Kier Gaines: Why Healing Starts With the Truth You Keep Avoiding
Mick Unplugged
In this powerful episode of 'Mick Unplugged,' host Mick sits down with licensed therapist and mental health advocate Kier Gaines to explore the transformative
Key takeaways
- Admitting emotional pain is a courageous act that requires vulnerability and self-authority.
- Saying 'you hurt my feelings' challenges cultural norms around masculinity and emotional suppression.
Main topics
- Emotional honesty
- Masculinity and vulnerability
Notable quotes
"Saying 'you hurt my feelings' can be an act of strength, especially for men who have been conditioned to hide emotion."
"Why not? Why not have a better understanding so that you have a chance at a better relationship?"
Conclusion
This episode underscores that real healing begins when we confront the truths we've been
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) The attention economy concerns me, and I think we're getting more desperate for attention. But I think the more we look for attention and notoriety, the less we hold on to some semblance of integrity and morality. And ultimately, I don't know where our humanness goes after that. Speaker 1 (0:24) Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of McUnplugged. And today we are in for it. Like we're going to be talking to a guest that's a prominent voice in health and wellness, diving deep into personal development, insightful. He's impactful and he's done something that he doesn't know yet that we're going to talk about it. This actually changed my life. We're talking to none other than the amazing Mr. Kier Gaines. Kier, how are you doing today, brother? I'm good, Mick. What's good with you, brother? Thank you for having me on, man. Man, thank you for being here. I'm honored. There's some things we're going to talk about, but I have to give you your flowers, bro. Like, I'm all about that, especially when we talk about mental health, which I know is a space you dominate in. We're going to talk about your amazing journey. But, bro, I've been following you for a while. Speaker 1 (1:16) And you said something that you were going through that made me pause. And I was like, I'm implementing this in my life right now. You said that you told someone they were hurting your feeling. And when you said that, bro. every ounce of pride and ego that I had, I was able to step to the side because I understood the power of that. And so I just want to thank you for giving me that power as a man, as a Black man, to be able to let somebody know. Hey, that just hurt my feelings. I love you for that, brother. Hey, man, I love the fact that you picked up on that and you were able to do something with it. It's such a hard thing to admit, especially as a man and especially, especially as a black man, because there is this motif of being impenetrable that I think gets assigned to us. And it's unfair, man. It's unfair because you're still a person. You're still a human. But when you. Speaker 1 (2:20) put that motif on for so long, you start to believe that it's true. And after a while, you don't acknowledge your own feelings. And then there's this other part of it too, Mick, where when you admit to somebody that they hurt your feelings, now they got the power to do whatever with that they want. whatever they want. They can say, man, bleep your feelings. Just continue to steamroll you. Right. You know, they can listen. They can see you as weak and just avoid any type of conflict with you after that. It's really a mark of bravery to be able to admit something like that. It's still hard for me to admit. So, man, I love that, bro. I love that so much that that was able to help you. I'm glad that you gave me the power to do that. And I know that there are people that are watching that are listening right now. I'm letting you know. Speaker 1 (3:05) It's okay to let someone or someone's, plural, know that they hurt your feelings because feelings are real. Oh, yeah. And that's what Kier taught me, man. Like, the emotions that we have, the feelings that we have, they're all real. And a lot of times we keep that bottled in and it makes it worse and worse and worse. And then we put ourselves in darker places because we don't give ourselves the authority. Mm-hmm. To communicate back to others. And so, again, I applaud you for that, bro. Nah, right on, man. I think the authority piece is the perfect characterization of what that is. It's giving yourself permission. And for me, just the way I grew up, the hardest part of giving myself that authority is I always confuse someone who has hurt feelings with someone who's soft or weak. It's like, oh, nah, I would still beat you up. Speaker 1 (4:00) Right, right, right. Nah, that's not what this is. It's the acknowledgement of what's going on inside of me. And I think just being a man is so much about what you can control in your external universe, what you can manipulate for financial and economic gain and how you could be seen, how you could be loved and respected. Got to love and respect yourself and knowing people know how to love and respect you. Hey, bro, I ain't like when you did that. You don't have to always say it that way. You hurt my feelings. And for those that don't know, I share that with my wife. She wasn't my wife at the time. She was my girlfriend. I'm like, hey, the way you talking to me is hurting my feelings, which is counterintuitive to the way that a lot of us are culturalized, man. So thank you, man. I appreciate that. I'm glad I was able to do something for you, brother. Absolutely, man. Absolutely. Speaker 1 (4:47) Kier, man, I start every episode by asking my guests a very specific question. And all the accomplishments in life that you've had and the things that you do that we see publicly, but a lot of things that you do that we don't see, man. Like you are a monster of inspiration. You are a powerhouse when it comes to mental wellness and you really give back and help. And so my question to you is what I ask everybody. Like, what's your... Because. That thing that's deeper than your why, right? Like Simon Sinek taught us to start with why. Awesome. But I think that as you continue to answer that question and go deeper, what usually happens is you say, oh, this is my why because X, Y, and Z. And I care about what you say after you say the word because. So if I were to say, Kiera Gaines, man, like all the things that you do. Speaker 1 (5:44) The continuation of giving back and pouring in and trying to make this universe better. What's your because? What's your purpose today, brother? Because why not? Because why not? I think that I realized very early that I'm a pretty good translator where I can take things that are pretty complicated and I can put it at eye level so that it's digestible for folks. Why not? Why not have a better understanding so that you have a chance at a better relationship? Why not have a better understanding of where your feelings work so that you can anticipate them? Speaker 1 (6:20) Before they get there and that you can manage them once they're on top of you and then that you can maintain some sense of emotional stability once they're gone. So you're not just beating yourself up for what you didn't say in the argument. Why not? Why not? Why not have the opportunity to know yourself better as you change throughout time and you go through grief and you go through experiences and you go through hurt. You go through happiness. Why? I don't understand why not. Yeah, I love that, dude. I love that. And when did you realize, when did you first sit down and say, hey? Speaker 1 (6:56) I want to share with the world and go deeper because I've heard you talk a lot about depth, right? Like a lot of times, these are the words of Mick and Mick only. I think with AI now, everybody can sound really good on a subject. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. You can write yourself a best script. But they're not going deep into it. And like, that's where I can find out who's real and who's not. When did you know that mental wellness? was going to be a space that you were going deep into. Speaker 1 (7:28) That's a good question, Mick. I feel like when I learned how important it was in my own life and I learned, you know, you ever like when you're in a college class or when you're in any type of training and you walk in and you have an understanding of whatever subject you're about to go into. I know what I'm talking about. And then the more that instructor talks, the more you realize, oh, I was on level one of 50. I thought I knew everything, but there's a science to the science to the science that I don't understand yet. And I think as I started to accumulate life, you know, like I said, my girlfriend at the time, we found out we were pregnant. She's my wife now, but this was seven, eight years ago. I started. Speaker 1 (8:18) trying to figure out what it is I wanted to do with my life. I tried to better understand who I was and how I worked and why I did the things I did. And the more I would come to these understandings, the more I realized it was still so much more to go. And I realized that when we spread the problem wide and we talk about it in a very wide way, but we don't talk about it deeply, we don't get anything done. We just feel good about discussing it. And that didn't feel complete to me. It didn't feel fulfilling. Speaker 1 (8:47) I started just like how you don't ask the why, you ask the because. I started saying, and then what? Well, you need to be aware of these things that you think and feel. Okay, and then what? Well, once you're aware of these things you think and feel, you have to start being able to try to determine how they affect you. Okay, and then what? Well, once you determine how they affect you, you got to determine how they affect the people around you. Okay, and then what? And when you keep asking, and then what? If you're not only drilling deeper to get to the bottom of the problem, but you're also casting a wide net of your own understanding so that you're not just moving in a way that satisfies your most surface level urges, you know, the desire to be better, desire to be loved, seen, and respected. But you can walk into a feeling of self-love, into a feeling of self-respect. Speaker 1 (9:40) You can not just say, hey, man, I got these people pleasing tendencies. You can be honest. You got self-honesty, which I write about in my book. And the self-honesty says, hey, I'm afraid that people will abandon me if I don't allow them to just, you know, do the thing uninterrupted. And then you ask, okay, and then what? What happens when they abandon you? And it's just, maybe it's just me and my curiosity for life, bro. But I'm about solutions. I see the problem. What are we going to do about it, man? That's it. And that's what kindled me to start on this journey. Hey, so you talk about the book and we're just going to go there now. So before I knew you were writing a book, been a huge fan of you. And if people would have asked me, you know, tell me about Kierre. Tell me about what you love about him, what you like about him. I would have said this right here. Speaker 1 (10:34) Kier makes me think about the most uncomfortable truths. And so I call the segment of the show, I actually call the unplugged truth based on me talking about you. So I'm breaking news right now. So the second segment of my show, I always call the unplugged truth. And I got it from you because you made me think about uncomfortable truths, right? Like the things we don't want to tell ourselves or accept about ourselves. That's right. And so then now let's talk about this book. Speaker 1 (11:07) It all starts when you do. To me is the most uncomfortable unplugged truth ever, ever, ever, ever stated because, and we're going to go into the book, but just the title, it all starts when you do just opens up so much internal uncomfortableness, bro. We have to answer that question. Yeah. Are we going to start? Are we going to start? Are we