Girls Trippin' with Gabrielle Union

Gabrielle Union just kept coming into my mind and I was like, Gabrielle, Well, me and Gabrielle don't speak. Gabrielle and I were never really girlfriends. We were great associates that at some point that dissolved, and for seventeen years we have not really spoken. You don't even know what you're mad about. We don't need to know that. When we got on the phone, I was like, Gabrielle, what happened?

She's like, girl, I don't know. Yeah, So today I really want to talk to Gabrielle to just figure out how we as women specifically get here and then how we reunite with them. Sometimes and sometimes and sometimes sometimes you can't heal it and this particular episode is about healing. Healing, so I know, and don't fan out on me asking for all the graphs all that know. You know you have taught me well, I don't. I try not to ask for pictures or autographs and try not to add goofy,

that's hard. Hi, mother, how are you so happy to meet you? I'm so glad that you came. Come on, We're gonna go to the Red Table. House is beautiful. Thank you. Let lead because okay I got lost? Did I got lost? Were right past? So yeah, we're gonna walk on over here to the Red Table st vibes. There you go? You ready, let's clear ch up. Please. This is a very special show for me because what I decided to do was to make this about creating a new girlfriend. Gavi and I we had a bit

of a break, we don't know how. And she's been open to this healing. She's been open to this conversation because everyone plays a part. Everybody plays part. Yeah. It felt so good on the phone with you to even just go, hey, I'm sorry that I didn't even take the time to talk to you, you know, and then I had to just apologize and just thinking to myself.

Damn Jada. That was some pettia. But at the same time, going with us where you weren thank god you someplace else now out you know, I'm not you know, I could have been like, Okay, I know this is super uncomfortable, but I'm gonna hop in your face and we're gonna right talk. But I was like, okay, yeah exactly. And then every time you're like, it's not gonna suck my life, Yeah, but it did. And it is because you keep your

brain keeps going back there. Yeah, because every time we would see each other, we were always cording, always nice, but it was always tension. I think it was last year, maybe it's two years ago. We me and my friend, we're leaving the White House. Yeah, and this is some like bougie black people. So when you're leaving the I was so I was leaving the White House rocking out of Jazz Thick and you were walking in and there

was that moment of like do I he hugger? It's like hey, and it was like but it's like what was natural for both of us is to be like yeah, you know, but we were both on our just like yeah, you know, like okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, you tell rocking the show, so it's up. It was cool, alright, right yeah, And even then I was just like, what the hell is that about? And then we saw each

other the Double A CP Awards. There was a picture there like you guys get in yeah, and when I was like, I want to make her feel weird, being like, you know, it's the stiffest picture, y'all. Oh man, it's a trip. It's a trip. And it's not even about having to be the best of friends or best girlfriends and what have you, just simple consideration, respect and knowing, Ay,

we're in this together. It's our own personal healing. One of the things I found really powerful you did a speech at Essence just about your journey as far as you're healing with female relationships. I used to shrink in the presence of other dope, beautiful women. I used to revel in gossip and rumors. I took joy in people's pain,

and I tap danced on their misery. Real fierce and fearless women celebrate and compliment other women, and we recognize and embrace the notion that they're shine in no way diminishes our life, and that it actually makes our lights shine brighter. I listened to you speak and I'm like Gabs on the past, she's figuring it out, She's in a process. So I really want to know what was that moment for you when you realize, Okay, I lof is enough. I had to hit rap bottom. I had

to lose everything for me. That was my first marriage, going through the divorce process. I lost my show. My show was canceled, and I was having difficult relationships with my BFFs. You know my day once and it was everyone's fault but my own, and I literally found myself under my bed with my dog. It was I was like, I don't think I can get a news. This is probably what people mean they say they've hit rock bottom.

And I started working with A J. Johnson. Can you just explain to our Red Table family who A J. Johnson is. A J. Johnson is a physical trainer and life coach and also an actress and she's been a host at times um but she is a changer of many lives in Hollywood. Yes she is. She's been around Lanta. We love her and with A J. It was a combination of working out okay and while in the middle of working out, she would kind of be shouting out questions, and so one day she said, um, make a happy list.

But right we were boxing, got it? She said, tell me ten things that make you happy. And I'm I'm I'm punching, but I can't think of anything that makes me happ not one thing that makes me happy. And so she's like, give me something, give me something, anything, Okay, um butter um uh imitation crab ground beef. So butter imitation crab and crown beef. And she stopped and she she said, okay, of course your marriage failed. Wow, you

don't know what makes you happy. Why would you think somebody else knows how to make you happy when you don't know what makes you happy? That part, so we started doing the work. I'm feeling amazing. I'm starting to

feel a lot better about myself. And we go to a party and this, you know, this woman walks in hot l a girl, and I start to feel like I'm shrinking, and I start reverting to my usual, which is when I feel like I'm shrinking and attention is being taken away, when I feel like I've got a good outfit on, like my hair is done I've got enough credits. If you've seen my IMDb page, I am deserving of attention, right. You know when Michelle Obama said, you know the high road, I hate the high roup.

I hate It's like getting on the four, five and four o'clock on Friday because you don't get the instant gratification. No, you don't know what your mind. No, it is not tone and no. So I get the attention back on me because I'm talking about the hot girl. How is she at this party? Who did she do? X, Y and Z too? You know, start you start to assassinate someone's character and a j She said, okay, wait, I'm gonna stop you right there. Did you get the job

that you wanted? I'm like, huh right, she said, did did your house get bigger? Did your bank account grow? I'm like, what are you talking? She's like, what did you accomplish by tearing that woman down? All you did is revealed to everyone in this party what low self esteem you have or that right, and it just that was That's what it took. She got me right between the eye. It was harsh in the moment, but then it was like, damn, I have been communicating through negativity.

I've been shrinking other people, hoping that I'm growing. Yes, I will be the super friend, supermother, super freak, super chefs, whatever. And when you do all of that, you have nothing left for yourself. We've all been there. We've all been there. Somebody else comes along and we feel threatened in some form and we feel like we have to shrink somebody

else down in order to feel bigger. I have had so much revelation and just the idea of what what it takes to connect to other women and what creates within us the inability to do that. What was the process that you took on in order to I had to call a thing a thing first, and what was that? I'm a hater, I'm a troll. Okay, you know now you would say you're an natroll come to life? Got it? The worst part of the comment section of social media.

And she's like, all those negative things that had been happening in your life, it's exactly what you're putting out, you're getting back, got it? So is that reflection that mirror and I had to see myself clearly right, and um, it's ugly, it's it's hard, it's painful to recognize that you are the common denominator for the vast majority of your problems. Let me tell you something. I've had a couple of years of that looking at somebody else and

go oh no, no, no, you're the problem. You're the problem. You're the problem. But people will tell you that you're keeping it real. Yes, they love it when you point out other people. Absolutely, and while you just think it yeah and drowning. Yes, exactly. And let me tell you that was an aha moment when I had to do this. Oh no, baby girl, all that you created and so yeah, it's so hard. It's so hard. It's isn't that just hard? It's devastating, and it's a more in that death of

you thought you were that cart. We do need to have girlfriends that are willing to pull our coat tails, but in a loving way. Well, there's some girlfriends I'll use my finger quotes who want to squash you. The goal isn't to watch you evolve. The goal is to watch you be miserable. And there's something that is appealing about your misery to that right. And then there are the real girlfriends who can be honest in a loving way,

because the goal isn't to squash you. The goal is to watch you evolve into the woman that you want, actually want to be and again, but we also have to be in a space of receiving it in that now here. That's a whole another thing. We gotta be ready because what does what does ready even look like? What does it look like? What does it mean? Well, I'll tell you what it was for me, and that was to be ready to receive someone looking at me

and going, nah, you're better than that. And I realized that in my life, I just was not willing to have that. It's like no, no, no, no. And it came out of fear because you know, if you take all that, then we got to be responsible for it. And it's like no, no, no, I'd rather play victim because that is where I get to play small humphiate. Isn't I call it the cloak of victimhood? You don't

want to take it off. It's like a snuggie and you're like, oh, it's so good, and and people will let you be a victim for your entire life and you wake up in your seventy and you're like, well it's been great, and they're like, well, you know she was. She was an amazing singer, but you know that thing happened, yes, back in the sixty two. This is you know where we're at, but people will let you be there because

being a victim is also comfortable for everybody else. Because when you take accountability for yourself and your own healing, a lot of people lose a little bit of control. It's easier to control a victim than it is to control a healed, evolved person. In this process of growth, there have been friends of mine who have kind of fallen off. So have you found that they had to go? And I have zero regret. I'm still working on that process.

I have not But if you're I'm ready, I'll be over here living my best life and enjoying who I really am. And I see that you are enjoying your misery and I'm gonna leave you to that, and I have zero guilts about that. So what has been your process in regards to finding your true self? What? What a therapy? And silence? Yeah, silence and being okay with my own company and in the stillness, just sitting there

and really finding comfort in being alone. I want to tell you that has been for me The greatest gift to find is that me time. And I'm talking about that real deal me time. I'm not talking about an hour in a bathtime. I'm talking about days. Because I did have to get with the fact that I'm a people pleaser. And let me tell you that was my mother. She's like, you know you codependent, right, and that's with everybody, that's what your girlfriends, that's with everybody. That's what you

really need to look at, your codependent. And I was like, I'm not codependent. I just like people to be happy, and I expect right and my sanity and ps and you want people to like you. So you say, yes, Yes, I will sacrifice my own career to and you know, to enhance my husband's. Yes, I will be the super friends, supermother,

super freak, super chefs, sir whatever. Also donate time for you know, giving blood and the and the homeless and and and when you do all of that so people can call you a good woman or a good friend or a good wife or whatever it is that it takes to be considered amazing. You have nothing left for yourself. So how have you dealt with that? Just in order to say no? And no used to be so terrifying because no means a boundary, and if you put up

boundaries and maybe people won't come back. They're both wives, we have our own careers and our own thing. But then we also happen to have husbands that have their careers and have their own thing, because when you talk about those sacrifices, that will make for our husbands partners life partners. But I think as women, we have this fear of, oh, man, if I don't do this, he'll find somebody else he'll do it. And I hate that messaging.

And I got to the point in my own situation I was like, well, if you can find somebody else to do it, then by god, let go do it, because for real, I can't do that like that anymore. I have to do more for myself. I have to having the partner that I have. Thank God he came along on the train. I became an a woman. I really did. It was quite free. Have you had that kind of process in your situation because we went through

so much in the dating phase. Yeah, that's true. And the idea that a good woman or a good future wife should have the propensity to handle enormous amounts of pain and that's what makes you a good wife. When we got married, we had to redefine that as an evolved person, as a healed person. Um, I'm not interested in pain and I'm not interested in hurting you either. I'm married. Somebody's dream. It was like, I'm married d Wade and I have a marriage with Dwayne Tyrone Wade Jr.

There you go, and I'm still getting to know him. Yes, and I'm in a amazing friendship marriage with this beautiful man that I didn't even know existed. Just explained to me a little bit gab of why the Me Too movement it is important to you. It's incredibly personal. Um,

me too. Write When I was nineteen, I was raped at gunpoint at my after school job, and it speaks to me because I had to figure out how to go from victim to survivor and kind of at times feeling very alone in that, feeling like I was screaming into a hurricane and no one was was hearing me. And with the Me Too movement, I feel like I

found my people. It's a tribe I never wanted to be in, but now that I'm here, and I'm so happy to know that there's other people who want to be healed, who want to get justice, who want to unleash and unload their pain. UM. And I want to be a voice UM for some of the voiceless. But yeah, thank god for the Me Too movement because so many people have just been suffering in silence. I want you to know, I really I commend you for having the courage to UM talk about it in the way that

you have. I really thank you for that. It's working. Like I told you on the phone, this is my year of growth. I'm really just in my life just cleaning up a lot of stuff and you were one of them. Having this moment with you is helping me in that process. Well, I told you on the phone, it was like a gorilla hopped off my back that I didn't even know it was there, right And I needed I needed that, I need I needed I needed you.

So thank you, Thank you. This has been beautiful and I hope from here on out that we have a bond and you know you can call on me for anything. And thank you for just being open to this rank and thank you guys for being here with us at the Red table. And please comments about what you saw today and you know, tell us your story and I want to hear. I'm here, I want to see I wanted I want to know. Yeah, for sure, So just let us know. He's our tough journeys, but they're they're

worth it. They are worth it most definitely. All right, let's get gab out here. She's been here long enough. Like hips, thank you guys for making this easy. I hope it was easy. Yes, I hope it was easy. Mama. What's happening On our next red table talk? We are talking about parenting. Will and I were worrying over Jaden. I don't want to be like everybody else. I get it. It's just so simple. I remember Will called me and he was like, have you talked about this with Jada

and him wearing a skirt? That wanted you to have something super special when you came here, something special that just reminded you always of how special you are, how grateful I am that you have been so open to this process, and so I wanted to give you something as a memory. Oh my god, oh my gosh, are you kidding me? No, thank you. I want to put it on you. Let this key be a reminder that you are the key to your power. Yay, that looks so beautiful on you. You are so welcome, so gab

before you leave, can I get a picture? Of course? Okay. 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 Facebook Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.