How much of what we see on social media is real, and how much of it is an illusion we've decided to believe?

In this archive episode of The Real Empowered Self, I'm talking about that veil between what is real, what is imagined, and what we accept as truth.

A conversation with Sharon about social media personalities who had died by suicide brought me back to my own suicide attempt on November 2, 1994. I know what it means to reach a point where you don't want to be here anymore.

And it raises an uncomfortable question about the lives we see presented online.

We watch influencers showing off their bodies, their money, their relationships, and their supposedly wonderful lives. But what the fuck do we actually know about what happens when the cameras are turned off?

I even question what you can really know about me simply because you're listening to my voice.

And this isn't just about influencers.

I remember being uncomfortable enough with my own circumstances that I lied to potential dates rather than admit where and how I was living. I was creating my own veil because I didn't want someone to see what I considered ugly about my life.

So what illusions are we still maintaining? And how much of our dissatisfaction comes from comparing our actual lives with somebody else's carefully presented version?

I'm not suggesting that we can magically eliminate life's difficulties. I'm talking about getting to know ourselves, being honest about where we are, and questioning the appearances we've allowed to define what we think our lives should be.

What happens when the one thing you've wanted more than anything else in your life is to love and be loved, but you don't actually know what love is?

This Sunday Stroll is an emotional one.

I find myself remembering a morning during Sharon's cancer treatments when I woke up and discovered she wasn't in the lift chair where she'd been sleeping. The panic, the helplessness, and the anger at everything life had already thrown at us came rushing back.

Childhood abuse. Sexual abuse. My suicide attempt. The death of my infant son, Malachi. And now, watching my wife endure two cancers.

How much fucking shit was I supposed to carry?

But this morning, November 1, 2026, Sharon and I shared another moment of intimacy that reminded me how much my understanding of love has changed.

For much of my life, I allowed other people to define love for me. I entered marriages, adopted religious beliefs, and tried to become someone I thought another person could love. Eventually, I began asking what kindness, compassion, and love actually meant to me—and whether I was extending any of those things to myself.

I'm not suggesting that grief disappears or that we can affirm our way past painful experiences. I'm talking about an unfolding understanding of myself and a relationship that continues to surprise me.

I also share a song I wrote during Sharon's cancer journey, followed by some thoughts I hadn't planned to record about feeling unlovable, wanting to belong, and discovering a kind of love I once couldn't imagine experiencing.

When did you start making your own choices? And how many of those choices are actually yours, rather than decisions you've made to satisfy somebody else's expectations about who you're supposed to be?

I started thinking about this because of something as simple as music. I'm a Black man who grew up listening to Marvin Gaye and the Temptations, learned to play classical flute, and discovered Kiss and Black Sabbath along the way. Apparently, even what music we're supposed to enjoy can come with somebody else's rules.

But this goes a hell of a lot deeper than music.

Growing up, I was surrounded by expectations about who I should date, who I should marry, and what love was supposed to look like. My parents told me they loved me while doing things that left me questioning what love actually meant and what I was worth.

And those definitions don't necessarily disappear when we become adults.

So when you say you want a loving relationship, whose definition of love are you using? Have you actually decided what love means to you, or are you still carrying around somebody else's version?

I'm not telling you to reject everything you've been taught or go digging through your childhood. I'm asking whether the choices you're making today reflect who you genuinely want to be.

Because the way you see yourself, the conversations you have with yourself, and the definitions you've accepted about love all lend themselves to the relationships you're living.

What happens when you've spent most of your life feeling like you don't belong, and even the things that are supposed to help you change your life don't seem to work?

I've never really felt like I fit in. Not with my family, not in school, not in the military, and not in the support groups I tried while my wife was battling cancer. For years, I wondered whether something was fundamentally wrong with me.

And that brings me to what I call The Ugly Unsaid: the uncomfortable thoughts, doubts, and experiences that don't always make it into the cleaner conversations about personal growth, manifestation, and the Law of Attraction.

What happens when you write down something you genuinely want, only to hear that voice inside asking, "Who in the fuck do you think you are to want that?" What happens when you've spent years editing your desires and behavior to satisfy other people's expectations?

I've explored the teachings of Neville Goddard, Joseph Murphy, and others. I'm not saying their approaches are wrong. I'm questioning what happens when those approaches don't seem to work for someone like me.

And ultimately, how does any of this affect our relationships? How can we define the love, kindness, patience, and partnership we want if we haven't honestly examined what those things mean to us?

Maybe the question isn't simply what we want. Maybe it's how much of ourselves we've learned to silence while trying to belong.

How in the fuck are we supposed to find someone who loves us for who we really are when we're so busy managing what they get to see?

Sharon and I are finally behind the microphones together, and this is the beginning of Your Effin' Love Story. Not because we're going to tell you how to have the perfect relationship, but because there's a hell of a lot more to our story than the fact that we're happily married.

Four divorces. Four DUIs. A suicide attempt. Years of believing I wasn't lovable. And somehow, here I am with this extraordinary woman, talking about how we got here and what our relationship actually looks like.

And we get into some shit.

The dating games we played. The impressions we tried to create. The things we deliberately left out because we were afraid someone might not like what they saw. Hell, I even Photoshopped my tattoos out of my dating profile while expecting someone to appreciate the real me.

Sharon calls me on that contradiction, too.

Because underneath all that impression management is an uncomfortable question: If we're hiding parts of ourselves to become acceptable to someone else, what exactly are we expecting them to fall in love with?

We're not offering a formula. We're opening up our own story, including the contradictions, the laughter, and the shit we haven't always been willing to acknowledge.

For most of my life, I believed I was broken. Not temporarily broken. Fundamentally broken. I collected the evidence: childhood abuse, four divorces, four DUIs, and the day my infant son Malachi died in 1999. I turned everything that happened into proof that I was the kind of person who deserved to suffer.

But the question that finally changed things wasn’t:

“How do I get someone to love me?”

It was:

“Can I stop hating myself long enough to consider that I might actually be worth liking?”

I spent my life directing my energy outward—toward employers, partners, family, everyone around me—because giving that same attention to myself felt selfish. I never consistently considered myself someone worthy of the same effort I gave everyone else.

Then I started recording conversations with myself. No script. No performance. Just honesty.

And somewhere in that process, I started to like the person I was talking to.

Not love. Not some perfect version of myself.

Just like.

That became the doorway.

What this episode IS:

• A raw confession about shame, self-punishment, and learning to stop abandoning yourself
• An honest look at why liking yourself may need to come before loving yourself
• A conversation about what happens when you finally give yourself the attention you have always given everyone else

What this episode is NOT:

• A self-help formula
• A clinical explanation of trauma
• A motivational speech about becoming a better version of yourself

This is about one question:

What if the person you have been running from is the person who has been waiting for you all along?

July 31st, 1999, my infant son Malachi died. I carried that loss for years as proof that I was a bad person—that somehow I deserved punishment. But the question that eventually changed everything wasn’t just about grief.

It was about love.

I wanted somebody to love me. I wanted somebody to love. And I had to face a brutal truth: I didn’t know what the hell love actually was.

I had spent my life accepting definitions handed to me by religion, culture, relationships, and expectations about who I was supposed to be. I thought love was something you earned after becoming the right kind of person.

So I sat down with a blue Bic pen and an accounting ledger. No pencil. Because I knew if I used a pencil, I would start erasing. I wrote down what I actually wanted. Not the answer that sounded good. Not the answer that made me look like a better person. The truth.

And then I asked myself the question I had spent years avoiding:

What if love is possible for someone like me?

What this episode IS:

• An honest conversation about shame, self-punishment, and the search for real love
• A personal story about questioning the definitions of love we inherit without realizing it
• An invitation to examine what you actually believe about your own ability to be loved

What it is NOT:

• A grief recovery formula
• A religious explanation for suffering
• A motivational speech telling you to ignore your pain and move on

This is about one question:

What if you are not as impossible to love as you have always believed?

I recorded this on July 28th, 2026 with no intro music and no polish.

I am 60. No PhD. I spent most of my life feeling broken and out of place — parental abuse, four divorces, four DUIs, the death of my infant son Malachi. I abandoned myself by giving everything to everyone outside me because caring for myself felt selfish. It took decades before I liked myself. Only after that did I consider loving myself. That is when Sharon arrived. The archive episodes were born while she went through stage-three cancers so I could stay present instead of drinking.

This is the first episode where I play one of my own songs — lyrics I wrote. “You Love My Scars.”

If you are still crying into the pillow at night, still managing the impression, still convinced the real you is unlovable, the free book Kick Rocks is waiting. No email. No opt-in.

Just the truth.