Grocery Shopping with My Mother w/ Kevin Powell: Part 2

Published Dec 20, 2023, 11:00 AM

Returning for another deep dive conversation about mothers and sons is Author, activist and hip-hop artist Kevin Powell. This week, two new callers share their stories: The first, a woman who his the identity of her son’s father for 20 years, and the second, a mom who is dealing with her son’s drug use.

Do you want to be on the podcast? Follow Iyanla on social media for the latest call-in information!
instagram & twitter: @IyanlaVanzant
facebook: @DrIyanlaVanzant

I am Yamla. I've been very open about the fact that I was not always good at making my relationships perk. I have been divorced three times, twice from the same person. In other words, I have seen a lot and failed a lot in my relationships. So I am here to share with you what I learned along the way because I did take copious notes. Welcome to the Our Spot, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. Welcome to the Our Spot, the place we come to talk about all things relationships, in all kinds of relationships. I am your host, your guide, or should I say today I will be one of your gods because I am back with legendary author, artist, cultural activist Kevin Powell, who is the Grammy nominated creator of Grocery Shopping with My Mother. Today we're talking with two more mothers about their relationships with their sons. Now, if you haven't listened to last week's episode with Kevin, please go back and check it out right now so you can be right up to the moment and what we've been talking about. We're returning to this conversation about mothers and sons because it can be one of the most blessed and difficult relationships a mother or a son could ever have. When you talk about a mother's son relationship, you're talking about a woman raising a man. There's an ancient African proverb that says, the king is who is mother makes it now. Kevin has been very authentic, very real, very up front about how much he loves his mother and how difficult their relationship has been. Thank you, Kevin for joining us today.

Thank you so much, and I'm just humbled and grateful.

Kevin.

I've got some mothers on the line, and I want you to talk to them as a son. Okay, greetings beloved, and welcome to the art spot. My guest today is Kevin Powell, the Grammy nominated author of Grocery Shopping with My Mother. And we're talking to mothers and sons today. Are you a mother or a son? Hey, alrighty, talk to Kevin. He's a son and he wants to help you. Are you in love with your son or in breakdown?

Most?

Okay, take a breath, mom, take a breath, Take a breath.

Take a breath.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. How old is your son? Okay, tell us what's going on?

So I got pregnant in college at twenty two. And when I found out I was six months pregnant. Long story short, my dad called. I called him a sperm donor. Yeah, I may not agree with that, but that's where I am. And so that was it. I spoke to him. Haven't seen him anything. Fast forward to between nineteen. My son is a sophomore in college and he's in Houston, so, you know, just going back and forth, I was like, if Houston's where you're going to be, let's just go ahead and get your driver's license there. And so when you went to go get this driver's licen teenage, his first certificate, I wasn't thinking about the stupidly didn't have a father's name on it. I just didn't tell you what he needed. Well, instead, I'm calling me and I'm on the outside looking because I didn't know any of this to happen. He called my sister and they decided to contact the sperm donor connected to two. They did a DNA test and everything my parents knew about it. Everybody knew about it. This so for me and I'm his mom. My son came home, he approached me about it, and I told him yeah, and I was just like, what has you done? Like why did you do this like this? And you know, he was like, because it's my story and I get to know my story. And so I asked him, I said, well, why didn't you come to me? And he was like, because you had twenty two years to tell me you did.

Wow.

And I was like, all right, cool. My parents think I'm the problem. I think if they're all the problems on talk of all of that. My dad pops up at my house in March, like demanding to tell him what's going on in my house. I'm forty eight years old, my husband is fifty. We had been married for twenty five years, together for twenty six, so we were dating when my son was six. Myself, that's all that my son knows. I guess you didn't going to detail them. I shouldn't. I just asked him if there is anything else you need to know, and so he passed us out and he was like, oh, it's time out. The conversation. Conversation should have been in, you know, so many years ago. It's time out for that. And I said, okay, So I got a really hard day it was, and I want to meet you where you at, and I want to have this conversation that you need to have. I can't have this conversation if you're not willing to do the work. Like I'm here, I'm the only one with all of the questions and all of the answers. It's just me, I said. And I'm sorry that you got it the way that you got it. I'm sorry that you couldn't come to me first because I thought we had a better relationship than it. And I'm sorry, I said. But so he was like, you know, he started cussing me, and I was like, okay, so that's what we're not going to do. I am still your mother. We're not doing that. And he was like, I don't want to talk to you. And I know you clearly want to talk to me, because you very much me. Time I got into the house, I said, you walk around here, you don't say nothing to nobody. That's school. You work at night, we don't really see you. You talk to you dad morning, you talk to me. I don't really care as long as you're talking to somebody, I said. Then I come home and I get this. I understand that. On the ning, I'm sorry I did what I thought was best for you, because I didn't want you growing up thinking that there was something wrong with you, that somebody walked away from you. And I was protecting you with your mom, because that's what I'm supposed to do. And so like he grabbed my wrists, and when he grabbed my wrist, I'm wanted to, you know, protect myself. And he has his hair and braids, and so I cast the back of his men like you're gonna let me go. We're not doing this.

So let me ask you. Let me ask you, mom. Let me ask you this. Where are you with your son today? Where are you today? That's that's the background. Where are you with him today?

I nowhere with him today. I'm sending to save you that I was a year ago. He came home this weekend. He had called me Friday and he was like, hey, I'm in town. You at home. I said no, I mean four months. I said, but I'm on my way home. I'm on the road now and he said, okay, you're right behind me. Call me when you get home. I said, okay, I called him aport. I texted him and said, hey home. He said, I'm at the store right now. I'll hit you up later. That was at four or fifteen. I stay up until like ten o'clock, no call on nothing. Saturday morning, no calling on nothing. Then I'm at my guy door. We're at our guide dooring this birthday party because she's turning one. He called me at fort starting. I'm like, where are you at? And I was like, I'm me and my guy told this birthday party. Where are you talking about? He's like, well, you're not coming to me his party and I was like, I didn't get the invite. And he was like, well, I want to see you, like everybody's here. And I was like, well, okay, send me the address. May I'll come. Now let me call because I have to tell you. I was in my feelings about that. I felt some type of way because you had been here Friday since two o'clock. You told me to call you when I got home, and I did. Y'all wasn't at the store all day long. But you've grown like I'm cool with that, Like it's fine, go to the party. He has me. All of the boys that he's the ningles that hang out at the house, the ones that I helped raise, all like, hey, mom, how are you going blah blah blah. We have this thirty forty minute conversation at a birthday party for a two year old, and we had I, me and my husband had plans, and so I was like, well, I'm just coming to your face and giving your mail that's coming to the house. And then I gotta lead. I am your mother, and I feel like I deserve more this thirty forty five minutes of your tub.

Take a breath, man, take a breath.

May asking questions.

So do you feel the source the root cause of your son's behavior resentment is the father issue?

Is that what it is? His biological father?

I don't know. I guess, but I think it's bigger.

Take a breath, Take a breath. Come on, come on, breathe with me. Take a breath.

I don't know how to breathe it.

Yes, I know, I know, I do know. I hear that. I hear that. Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes yes. Tell tell me what the tell me, Tell me what the tears want to say. Don't tell me why? Tell me what did the tears want to say? Tell me.

You like, yeah, And I.

Did what I thought from yes, got to tell you.

I want him to grow up? With that can that he wasn't wanted you know, Oh, I think it is I better portrayal.

Okay, what is it that you didn't tell him that this might be the source of this, that he had a biological father that wasn't your husband, that you married it six months.

I don't know. I don't know you ot coftree. I don't know what the problem is. You just keep saying you kept me away from my dad. You killt me away from my dad. I'm like, I do keep you away from your day. You didn't want to be a dad, and so he'll be like, wait.

A minute, Wait a minute, Wait a minute, Wait a minute, Mom, take a breath. Take a breath again. Yeah, take a breath again. Let me go all the way, because this is what I'm hearing you say. You were in college at twenty two, you got prayant. Yeah, when your father approached this young man, he doubted whether he questioned whether or not the child you were carrying what's his. As a result of that, you, I guess, in conjunction with your parents, made the decision to walk away and deny this child access to his father. You weren't really clear whether it was okay, so what was it, because that's what I heard you say. If I got that wrong, he said he didn't know if the child was his.

And that was it.

Conversation, all right, But you made that choice for your son. Did you ever ask him after the child got here? Do you want to be involved in the child's life. We can do a DNA test, we can do a blood test. Did you ever ask the father that?

No?

Okay, so mother, hear me, no heat, no judgment. I want you to breathe this in. You denied your son access to his father. Nobody's judging you, but you got to own that. You got to start there. Whether your father encouraged you, your mother encouraged me, whether you pull the card out that chrisco. Can you denied your son access to his father based on his initial response to hearing that you were pregnant? Can you own that?

I will own it. I hear you. I don't feel like that was my responsibility.

Well yeah, if you if you never said to the man, do you want access to your son? A call, a phone card, a call, a postcard. This is your son. We can do a DNA test, but do you want access to him? If you didn't do that, mom, even though it was the best you knew how to do at the time. I get that, I get it, hear me. I get it. I got three children by three different men, so I get as a mom, your first thing is let me protect this child. But you also got to own how you went about protecting the child. You denied your son access to his father. Have you ever forgiven yourself for that? And you did the best you could?

Go ahead, Kevin, I'm sorry, no, no, no, I'm just jumping on what you're saying.

You know, say space, no judgment, as I always say, Listen that I only saw my father three times from when I was born until I was eight years old. My mother told me that father disowned me and said I'm done. Never saw him again. I made a conscious decision when I was an adult. I wanted to know my father. My mother had a lot of emotions about it. I finally found my father myself after he was dead. I simply needed to know who he was. Didn't mean I wanted to have a relationship with him or his family. I do not, just for the record. Just need to know where I came from, and that was important to me. And I've heard this story from a lot of boys of mothers where there wasn't the best situation between the mother and the father, and the father wasn't there and they were told.

I mean.

My next book is on Tupac Shakur, who I knew very well. His mother told him a fainting, I love a fanning, But she told Tupac that his father was dead. Tupac's father showed up when Tupac ended up in jail, Tupac's biological father showed up at the prison.

Parc was in shock.

I thought you were dead, basically, And I think, you know, it's important to understand that that's something that when kids get older, boys, if they don't have father, their biological fathers in their lives, even if they had an amazing father, stepfather, you know, father figure like your husband, there's still something there that's yearning for.

Well, who where did I come from?

Yes, literally ten years ago this Thanksgiving, I had gotten the information from the genealogists, and I sat there with my mother on Thanksgiving Day, November twenty thirteen, I said, Ma, I found my father, And at first she cursed because she's still hurt by whatever happened with my mother between her and him, I'll.

Never know the full story.

I don't know because she can't or will not share this full story, right. And then I said he was dead, and she got quiet, and then I said, well, I'm going to have I'm here, I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to drive to South Carolina with a friend and I'm going to go find the family.

And I said I need to do this.

For me, and my mother was like, and I think I think my mother felt like I was somehow betraying her.

Yes, I was going to go to the other side.

And when I got back from that trip, I said, Ma, I need you to understand you raised me. You're the parent that I know, the biological parent that I know. I'm never going to abandon you. I had to do this for myself. I just need you to understand. I need to do know this for myself. I'm an adult now. I need to know this for myself because actually a lot of blanks fulfilled in when I found out who my father was and the background of my father, who his family, well his family was.

He explained a lot of things that I needed to know. And that's all it was.

You know what I mean, and if the child decided they want to have a relationship with that side, that's there right as well as adults. But I think you know where the hurt comes in is not only not being told certain things, but then you know, not being able to figure it out as an adult either, you know, not knowing where to go. I literally spent a few years with a genealogy is going back and forth, tryge. All I knew was South Carolina. Well, South Carolina's a big state. I didn't know anything, you know what I mean. I knew his name, his first name is last name in South Carolina, and we just kind of you know, it was a miracle that I even found my father's family, and you know, I needed to do that.

And I'm good, you know what I mean.

I'm good, and I don't have a relationship with them, but I'm good because now I know that's all I needed.

And I keep it and I'm fine with it.

I know you're not. No, you're not. You're not fine with it because you have confused the boy you slept with, allowed him to worship in the temple of your body, who then denied you and questioned your fidelity. You have him confused with the man who fathered your child. You call him a sperm donor. That's the first mistake. He may be a sperm donor to you, but he's the father of your child. And the fact that you have not owned that's where your son is stuck. He's stuck there. We'll talk more about it when we come back. Welcome back to the r spot. Let's pick up where we left off. He wants to share with you you know what that felt like for him, And you're dismissing him by saying I did what I thought was right. Well, what that translates to, mama is you made a choice for him, which is not the choice that either his father made or that he made for himself. And until you can neutralize that, until you can forgive that, your son is going to be stuck. You're not the victim here, he is. You gotta own it. And let me tell you something. I can tell you this because I did it. I did it. I did it to my daughter Jamia. I allowed my husband to raise her and trained her to believe that that was her father, and she was dying of cancer when she found out the truth, and I had to own it. I had to own it. And after she died and I read her journals about how devastated she was by that. You gotta own it, mama. Now, had you gone to him and he said, I don't want nothing to do with this kid, then you would have a leg to stand on.

Here.

I guess on me. I have a lot of times because I didn't walk away, and I'm not gonna run in behind anybody. But I hear you. I hear you. I own it.

I hear you.

Okay, you gotta go there and forgive yourself for it. You gotta forgive yourself for it. You've got to hear that, because he and Anne. You know what, Here's here's just Mama to mama. This is mama bear to Mama Bear. Okay, I don't care what you do, Mama. I don't care what you do. If you raise the child, all of the excuse my language, all of this shit is gonna end up in your lap. I don't care what you do, because you are the most you are the safest place for him to fall. He ain't gonna beat his father up. He gonna beat you up. That's like the fathers will come on the weekend and take the kids to Disneyland, who take them to the park. They get all the credit. My daddy, my daddy, my dad, you know. And the mom is there doing laundry and rubbing, cleaning up bloody noses and running the PTA meetings. And daddy comes with two toys a hot dog and he gets all the credit. That's just the way it is, MA.

Yeah, So what do I do? What do I do?

So the first step after you forgive your tell your son I was wrong. I was wrong. I hear you, I was wrong. Because until you do that and open your heart, he's not going to feel safe, and there's no space for him to come in and tell you how it feels. His feeling about the experience doesn't make you wrong. Is that right, Kevin?

That's right, that's right, you got it. But you have to hear him out. How does he feel.

In addition to Kevin's Grammy nominated album Rosny Shopping with My Mama with My Mother, I want you to get that and listen to those pieces, particularly the piece about his mother, because I don't think your son knows your story. I don't think he knows your story as a woman, not as his mother, and find a way to be happy. Oh my god, Kevin's father was dead. Your son has an opportunity to build a relationship. Heal a relationship with his father, which is gonna heal a hole in his soul. Whether you like it or not. He needs his father, even if he ends up hating him because he's a scoundrel and a scallywag, he has to come to that. He's building a relationship with his father. You have to build a relationship with this young man. Be happy for him. So many men don't ever have that experience. Yeah, that they get to have it? Is that accurate, Kevin?

That's accurate.

When I was at the boys conference here this weekend, four hundred boys there, three quarters so they didn't know their fathers when they asked them to raise their hands.

You haven't done anything wrong, but the choices that you made, even the choices that you were guided to make by your parents, have had a negative impact on your son. That's what I want you to own. Does that make sense?

I mean, it's the truth. So, I mean I just got to look at it in a different way. For me, it was never about him, not normal. I guess I just wanted to make sure that he was solid.

But I hear you.

Saying that he could never be solid or complete until he knew where he came from. I wasn't, but I guess I was getting the opportunity to do it, and I didn't do it. I just feel like I should have been the one to make the introduction. But I get it. I missed my mark and that's what you said, so I have to own that as well.

That's not accurate. I can't let you beat yourself up. You did what you did back then. Don't blame yourself for what you did back then. I just want you to understand how it's showing up now. Yeah, but you're beating yourself up and that's not going to go overwhelm in terms of you building a relationship with your son. Don't beat yourself up for what you did back then. Just come current with who you are now. You were twenty two, then you're forty eight. Now. Oh okay, I see now. The choice that I made was based on how I felt then and not necessarily what was best for my son, got it, Okay. I wouldn't do that today. Please don't beat yourself up.

Please, And you have an opportunity telling you that a lot of mothers, like my mother for example. You just you have the emotional tools, the fact that you're even able to engage in this kind of conversation with us. A lot of us in our communities don't even have that. You know, I wish I could have this kind of conversation with my mother. It's just, you know, a lot of us just shut down. Well that's in the past. I want to talk is over? What's the point?

You know, and you have a gift. Do you have gifts to be able to do this?

Don't take that for granted, you know, because I still have to fill This is part of reas why I'm a writer. I have to kind of fill in the blanks for myself, like you know, what is this where I get second hand information for other relatives. You know, you literally can have this conversation directly with your son, and I guarantee it'll be transformative, like a Yana's advising. It's how you come to the conversation. You know, so many sons who actually would love to be to talk with their mothers. Trust me on that, I'm one of them. I've had this conversation with other boys son of mothers, and we really want to be of a conversation.

And unfortunately, as mothers, we get so caught up in the doing. You know, make sure they're fed, make sure they go to school, make sure they're success, make sure that they don't disrespect. Now, we get so caught up in the doing. The third world reality to the one thing our heart want, our sons want from us more than anything, is our heart.

Yeah.

Give him your heart. Yeah, give him your heart. When I stopped mothering my son and started being his friend and started dealing with him as an adult, our whole relationship chain. My son would deep drink my dirty bath water, but you know what, he would do it on some ice with a chaser. Okay, do you believe that your relationship with your son can be healed?

I do.

Don't be in a hurry. It may not happen before Christmas. It may not happen, you know, get yourself cleaned up. This boy lived in your body. He's not going nowhere. He's not He's not going anywhere. Don't be so desperate and in a rush. Give it time so that once you heal it up and once you rebuild this relationship it's built on a solid foundation. Go get you a counselor a therapist to help you clean this stuff up because you can't do it by yourself. It's too old now you cannot.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Hold on to the belief that my relationship with my son will be healed. Just that period, my relationship with my son will be healed. Holy Spirit, show me how gotten? Period? Thank you, Miss Latania, Thank you, Bye bye, Thank you, Kevin. We got one more.

Mom.

I want to expose it to you. I know I'm holding you forever, but I think it's a valuable conversation. Okay, greetings, you're a mom. Are you in love with or in breakdown with your son? Which one?

Our relationship is in breakdown?

Okay, tell me what's happening. Mama, tell me what's happening. How old is your son?

My oldest is in is twenty three, and that's the one that the relationship is in breakdown.

What happened?

So what's going on right now? Most recently is he is struggling with substance use and I am trying to figure out how to be present and support him. I separated and divorced from my children's father in about twenty twenty and that is where the biggest breakdown and the disconnect really started with us. So we don't really have any contact. He's very angry with me when we do have contact, when things come up around the substance use, or he has been hospitalized and things like that. When I try to talk to him about trying to get help, then that's when the explosion comes and he blames a lot of stuff on me. He blames he's angry with me about my separation from his father. And so the struggle that I find is some of the things that he is angry with me about that he expresses are have come from.

His father, such as tell me as.

Such as he So once when we first got separated, all three boys came and lived with me. My oldest son was eighteen at the time. He was very angry, so he would be combative in the household. He would you know, not be responsive. And I found out that he was having conversations with his dad that once his father got settled, he would go live with him. And so that fueled almost like this idea that like, I only have to deal with you until I go with my dad. So ultimately we got to things came to a head, and I told I called him and called his dad, and I said, if that's the plan, then you need to come get him and he needs to come stay with you at that same time. Such as an example is I was about to do our taxes and his father had previously done our taxes as a family, so I didn't know that his father was allowing him to file taxes separate. So when I am now on my own and go to file taxes, he has decided in his mind that I sold his W two's and I, you know, did his taxes and lied to him when I'm doing it as all of y'all are children under my roof, but him being the oldest, he had been with us all his life, you know, Me and his father was all he knew. And then COVID hit. So I think it was just like a perfect storm of trauma, of grief, of all of these things. He had an involuntary commitment for ten days in the behavioral health hospital. They released him to a residential program in our town, and by that night he left because it was voluntary, so he packed up in the.

Middle of the night.

He said, you know, he didn't like the place. He didn't feel comfortable. He doesn't need any help. He's not an addict. He said all of these things, and he said, you know, I'm going to just get a job, and I don't want to be there, and so he is not open to get in help.

When did you become aware that he was engaged in substance abuse? How old was he?

So I became aware twenty twenty twenty one, So he was nineteen. I became aware. This would have been two almost three, thanksgivens Ago. I became aware it was on a thanksgiven it was twenty twenty one.

You know that age, that eighteen nineteen year old age. Identity versus identity confusion. The question that comes up in the soul to be answered is who am I? Where am I going? So unfortunately the divorce happened at that time when he's asking, okay, who am I? And where am I going? Am I going to my father? Am I going to my mother? I would also, I could be very wrong. I'm always willing to be wrong that in your role in the family was to keep everything together. You made sure everybody got everything, everything was done. You had a very profound organizing role in the family. Would that be accurate? You were the dominant voice in the family. So when the divorce came, the question on your son's mind is why can't you fix this? You donet fixed everything else, fix this, you know. So Kevin talked to her. I'm gonna shut up because you shared it. If you're open to it, talk about your drinking, what drove you there, What was going on in your mind to help this mother understand? You know, all the talking, all the beaten pleading in the world is not going to help him until he gets to where you got.

I was depressed. I was.

I was in the middle of a deep depression for about four or five years, uh not coincidentally a Yana and call her it paralleled when tupacin Biggie got killed and I was doing all right. I was at Vibe magazine, as you said, during that time of Yana, but I was going through it. And what started off is just casual drinking turned into drinking, waking up, drinking, going to sleep, drinking in the middle of the day, drinking, drinking, drinking. It was bad, you know, it was very bad at times, and I just didn't feel good about myself. And it was the only thing that helped me to cope at times from day to day. You know, my relationship with my mother wasn't great at that time.

Definitely.

My father didn't know my father was dying at the time, you know, at all. He was just not there in my life. Unhealthy relationships. I felt very alone. I felt very alone in the bottle the liquor. That addiction is all I had, honestly that I thought I had. I'm not sure I didn't go to treatment. By the grace of God, I went cold turkey and was able to stop.

But what got you there? What got you to that moment when you said, I've got to stop this? What got you there?

Wow?

Well, my doctor, for some reason, I still had the wordithal to go get physicals. My doctor said to me, the pace that you're on, you're going to destroy your liver one day, You're going to destroy yourself. And it made me think back to some elders I had met who told me that they had paid a price. One elder in particular, that he had paid a price for the excesses of his youth, and that blew my mind. You know, I think I was scared that I was drinking myself toward early death.

Caller mother and Yanna. I felt worthless. I hear you, I hear you.

I had to find a reason to live again. And I'm quite sure what it was. It was a combination of things and I had to find some joy in my life, you know, and call it I think, you know, I think, not just treatment for the addiction, but you know one thing going back to therapy that helped me. The therapist asked me, said to me, therapist ahead at the time, said what were the things that made you happy in your life? And I would say something like sports and music, whatever it was. And they the person said to me, I need you to bring those things center to your life. I need you to start centering joy war than you centers sadness. You know, you can't just sit in this. I mean, it was so bad. Even the music that I listened to was the most depressing music.

It was. Everything was just depressing. It was bad.

Mama. I have a solution for you, and you are probably not going to like it. Are you ready? Okay, we'll do it right after this break. Welcome back to the R spot. Let's get back to the conversation. Hear me, mama, and as a mama, he is gonna be mad at you. It's all the shit is always gonna end up in your lap because his heartstrings are tied to your being. You are his god with a small g You are his God. You gotta understand that. And so many mothers don't understand that because he lived in your body. I want you to hear this, Mama. He is gonna blame you. He is because you are his heart. Your son does not feel good about himself. Your son is sad. Your son is an overwhelmed. That's what depression is is trying to convince yourself that you are something or can do something that you don't believe you are or can do. That's the definition of overwhelm. Your son feels alone, your son feels worthless. And hear me, Mama, clutch your pearls right now. There is nothing you can do about it until he chooses. So, Ma, you gotta let him go. You gotta let him fall. He's got to hit rock bottom, and remember that God made the rock. You gotta let him go. I know, cry, weep your heart out, weep it out, MA, let that fear out. But the prayers of a mother never go unanswered. You let him go. Physically, but you pray every day, you wake up thanking God for his recovery. You go to bed thanking God for his recovery. Let him fall. If you keep breaking the fall, he will never fall low enough for God to lift him up. There's nothing you can say that's going to make him feel good about himself because he's mad at you. You are the object of his up. There's nothing you can do that's gonna lift his sadness. He feels worthless mind. There's nothing you can do about that. And you didn't do anything wrong. This is his journey, his spiritual curriculum. Look at Kevin, Look at him. Kevin Powell talking to you, wrote a book and honoring and an album honoring his mother because he chose to do the work to get it together.

I hear you saying that this is his journey and that it's not in my hands physically, but I can pray.

Yes, one of the worst things that a son can do, My son told me this. His greatest fear in life was disappointing me. So every time I voiced my disappointment, it crushed his soul. And that's why he stayed away from me. When he was selling drugs when he was stealing cars. He stayed away from me because he didn't want to experience my disappointment. Be glad he's staying. He's trying to save his soul.

MA.

Yeah, yeah, let yourself weep, let yourself cry. You know I'm you know, I'm a hardcore healer. So I allowed myself to see my daughter laying in her casket three years before she died, because that fear of that happening to her made me pound her. You gotta do this, you gotta do that, You better do this, you better do that, And that was crushing her right. So once I got through that, I could be go ahead.

I was gonna say so recently, like the substance thing is one thing, but it's like a perfect storm. Like I said, so, he was born with the condition. He has tumors in his brain, in his heart, but he never had any symptoms. And just recently, the time before the last that he was hospitalized, he had a major seizure and that it was triggered. I don't know what triggered it, but he always had like the tumors that could trigger it. So I'm thinking the combination of like lifestyle, the drugs, not eat and not taking care of itself. So he had the seizure and his kidneys were failing, and then they released him from the hospital. So it was like almost not that I had accepted that he was using the substance, but I had sort of come to the grips that like I can't do anything about that, Like he has to turn around for that. But recently now it has been like, have you gone into neprologist? Have you done this? Have you done that? Because it's just so many things.

Yeah, Kevin, what did you need your mom to say to you? Yeah? Yeah you do, Kevin. What did you need your mother to say to you when you were drinking? How could she have supported you when you were drinking?

If I could have gotten anything, it was what I said earlier. I wish I could have.

Just known that if I wanted to come home, I could that. If I needed just a hug, I could get it. If I needed a place to get help, I could have gotten that.

You know what I mean. I felt very very alone and afraid.

So, Ma, let me hear your prayer for your son. What is your prayer for your son? I want to hear it.

Yeah, God, I just ask you.

Color Nicholas.

I asked you to meet him in the places.

He has needs.

Ask you to prop him up, just remind him of who he is, where he's come from. I actually to touch his heart, to let him know that he has loved. He's smart, he's funny, he's.

A big brother, he's an amazing son. I just ask you to bring those things back to his awareness. I ask you to keep him if he ends up in dark places, and I just ask you to allow him to walk his journey and fulfill his destiny and just find what he needs to love, the compassion, the purpose, to ask you to walk alongside of him and just keep him. That's my prayer.

Okay, So that's a frightened mother's prayer. That's a nice prayer. But I'm going to tell you how to pray like a mother who has a connection to God. Okay, I'm going to speak this into your spirit, and knowing that because Nicholas lived in your body, it's also speaking into his spirit, the precious Lord of the universe, that whom we call God, Source Creator. By all the names you are known, I know that you know Nicholas. He was your son before he was my son. I know that when you're shaped and formed Nicholas in my wound, that you had a plan for him. You had a vision for him, you had a purpose for his life. And I know that, no matter what it looks like right now, God, that plan is unfolded. Now God, I confess it looks a little strange to me. But because I know you are in charge, and I know you are with Nicholas, and I know you are in Nicholas, I know that plan, your plan for his peace, for his safety, for his health, for his strength, is unfolding. So God, quiet my spirit, quiet my mind, open my eyes so that I can see you working in as and through Nicholas according to your purpose and your plan. I know that right where Nicholas is, the fullness of You is. God. I know that your wisdom is there. I know that your wholeness is there. I know that your truth is there, and I know that you are waking it up in every cell in Nicholas's body. Even though it looks a little strange to me, because it looks strange to me, God, it looks strange to me, I confess that. So I ask you, I ask you, God, to strengthen me. Strengthen me so that I can see your outworking in Nicholas's life. Quiet me, God, so that my fear, my worry, my disbelief doesn't get in your way. Hold me, God, so that when you bring Nicholas falling into my arms, I can be for him who you would have me be. Now I speak these words God, believing that as I ask and believe, it is done. So I'm going to say thank you right now, thank you, thank you, thank you. As strange as it looks, as weird as it looks, as frightened as I am in my mothering worry, I'm going to say thank you right now God that your plan is unfolding according to your will, and Nicholas is safe in your arms. I am so grateful. I let it be. And Amen, Amen? How about that?

Yeah, you don't have.

To ask God, you have to remind yourself.

I think.

Strength to you, Mama. Keep praying from a place of knowing, be open to all possibilities, and just to know that God is in charge.

Yes, thank you, Okay, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Woo. One of them ways that a man learns his strength is by falling and picking himself up. I could be wrong. My brother was cross addicted to drugs and alcohol, and very often I served as his mother, and he called me when he needed I say, you know what, you are a grown man. You need to handle your basics. Don't call me for rent money. Don't call me for light bill money, don't call me for corfee to get to work. You're man. You got to handle that. Now you want some soda or some cigarettes, call me. I'll give you some soda money. I'm not handling your base. You handle that. Because I didn't see him as deficient and defective. I saw him as challenged and having some difficulty, but he had to make the choice for that. I'll take care of the frills. You handle the basics. I ain't paying your rent. You grown ass man. Now, maybe that was wrong, but that's how I handled it.

My mama practiced that kind of love, and you know, I was resentful of it at the time, but it actually helped me to figure out some things because I had to figure out how to get.

Up on my own. And I would include even when I was abusing alcohol.

You know, yeah, because if you hadn't figured it out on your own, you would be both co dependent on her and resentful of her.

Yeah.

A man has to be able to fall and pick himself up. Otherwise he will never trust his own strength. He won't. Yeah, on behalf of your mother and the mothers out there, Kevin, I want to say to you, forgive us, forgive me, forgive me for not recognizing and I say this to you. I say this to my son. I say this to my grandsons and now my great grandsons for not recognizing how my mouth, my voice is attached to the strings of your heart because the mother's heartbeat was the first sound that you heard. The second sound was a voice, and not understanding that every word that issued forth from my mouth makes an impression and imprint, sometimes a cut in your heart, which then affects your emotional being, which then affects how you interact with women. Forgive me, forgive us for being ignorant to the power that we have as mother's. Forgive us, Kevin, and I hear you.

Yeah, I do. What's profound about what you're saying.

I have long one to say publicly two black women, I apologize, and I've done it in different ways. I've done it privately because, as Malcolm X once said, famously. It becomes a very vicious cycle because I know what my mother's daddy did to her and her four girls and a boy, and what they went out into the world and put out there because of what happened to them. But I feel like, you know, and this is for all human beings, but you're right when you talk about black people specifically, a black and brown people specifically, we don't have these kind of conversations enough. And that's why, like a yella, when I watched that, I've been watching reading you for a long time.

Sister, But for some reason that DMX interview.

That's what he did, That's what Tupac did, That's what Biggie did, That's what a public enemy did. They could craft it into a form of artistry that hip hop became because they didn't have the emotional vocabulary to do it one on one like this. And the other thing is, and I'm saying this to mothers, is very often what we projected onto our sons. Our fear, our doubt, our disappointment caused them to doubt themselves, and hip hop gave them a way to express and experience themselves in a much stronger, more powerful way. Because of the doubt that was cast on them, because of the fear that was cast on them. And again, moms, or you moms out there, you didn't do anything wrong. We did what we did. Do what we thought was best, doesn't mean it was best. We did what we thought was best based on the ways that we were wounded. Thank you, Kevin Powell. I love you, I appreciate you. Good luck to you. I'm your Yeay, your mama and your auntie called me anytime.

I love you, and I appreciate you for having me here. Thank you.

And to the R Spot is listening, I say to you, stay in peace, not in pieces. Fine. The R Spot is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

The R Spot with Iyanla

Each week, New York Times best-selling author and famed spiritual life coach, Iyanla Vanzant, invite 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 118 clip(s)