Common: Breaking Destructive Cycles

kept him from healing and finding real love. I was in a breakup and the breakup was it was a psycho repeating for me. I was like, man, why do I keep doing this? How do I keep getting put in this position? In his memoir Let Love Have the Last Word, Common reveals how painful conversations with his family forced him to make a drastic change. My daughter Mayer confronted me and I was hurt and I was mad too. And he's ready to answer our most burning question. I

would like to be a d what's your ideal woman comments? Ladies, listen up, we are about to meet Common. One of the reasons why I wanted him to come to the table was because there were definitely specific things in his story that were very relatable to my story. You know, I was raised by a single mother. Yeah, and he had bouts with excessive drinking like I did. For it seems like for similar reasons. And also I've been on

the search of the meaning of love as well. There's the relationship with his daughter that is very parallel to the experience that you and Daddy had. Exactly. One of the conversations we've been having in our house is the idea of men. Your dad included making the distinction between providing for their family versus caring for their family. Right, Usually those men are not really caring about how they feel in that case, they're not thinking about how the

people around them. I feel for man when when he's challenged by his daughter, it makes him have to look at things in a different way, you know. So I really related to his to his book, Well, let's you know, let's just bring them on out coming at real Good to see you again. I'm so glad to have you here. I was really moved by your book, and one of the major things in your book that moved me was

repairing your relationship with your daughter. Because we had a bit of that and in that house, you know what I mean in regards to will just thought winning, He thought providing was enough, you know, until one day Willow was just like, this is what was that conversation? What was it? I don't even think it was a conversation. I think it was me choosing to just be like, no, I don't want to do that. I can't do this anyway right, like that's doing the whip, the hair and

all of that kind of stuff. It took her and that relationship for him to stop and have to reevaluate what is love. But my daughter Mayer confronted me because it was like a late night call, so I thought I was like getting a call that was like, you know, I'm a cool dad, Like it was like two in the morning. I actually had to start a film the next day, so I was like, I'm gonna call you back, let's talk to are. And she called me right back like, yo, you don't even care, you don't even see why I

was at you. And it really it shook me for a minute because I was like, wait, what what are you talking about? You know I don't and no, mother and I weren't together, so it was becoming a fight to be able to know. And then so eventually that conversation turned into her saying you weren't there for me, you didn't fight for me as a father. It made me feel like defensive. I was hurt and I was mad too, because I'm like, you really believe some of

this stuff. What I really learned was like and after I got past my own ego and stuff like that, got that, I said, look, you're right, I didn't fight and I had to acknowledge that, and and I just need to listen to her because this is what she's feeling like, no matter what I think I've done, and this and that, like, this is how she feels. And and that was like one of those Heavens open moments of me understanding how to apply love or like how

to and the way that it looked for her. Because I'm sure you believed you were doing your thing, that you're a good dad. No, I definitely believe that's probably why you're upset because you're like, wait, I thought everything

was fine. What's happening? Yeah, but I mean you know something you just said, Jada too is like I didn't grow up necessarily with my father, right, So a lot of ways I learned to be a man is from my homies and like other father figures, and to provide and protect was the two most important things that we but they've been passed down from generation we learned, right, and I'm a caring individual, but I had to get past beyond just like providing and protecting because of love

is an action word. That's what I've been really like, It's an action word. So it's like that type of understanding and just paying attention is what we weren't equipped with, like we had that, you know exactly. And I think that that's the that's the most important aspect of it is if you're not allowed to like look at yourself and feel your emotions like as deeply as you need to feel them, you're you're never gonna truly understand how to communicate your emotions to other people and how to

and how to emote. You know, when you put stuff out on the table, you put the truth out there, it strengthens the relationship, you know. It's like Moya was harboring those feelings because she felt like, well, I didn't always have my dad here, so if I tell him some stuff he did wrong, then I'm them less. Once she was able to put it out, she felt liberated and free and now she's more secure and the fact that, yo, you can tell your dad whatever you need to tell them,

and the love is going to be there. We had our own therapy session together because she was smart. She was smart about She was like, Dad, we for this book come out. We need to resolve this because she said that. So we've been doing really great overall. She just graduated from how our university. There was one aspect of the book I'm very interested in why you decided to reveal. I saw The Tale and it was a really difficult movie to watch, you know, it was really

it was rough. It's about a young woman who her mother finds her diaries and realizes that she had been molests, really raped. Yeah, so the writer directors the the woman where it happens, so it was her story. Then the movie was starring Laura Dern and I was in the

films playing her husband. While we were rehearsing, we were talking about sexual abuse and going through some things, and you know, it popped in my mind and it was strange because if I never had this thought but that I was sexually abused, that I was molested, but I had locked it out of my mind and until I got to that film was the first time I faced it since the night that that that I was molested. UM. That was like nine years old and it was by

my cousin's guy brother. So it was a difficult situation for me to grasp onto UM and I started working through it. Where let's say, what's interesting is that in the book, you don't consider yourself a victim. Now why is that? Well, I don't feel a victim because I see myself as somebody who overcame that situation. I brought it up in the book because it was like me really doing my best to show what forgiveness can be about. And though I'm still in that process, that was the

core of what I wanted to achieve. I want to get into like this level of forgiveness, you know, like I needed to forgive for myself so I can move forward, right, And I talked about it also because we as black men, black people don't talk about sexual abuse in our communities and because it's taboo, and it's like you don't want that uncle or that cousin to look bad. The family, don't want the person to look bad, But what about

the child that's been effective? And then a child feels like they can't say nothing, they can't talk about it. How did your family feel and finding out, like your daughter, your mother about what you had been through. My mother took a little time to process it. Like when I first told her, she was in shock a little bit. She was a principal, so she knew about it happening to a lot of kids in her school, but to have it happen her own child, so that shocked up.

But we didn't talk much about it for a second. And then she just recently told me that she really was like sad at one point about it. Then she felt guilty at one point, but she's like, man, I'm glad you're talking about this. But my daughter was Amy was really proud. She was like, this really happened to you. I was like yeah, And that's when she started process. She was like, man, you you know, I really am proud of you for you know, when she when your

daughter tell you proud, you feel that all right? Good? Good? You know? So yeah I know that. Also, um therapy, Oh yeah, yeah, And I think in the book you said you started going to therapy in what was that feeling or that moment that that made you Because I'm gonna tell you I made you make that decision. I remember hitting up to that yeah rock bottom where it was like, hey, look I'm about to kill myself. Somebody back,

come help me. So what what was that feeling that made you decide like, all right, I gotta I gotta talk to somebody. I was in a breakup and I was like the breakup was it was a psycho repeating for me, Like I felt like I was like, man, why do I keep doing this? How do I keep getting put in this position or put myself in this position? My acting coach she was like, I think you need to talked to Susan, who was a therapist that I

sent people to. She's really good. And I was kind of still in the mode of like, I'm open to trying a lot of things to work on myself, don't get me wrong, But I wasn't all the way there yet. And I remember it was strange because I was in the car with w A. Moyer and we were about to fly somewhere and I had to get in the back seat to talk in private to the to the therapist.

But I needed it right then and there, like because I was going through a pain that was just like I gotta get this off me so I could be better for myself, for a moyer, for everything that I'm doing. So that was the the catalysts, yeah, to get me there. But as soon as I talked, I was like, man, this is I felt. The healing happened as the conversation was going, and I felt like things I was learning about myself that I didn't no. I had the bad

you know, the wounds that I was carrying. I needed to know those things so I can identify them and like really say, man, if I want to quit your cycle, I can make the change. What you said something very interesting in your book. You said I had no real memories of my parents loving each other, and our parents are the first lovers we observe in our lives, so

I would think that on a lot of levels. And trying to learn how to love a woman or learn how to love a child, you know, it's it's difficult because you're right, it's like we're not giving a lot

of examples, you know, and let let me. It's like, man, my mother gave me all the love she could, but some of that love was even pain too, because of her and my father not being together, and that struggle, especially with mother's son connections that a mother, like a single mother, sometimes will put the responsibility of the husband onto the to the young boy, to the child, and the child is like, man, he's trying to do his best, but he can't do what a husband could do, like

just provide the emotional energy and love and that um, you know that eventually transfers into like kind of like an intimacy avoidance or something because you feel you feel the pressure. Yeah, And so any time that show up in a relationship and you don't know it's from the past, you're like, I don't want this, feel this, This feel

familiar in a bad way. It's so deep because I've heard a lot of men raised by single mothers the difficulty of in the fear of having deep intimate relationships because of feeling like they're going to get swallowed, they're going to lose their their controls. Yeah. Yeah, and the mothers, you know, they don't know that, they're just trying to offer their love. Like I've been in situations where I've been in a good relationship but the woman she needed

certain things, and I felt like it was becoming too mother. Yeah, it was too much, and I was like, I didn't know how to communicate that. Yeah, it reminded me of my mother. I need to identify it's really happening, and if it is, I should be able to communicate that and say the things I need. But that takes the evolution, as you were saying, Willow, just to being able to know what your emotions are, identifying them, and be able

to communicate that to somebody in a relationship. That's something to give men more freedom to do that, like just from the get go. And that's what the therapist help me. When I'm like, black people, let's use therapy. Man's I mean, I'm like, I'm not telling everybody like it's the only solution, but there's so many tools out there for us to hear. We're talking about the things that we've carried over through generations.

Therapy is one of those things from a personal level to a generational level where you can hear I'm gonna tell you what was deep too. I'm gonna tell you there was a line I'll tell you there's a lot in the book when you said you said that you thought love was desired, right, yes, you know, willing, I would have lots of conversations about trying to differentiate a man stealing desire being the meaning of love. That's the real thing that we as men really identify that as

being a love thing. When you're like yearning for this person and it's it's but you get that feeling and you want that feeling, and that's something that I really used to like really think like, Okay, that tingle in my stomach is what I want and that's why I kept seeking that, and I know that that felt good. But then you were getting these relationships and once the once the tingle started to fade, you go deep. Yeah, I mean I think I think that was one issue

for sure for me. When that in love or honeymoon whatever we all call it phase goes, I was like, this don't feel as good, and I would start coming up with excuses on why the relationship is not gonna work. Like, man, when I'm in relationships, I don't do work as well.

I used to actually telling myself that, like my albums are not as good, I don't focusing yeah for real, And I really believed it, you know, but it was just a matter of like getting past those walls I had within myself to do the work like be like

I didn't know what those walls were. And like the therapist I work with, Susan, she was one of the important things she said to me was like when I was chasing for certain things or you know, like yearning that feeling, she was like, remember you got guys loving you. I love Phil. You gotta remember like that. That really helped ground me because it's like some of this stuff

I'm chasing, what am I doing? I read in the book also that like myself, I was an excessive drinker as well, you know, and I realized that part of that was just needing to have that extreme feeling. You. Yeah, I knew that I had to stop doing that, but for you specifically, like how did you really just focus yourself? For me, I started it by changing my diet, right, that's one of our biggest addictions that we don't like

American American don't talk about this food. But once I saw I was able to not eat certain foods, that showed me that I had the willpower to stop like chasing girls as much like that was that was my entry before I even knew it was an entry, that was my entry, and then it just became what is adding onto my life? Like if I go answer this girl who texting me saying, oh you want to hang out? Blah blah blah, is this aligned with my overall purpose?

And and you know what is your real intention? My intention is my attention and yo, I don't want to hurt anybody else. I don't want to extract energy from me that I don't want to give away. So I just started identifying those things and disciplined myself. But it started with food and then it kind of rolled over to alcohol where I could be like, Okay, I ain't gonna drink as much. I still had my little time. I work hard. I'm like, oh blah, come out to get nice right right now. You said in the book

also that you've accomplished everything, but that you're not a husband. Yeah, that's that's all. And the fact that you want to be a husband. Yeah, I would like to be a husband. I think. You know, for a long time I was in and out with that, like do I really want to be a husband or am I doing this because this is what society says to So why do you want to be a husband. Now now, I think I just want that partnership to be able to experience life where I'm like growing as a human being and like

kind of just spark each other. Um And to us it's fun too, it's fun at times, you know, I know it's hard. Also, I mean you talk about this fun. I'm like, yeah, yeah, He's like, yeah, it's fun. It is. You can tell me the positives and well, the positives are having a partner to um because life is about growth. One of the things about life, partnerships, marriages is that

you you will grow exponentially. But it's a struggle because it digs into your most intimate, deepest insecurities, insecurities, triggers and fears. Tell me, do you feel like, what other way would you have grown as much? That's the thing that wouldn't have But that's the thing you do find a deeper love you have to in order to survive and being a happy union, right, yeah, and deeper. So if love is your journey, I do believe being in the union is the best way to do it. But

it's a struggle. Well, that's what you have to And I've been saying this over and over aga you have to have the freedom to create a union that works for you, constricted by necessarily the social people. That's that's what you envision for yourself. But you and your partner have to be clear on what you want out of that relationship and also being flexible within that and knowing that it's gonna change, right, Because but I do believe

that there has to be a purpose. That's why when I believe that people get married because of their love for God, I'm like, that's a good purpose, right. People get married because for family. That's a good purpose because along the way, you are going to need something other than the two of you that is gonna have you found family. Okay, so what are you looking for in a woman? What's what's your idea a woman? Comments? Ladies, listen up, I like a woman that's definitely a spirituality

to it. Fun. Yeah, so that means sense of humor, Yeah, sense of human right this weekend becauld I need that in my life. I love you know, I like to crazy. I want a friend to like that that I can share those things with. And I know I got to do my part. I'm just talking about what I want to Yeah, but I want to grow like I learned it. You know, as long as you got some things in your listen, you know what you want, You're not gonna get everything because I'm not perfect, So neither would that

person be perfect? Right right, Yo, you're not gonna get it all. You got that lesson, Willow, I mean just for me. I got that lesson because I can't be everything for one person, you know what I mean. And when you really want to be and you're really trying, you get it. Do you understand like, oh, this is what it feels like. Yeah, like okay, I can't expect this from somebody else. This isn't realistic. No, it's true. I mean, that's that's how it happened for me. Hannah.

I have to look at my sem and go, boo, you ain't everything because you ain't everything on it. Yeah, we gotta gotta wed you gotta. I had to really look at what I am and what I am not. Yes, all right, well we're gonna bring the fishball ever figut you out here? Thank you, sir. Good. So this is from LaToya from Detroit, Jada, Willow and gam Have any of you been to therapy? Yeah? Yeah, that's yeah. Collective we've been to Yeah, couples therapy, individual therapy, any kind

of therapy. Yeah, we believe in therapy in this very we do therapyrapy has been very very helpful, very helpful, So we believe in it. Finding the right one, finding the right one. A Lista from Atlanta, Willow. Do you identify with Common's daughter Amy? I do? I do? Um. I mean, obviously lives are different and your relationship with her is different than everything, but I can definitely relate to that feeling of like all of the success and the and the touring, like what will it take for

me to get what I need from you? Like? Am I not enough? That is? That is okay? Brianna from Portland, Oregon, Common, I loved you and Angela as a couple. I've seen the two you together recently are YouTube back together. You don't have to answer them, We'll look and I answer this by saying I am dating and I have a great companion and that companion could be that present. Right. Yes, nice, Thank you so much so much. I love doing this. I really appreciate you on what you all dope. This

was food for the song. It really was good. On our next red table talk, meet a married couple and their girlfriend. Thomas and I were in open relationship after one year of meeting each other. Definitely, sex is part of it, but it's not the first thing. It's a three way relationship called a truffle. I'm not doing it to be like, oh look at me because of the sex. It's nothing to do with it, and that's what men think it is, and I hate it. Jada and Gamey,

have you ever been interested in being in a thruffle? Hell? Yeah, I don't know. I'm trying to stay open minded, but my gut tells me this is a bunch of fracking apple. There you go. It's a generational show called the Red Table. All right, all right, we're gonna do this little good swipe up. You want to do it? Well, I mean you do you do it? Ah, you sit right there. We're just gonna talk. Yeah. Hey, r t T family. Join our Red Table Talk group on Facebook become part

of the conversation. To join the Red Table Talk family and become a part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook dot com slash red table Talk. Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by face book Watch Westbrook audio and I Heart Radio