Well, how could I leave? Do I have something to do in the morning? And it's about... I mean, it's a whole thing about communicating, right? Because it's not just about what you're saying, it's the tone and how you say. So if I have something to do in the morning, then I'll maybe even when I arrive, I'll just be like, by the way, I won't be staying for too long, but I promise that we're going to have a good time while I'm here. Already, I've been able to tell them I'm going to be going, but well, the time that we have, it's going to be nice, right? So I think there are different ways you can practice that without having to be like, you know what? In order for me to be able to tolerate this, I'm going to take this substance and I'm going to have as much of it as possible, and then figure out what happens after that. So I think it's just different ways of either saying no or different ways of leaving, but I think ultimately putting yourself in those, quote unquote, uncomfortable situations actually allows you to be a more courageous person. And it means that when you do drink, you trust your intention behind that drink. Do you know what I mean? Right. Yeah, because I think drinking to be able to tolerate a person or a situation is already a signal that something isn't quite right. Or, you know, it could be a signal that it's not a sustainable friendship or relationship, right? Yes. If you're only enjoying each other when you're drunk, right? Right. And you cannot realize that for a long time with a person just because you happen to be drunk every time you're around this person. I think my longest friendships and relationships have tended to be with people that I've learned I can enjoy greatly both sober and tipsy, right? They're not a problem when they're drunk, but we can hang out sober for hours and we still have stuff to talk about. Yes. And there's the relationships where it's just going to be one or the other. Yeah. That can be that can be tough because there's a rub that comes out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree. And I am definitely not anti-alcohol. I think I was for the first couple of years, which is completely normal because I suddenly had all of these realizations, even looking at how the alcohol industry markets to women versus to men, you know, even the colors, you know, you get things like a pink smurnt off or something like that and the sort of advertising, how it's targeted to women versus men, just different things that I was reading. That made me very, very angry and frustrated. And you start to notice that this thing, which is essentially a drug, is everywhere. It's kind of one of those things. When you stop doing something, you start seeing it everywhere, or when you want something, you start seeing it everywhere. For me, alcohol was the same. And I think it's almost like when people find God or find religion, they just want to tell everyone about it to kind of save everyone. I think I was like that. I was never pushy, but I definitely sort of had that energy of seeing that a lot of people I knew were struggling, were struggling so much. And because of my sobriety, they felt like they could actually share that with me or with other people. But I'm not anti-alcohol. I think everyone gets to decide what they ingest and what they don't. And I think other people can have one or two and still be fine and have fun and be okay with it. But I think it's the honesty. A lot of people are not honest about how it actually makes them feel. Not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually. A lot of people are not honest. And as a sober person, people feel comfortable to tell me how it really makes them feel, how it's impacting their life, how they're getting a little bit worried about how much they drink at certain levels. And I think that's a good thing to think about. I think that's a good thing to think about. I think that's a good thing to think about. I think that's a good thing to think about. I think that's a good thing to think about. I think that's a good thing to think about. I think that's a good thing to think about. I think that's a good thing to think about. I think that's a good thing to think about. Get ready for the miracle of mega, a comedy podcast from the staff of a fictional mega church. I'm Holly Lauren. And I'm Greg Hess. Our characters, Holly and Gray, welcome a new guest each week, played by some of the biggest names in comedy and podcasting. Like Scott Ocherman, Lauren Lapgas, Paul Sheer, Jason Manzukas, Cecily Strong, and Duncan Trussell. I just love to think about the light shining down on all those corpses in the water and Noah just going by and maybe a mom being like, Please, we're running out of energy. Can you please let us on the boat? It's completely improvised and it's devilishly funny. Is there any question you have for us about, you know, what it means to live a life in Christ? God won't be as scary as that movie, the nun, right? There's a new episode every Sunday. Listen and subscribe to mega wherever you get your podcasts. Best I ever had. Best now, y'all could do it, y'all could do it, you have to stick along. We don't say it go. Jesus, you the best. Jesus, you the best. Jesus, you the best. Jesus, you the best. Okay, everybody. Best I ever had. Stoicism. What do you think about when you hear that word? Do you think of a bunch of old stodgy judges with no sense of humor? Do you think of red pill masculinity influencers peddling alpha male advice? Or do you think of the ancient philosophy and school of virtue ethics, stoicism, with a capital S, which is all about the lifetime commitment to developing a virtuous character? My name is Tanner Campbell, and if you answered yes to any of those options, but the last, I'd love to invite you to listen to a few episodes of my podcast, Practical Stoicism. Stoicism teaches us about the dichotomy of control, the differences between preferred and dispreferred indifference, our human responsibility towards the cosmopolis and to true justice, and it endeavors to help us to become the best, most useful, most appropriate, and most human versions of ourselves. If you'd like to get the real scoop on stoicism and join an audience of hundreds of thousands of practicing stoics who we call procoptons, then check out the Practical Stoicism Podcast. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts, or anywhere else you choose to listen to podcasts. I hope to see you soon, and until then, take care. So, you know, what's interesting to me about both American and British, and probably European cultures in general, is the enormous peer pressure to drink alcohol. So, I experience this because I tend to have a rule with myself where if I'm doing a podcast tomorrow, or if I'm doing really anything where I have to be sharp, I'm not going to drink tonight. I'm not even going to have one. Just because I want to have great sleep, I want to be the best version of myself, and I just had, you know, I had, it only took a few experiences where I was just a bit lethargic and hungover, not even quite hungover, but just a bit lethargic with like a great guest. And I was like, wow, I really squandered an opportunity to be a fresh mind, the only time I may talk to this person in my life, right? So, I've maintained that rule for a while now, and so that means sometimes I'm going to a dinner, I have a thing the next day, I'm saying, oh, I'm not drinking tonight. And I've been often encountered a level of pressure around drinking, which is just totally, if you're from this culture, you may think it's normal, but it's actually insane if you were to compare it to any other drugs. For instance, if you don't smoke weed or you don't do coke and you're around people that are doing either, and you say, oh, no, not for me, not tonight, no one will really think that you're weird. In most cases, people, oh, or even if you say, oh, I don't really smoke weed, no one will say, oh, are you a weedaholic? Are you, what's wrong? Just have a good man. Very good. Yeah, but if you don't have a drink, it's very quickly, almost anger. Are you an alcoholic one, or what the hell is the matter, man? Just loosen up, have a fucking drink. Right. Because you're making me look like an asshole. You're making me think about the fact that maybe I shouldn't be drinking tonight. That's what it is. Right, and people, good people, normal people, get fucking angry at you for not drinking one night. Again, I'm not talking about people that were in your pit of true alcoholism. I'm talking about slightly more moderate drinkers even. I think the biggest part of that, which is exactly what you said, and I hear this time and time again, it's people feeling, for whatever reason, that your know is a judgment on them, that maybe you'll think you're better than them in some way, which is bizarre, and you say it out loud, but I think it's that projection, isn't it, where there's, but I would like to think that if you find yourself, especially if it's your friendship group, et cetera, whether is that behavior that highlights something else that goes beyond the alcohol itself, because that means there's no basic respect of your boundaries, right, of you putting forward your boundaries. And I think it's important just on the boundaries piece. That's why I think it's huge to cultivate strong internal boundaries, where regardless of that external pressure, your know is a no. I'm not drinking today. That's it full stop. There's no over explaining. And again, a lot of it as well, people is to do with your tonality and your delivery. You don't have to be defensive, because sometimes even if you have a bit of a defensive energy that can spare the other person on to be like, oh, but if you're convicted within yourself and just calm, yo, I'm not drinking today. I'm fine, but I'll have something else. Maybe some humor as well can kind of, you know, because I think also when we're carrying these boundaries, it doesn't have to be like, you know, but I think you have to have strong internal boundaries because that can be felt by other people as well. And even if they want to pressure you in some kind of way or make their own joke, you have to, you have to hold your own ground. I really do believe that, but it can also highlight fractures in relationships. If these are people that are close to you and they seem to pressure you when you've clearly stated that you're not choosing to partake in a certain thing. So let's pivot to the topic of self censorship. A few days ago, I was delighted to see an admirer of mine come up to me after an event I did here. And she said to me, Coleman, it's an honor to meet you. I just want to let you know in 2020, me and two close friends started watching your podcasts and people like Glenn Lowry and John McWhorter. And because of that, we became a kind of a trio that could talk about these issues openly and we had a WhatsApp thread with your face on it. And I was so touched because that's exactly who I want to be for people. At the same time, it brought out what is a massive problem in our culture, which is self censorship, right? This woman felt like she could not talk about the issue of race and racism around most people she knew so that she had to break off in a trio of two people around whom she could speak freely. And this is a huge problem. It's not just a problem on the topic of race. It's about almost anything controversial or politicized. It will come up and you'll just find yourself not saying what you believe because you are terrified that you are going to get social pushback and you are going to get viewed as a horrible person. And did you hear what Coleman said in this conversation? He said that he's XYZ. He's a he's, you know, he's a horrible person. He believes this. And this is such a deep fear for people that people just find themselves shutting up. A lot of your work has been around helping people to stop self censor, which is, I think, and much needed and rare intervention. I mean, there's many people complaining about self censorship. Very few people actually holding you by the hand and helping you stop doing it because at some level, to stop doing it, you have to take some responsibility for it, right? You can't simply blame cancel culture and blame everyone else. At some point, you have to decide to stop self censoring if you're going to make a change. So how do you think about self censorship from a psychological perspective and how do you help people come out of that habit? Yeah. Oh, and thank you for that reflection. I think in the conversations around cancel culture and what's happening socially, et cetera, which are conversations I truly believe are so important and we can't stop having them anytime soon because I think the tide is slowly turning. So we need to keep up these conversations. But I found that one of the missing components that people were not really speaking about was the self censorship piece. I think we were zooming out, zooming out so much speaking about the culture, but not talking about what's happening on an individual level. What's kind of fueling all of this? So as someone that has been looking and trying to understand self sabotage for such a long time, when we get in our own way, so we say certain things, but our behavior is completely different and we're not getting our desired results. So we're saying we want connection, for example, but we've never felt more divided. So there were a lot of contradictions that I was noticing in my own behavior that I could easily label as self sabotage. And I realized that cancel culture to me was ultimately collective sabotage. So it's all of these things that are happening to the individual, but we're coming together from this fragmented place and trying to take action. I'm glad that I noticed this quite early on three years ago that the area that I want to focus on is self censorship because I think when the individual starts to honor their supposed wrong thoughts and they cultivate a voice that is actually strong, a voice that is true, a voice that is not just echoing the list of agreed upon things. And when they take responsibility for what their values actually are for their ideas and their thoughts and their capacity to make mistakes and to be granted redemption, once you go through that entire process yourself, the individual, you will have the courage to express yourself in a more mindful way. And the work that I have been doing for the past six years and self sabotage and coaching and consulting and mentoring, I found that I can actually use all of those skills, communication skills, but also emotional resilience and understanding your mindset and being able to have brave, uncomfortable conversations, which are things I've been doing for a very long time. I can look at what's happening in the culture, take some of those tools and support people in a meaningful way. Because like you said, I didn't just want to talk into a void and end up in one echo chamber in sort of the anti work group because that's not what I'm here to do. That's not what I'm here to do. I'm here to continue doing the work that I have been doing for the past five, six years. And for me, the self censorship piece has just been so transformative in exploring because it goes beyond politics. It speaks to your interpersonal relationships. What are the things that you're withholding from your romantic partner? Because you think if you put them forward, they will leave you. What are the things that you're not saying? Because the culture that you're from, the family you're from, you might be maybe disowned or you might be rejected in some way. How do you then find the courage? A lot of this is about courage. How do you find the courage to actually express yourself in a way that is true, in a way that is honest, even when or especially when it goes against the grain? So there's this piece of advice, this meme that goes around that in America, at least that at Thanksgiving, you don't discuss religion and politics because you, you know, that conversation is bound to go poorly. Yes. You may disagree with him on. Yes. Do you think that's wise advice or do you think that is part of the problem? Do you think we should be trying to talk about all of these controversial topics with people or do you think there is some room for kind of wise, you know, let's agree to disagree or not bring it up, don't bring it up? Yeah. I by no means, oh, and I'm glad you asked that. That's huge. Because I'm such a fierce advocate for unraveling and undoing self-centership, I think there are a lot of assumptions that I am maybe like a free speech absolutist or I think we should say anything and everything that we want to say that could not be further from the truth and that's entirely ineffective because there are even people that I used to respect thinkers that do very great work and people like Kanye West, for example, who you could say that's a very sense of free man. But is it effective? Is it actually allowing for connection to happen? Because I think you could say whatever you want to say, but if you're not using discernment, then you're not being effective. So when I work with people individually or when I work with groups or in my work, I always emphasize the importance of having a useful social filter. You need to have a social filter that allows you to be able to engage with the world in a realistic, sustainable, meaningful way. And this is something that we use unconsciously anyway, right? Because I always use the example of, let's say your aunt has a haircut, she has a new haircut, she has this pixie haircut, she's so excited about it and she's really, she's wanted everyone to see it. Let's say it is Thanksgiving and she's kind of unveiling this new pixie short haircut for the first time. But in reality, it looks a little bit like Boris Johnson. Are you familiar with that? It looks a little bit like that. But are you going to externalize that thought and that observation? Is it useful for you to do that? No, she's excited. It's not going to add anything. In fact, it's going to take from the situation from her own personal joy, right? So it's not going to be a bad thing for you to withhold that and to maybe smile or whatever the reaction might be. It's not you stepping out of integrity. It's you realizing that a social filter in this instance is important because it's not the right time or place or situation and it's not going to be useful. So what happens if she says, what do you think of my... I think in that moment, I would say, I like it. Yeah, because maybe I don't hate it. Right. Yeah, I would say I like it and I wouldn't feel like I'm self-centred. That's not a white lie sort of? Yeah, I think that's a white lie. What would you say? I would probably say the same thing. Yeah, I would say I like it because it's not taking anything from me. I'm not feeling like I'm betraying myself. I'm not feeling like I'm... You know what, a key variable for me would be my past relationship with this person. Yeah. So is this... Yeah. I have friends that I know if they get a haircut and it's bad, they actually want me to tell them. Yes, yes. And then I have other people I know proverbial aunt that I think when she asked me about her haircut, based on everything I know about her, I don't think that she really cares for my opinion on it. Yes. I think what she's actually telling me is notice that I got a haircut. Yeah. Right. And so saying I like it is a way of me acknowledging that I'm noticing it. Yes. And there are people that don't... She likes her haircut. She doesn't give a shit what you think. She just wants you to notice that she got a haircut. Right. So for me, I think my response would depend on whether I put them in the former category of the law. Absolutely. And that language of it depends is huge because that means you don't say every single thought that comes in because not every single thought is a useful thought or a good thought or it's going to add anything or it's going to allow for the dialogue to evolve in a way that will lead you to your desired result. That's not going to be the case for every single thought. So I think discernment is key. So I always tell people there's a difference between self-sensoring, which is when you withhold your ideas, your thoughts, your opinions out of fear. So fear is the driving force. Whereas with social filtering using your useful social filter, which you do every single day, it's from a grounded place. It's from a place of discernment. Yeah, it's from a place of not wanting to be an asshole. Yes. Yes. Right. Because I feel I would be being an asshole if I told you I don't like your haircut, right? Because unless it's really like I've been writing shotgun with your haircuts for five years and I have opinions about which ones look good and I really want you to look good and I know that you want honest feedback. Yes. Right. Then I don't feel like I'm being a dick. Completely different. But if I, I guess the feeling of being a dick is kind of my filter in those kinds of situations. Yes. Yes. But I do want to, I want to talk about self-censorship proper. And what, when we talk about self-censorship in 2023 or at any point in the past eight to ten years, what we're talking about is woke ideas, much of the time. We're talking about the idea that society is racist, that we live in a patriarchy, that your racial identity is a deep key feature of who you are. And any criticism of these ideas in many circles, at least the circles I have run in and roughly half of elite circles or more, if you criticize these ideas, you really run the risk of being seen as a heretic. Yes. So I think when people, and you have this wonderful post called Why I'm Leaving the Cult of Wokeness, which I really recommend, you know, people read, especially anyone who feels that they, feels that something is off with the woke social circle that they are in, that there is something not quite right about who it's making them become. I really recommend they read that. So I guess my question is, how do you view the problem of self- overcoming self-censorship, specifically with reference to woke ideas and woke subcultures? Yeah, it's a very debilitating place to be in. And I really try to not forget that when I have these conversations. I remember the just how intense it felt from late 2018. For me, late 2018 is when I started to just, before I could intellectualize any of what I was feeling, because of course, retrospect is a beautiful thing, because you now have all of these, all of this language and you can link your behavior in different ways and be able to articulate it clearly. But at that time for me, it was just a feeling. Something doesn't feel quite right. I was part of many different movements at the time. I had started my sexual wellness company Cherry Revolution, which was a result of discovering my sexual shame and sobriety and wanting to remove shame from conversations around pleasure and sexuality. So naturally, my company and the work that I was doing got labeled as feminism. And I always joke about this, but at the time my head's always been shaved, but I had underarm hair. So I had the full uniform for feminism. And even though I'd never labeled myself as such, but at the end of the day, my values do align with feminism. That's not a label that I wear and don't need to. But it meant that naturally I started to engage and to be part of certain conversations, whether it was the LGBT community, trans conversations were still, they were very much happening at the time, but not with the same level of intensity as they are happening now. But it was, it were all things that I found to be very important, whether there were conversations about race or sexuality or gender or immigration, just I found myself kind of slowly being led into politics, which is not really something that I've ever had a direct and genuine interest in as in saying that I'm interested in politics. But it's when I started to notice that even just the most intimate aspects of our lives were becoming politicized. Everything was starting to become politicized. And there were a lot of things that I was told that I need to agree with by default of my identity because I'm black, I'm supposed to feel oppressed. I'm supposed to believe that every single white person has contributed to the oppression that I feel and I'm supposed to feel quite angry about it, which was, if you remember what I was saying before about my upbringing and the kids that I was around. And regardless of the experiences that I had where my race was a target in some way, I still never felt that white people were to blame entirely as a race because of how I feel and because of what these children are doing. But from around 2017, 2018, there was this intensity of feeling that I had to agree with all of these things in order for me to be accepted as part of the black community or part of the progressive community or any other community that was a part of that. And it just didn't feel some of the things that I was echoing just didn't feel really right or true. But at the same time, I was holding them and championing them with such intensity. But I was only doing that because I felt like it was what I had to do in order to be accepted. And if I don't agree, that means I am right wing and I don't believe that to be a bad thing at all. If you're right wing, left wing, whatever your politics are, that's fine. But at the time, for someone to have put the label right wing onto me felt like such a punishment, like there was a weight to it. So I felt that I had to agree with all of these things, but not just agree mentally, but also state that I agree and these mantras that I had to also say. And then in 2019, it got even worse for me. I felt that there were a lot of thoughts that I had and a lot of questions that I had. I was noticing a lot of contradictions as well, but I felt that I couldn't say it. It felt like a betrayal. It felt like a betrayal to any black person for me to be thinking in this way. So that's where the self censorship started in my own mind. And I always refer to it as the mob in your mind because that's what it feels like before the internet mob can even get to you. There's the one that gets to you from in here. And it made me very sick. I remember having chronic migraines, which is something that I've had from a young age. But when I'm going through an extremely stressful period, I get them. And I had them consistently for that entire year because there was such a conflict in that I'm a very confident and outspoken person. I'm willing to speak about anything and everything. But when it came to certain things, certain topics, I felt like I couldn't go there, even with the people around me or even especially with the people around me at the time. And that's when I truly realized I didn't even know what the term self censorship was then. And it was a very visceral thing that was consuming every cell of my being, feeling like I'm lying. I don't agree with this, but I'm being told that I need to. Listening to people like Jordan Peterson, even Ayesha, who was one of the first people to start speaking about things like this, especially here in the UK, trigonometry, it felt like I was doing something bad by listening to them. Even when I came across you in 2020, I felt wrong for listening. Yeah, because it felt like I shouldn't, I should have, what if someone's fucking watching? I shouldn't be listening to this because that's how entrenched I was in different echo chambers. But there was a struggle because my old self who had at some point in time sort of agreed and made these commitments and the self that knew that this isn't right, Africa, this is not who you are, this is not how you think, this is not how you speak about these things. This is not what you believe. It was a struggle between the two. And then in 2020 is when I actually allowed my true self, the person that I am now, to make that declaration of I'm not, I'm not doing this anymore. I can't play this game anymore. So that's how I sort of unraveled my own self censorship and realized that it was a form of self sabotage. And then I started speaking about it in the way that I do today. So the problem with self censorship about woke ideas is that I've found myself in this situation, because of who I am, I've probably to a greater extent than most people have been in situations where I'm talking to someone and they're literally like yelling at me, telling me I'm a bad person. And I am, these situations are very psychologically tough. And I find myself become less articulate about what I actually believe when the glare of social disapproval and all of that is being directed at me. So the word that usually comes to the tip of my tongue doesn't arrive because I feel an almost flight or flight, fight or flight sense of threat, right? So I think this is one of the big problems, right? If I could speak as articulately as I do on my podcast or when I'm giving a speech or a Q and A in the situation where there's four people around me telling me I'm not black enough for what I'm saying right now and interrupting me and all of the social dynamics that come with how heretics tend to be treated, it would be easier. But I mean, and then there's this sense that maybe I'm just incapable of reaching the people I'm talking to. So the next word out my mouth doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's high quality, if it's well chosen or not. So I'm curious how you think of just situations where you're currently, you're having that tough conversation, you're being the one to disagree with the people you're around. How do you retain composure in that kind of a situation? Ironically, I'm viewed as someone that is quote unquote great at this, right? This is a question I always get from my followers, right? How do you do? You seem to be so great at all. But from my own perspective, I don't, you know, I struggle with it, right? So I'm curious how you approach this. It's so difficult. I've never personally had that situation in that exact same way. I've had people, a conversation where someone does disagree with me, but for the most part, I've been lucky to have those conversations when there's a foundation of respect. The person in front of me respects what I have to say in some way. But it's incredibly tough mentally because it just shakes your nervous system. So you're not in a place where you even feel safe enough to be rational and to be relaxed. And I think for the most part, what a lot of people need to do in that situation is to not actually engage. Because I, and to even answer this question effectively because there's no one size fits or answer for this because it depends on your character, it depends on your personality. Some people actually thrive in those situations. That is true. Yeah. Some people thrive. They like it. They know how to do it. They're very quick. But then some people, it depends on your response time. If you're someone that actually needs time before they can respond and gather their thoughts, then nothing good is going to come from it. You're not going to be able to navigate that situation. So for me, I know myself well enough to know that I can handle a certain level of conflict. But if I can sense that there's disrespect, this is not going anywhere you're talking over me, the best thing I can do is to remove myself from that situation. And my ego is not too big that I can't remove myself from that situation. Because I think it's worse if I try and engage and then I'm flustered and then I end up saying the wrong thing. I would rather not go down that path. So I think it's knowing who you are. What is your communication style? Right? I think it's very, very important. And in the moment, you can't, for the most part, you can't prepare for those moments. Because you don't know how it's going to work out, but you can prepare for how you will respond by knowing yourself. So for me, it is removing myself. If I know that I don't, this is not going to be conducive. And these people clearly are operating from a place of purely emotion. And even that example you gave, it sounds like it's purely emotion. Even if you come out with something rational, that might amp them up even more because rationality and emotion, it's like oil and wine. Oh my goodness. It doesn't work. And for me, removing myself from the situation seems to be the most effective thing. But if you're someone that can handle themselves and you're like, you know what I do? Like a challenge, let's go. Then if that's your personality, then yeah. But for most of us, it's actually not worth it unless there's a baseline of understanding. Even if there's no respect, if you will, if you know that the other person is going to allow you to at least speak, then I think maybe it's worthy of engaging. But man, it's tough. There is, you said, for some people, the ego doesn't allow them to just leave the conversation. I think that's me. It's not that I have any hope for how the conversation is going. It's that to leave would mean I can't handle the heat of this topic. And I'm somehow conceding maybe that you're right, right? Or that I don't have a response, right? So I never leave the conversation. I've been in situations where I was where a different person might worry that they were about to get beat up, right? And I just, I can't bring myself to leave in the same way that I actually, I've never blocked anyone on Twitter, right? Right. 250,000 followers, people saying crazy shit. Yeah. I mean, all the time and reply guys that get on my nerves. But I can't give anyone the win of saying, you got to me enough that I have to leave this. And this might be a part of my own complex. What if you were to reframe that? I think online, I can completely understand that in terms of not blocking anyone necessarily. And I think it can be useful actually because I, something that we're talking about without saying the word is resilience. Having that emotional resilience to withstand something, even if it's difficult and uncomfortable, for whatever reason, you feel that it's important for you to be here and to, to engage still, even if it's just physically. But in that instance where you have those four people around you, how can you reframe you leaving so that it's not positioned as some kind of weakness? What else could it be? This is probably why you're a professional coach. This is exactly the kind of question I need to ask myself that I never have. And you don't need to have an answer right now, but I think it could be useful to kind of, because there will come a time maybe because you're, you're doing the work you do now, you're going to encounter even more people, you're going to continue getting bigger and bigger. And by no means wishing this upon you, but there will come a time where you might be confronted in that kind of way. And the most reasonable thing will be to leave the conversation. So it might be really important actually for you to be able to reframe that for yourself. So you can know your reason behind it, instead of it being about what the other person may or may not think, maybe similar to the, to the promotion thing that we spoke about, right? Because I think, yeah, there's a, there's a huge merit in knowing when to leave. Okay. So last question, should I use Venmo or pay for the session? Because this has been great. Stripe. Stripe. Okay. All right. Well, this has been really great for me. And I hope people found these topics in your way of framing them to be helpful. Where can my followers follow you? They can find me. I do have a podcast. It's called Beyond The Self. And you will be coming on it very soon. I'm putting that out there. So beyond the self is, I would say it is in the realm of self help, but it's also very much in the realm of philosophy as well. Because I think with some of the conversations that we're having now, it's so easy to feel like everything is out of your control. So my job and my mission is to refocus on the individual, not in a self-absorbed way, but just so we don't feel as helpless. So we can feel a bit inspired by ourselves. So we can cultivate courage. So you can find me on my podcast every week. But I'm also in social media, Instagram at Africabrook with an E at the end. Twitter, you might have to give me some tips. I've been trying to dip in and out, but it's too much. Yeah, it's pretty bad. It's too much. But you're a resilient human being. So you, you fare well on there. I guess I have people telling me that. I mean, my new strategy is just not to try to have serious conversations on Twitter. And that's working out pretty well. Right. Like, I used to have this expectation that I should be able to have serious conversations in 280 character volleys with thousands of people looking on hoping to get an attention attention with a comment. I'm not sure why anyone has this expectation. Twitter was not built as a platform to have good conversation. Right. It was built to maximize engagement on thoughts that can fit into 280 characters. So I've dropped that expectation. And now I think I have a much better relationship with it. I'll just make a joke and not take it so seriously and promote my actual work. Yes. Oh, I love that. I love that. Okay. And I might try that strategy. Well, this has been great. And I hope all of my followers go check you out, Africabrook, Briant, beyond the self. And thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of Conversations with Coleman. If you enjoyed it, be sure to follow me on social media and subscribe to my podcast to stay up to date on all my latest content. If you really want to support me, consider becoming a member of Coleman unfiltered for exclusive access to subscriber only content. Thanks again for listening and see you next time. Are you fascinated by the twisted minds that commit criminal acts? I'm Dr. Shiloh. And I'm Dr. Scott. We're both forensic psychologists working in Southern California. In each episode of our podcast, LA Not So Confidential, we dissect the Nexus where true crime, forensic psychology and entertainment meet all delivered with our signature gallows humor while examining the actual diagnosis and dishing on the media portrayal of the events. Subscribe to LA Not So Confidential anywhere you go for podcasts. Trust us. We're doctors. Have you ever felt that your life has no meaning? Do you wake up in the morning dreading the day ahead? Do you feel lost? I'm Tanner Campbell, host of the podcast Practical Stoicism. Every Saturday morning, I explore the ancient texts of Stoicism and derive from them practical takeaways that anyone can implement to live a more contented and fulfilling life. Search your podcast-listening app of choice for Practical Stoicism and join me each week to explore Stoicism practically and discover how it can help you live better.