On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Jelly Roll: 5 Powerful Ways to Overcome Guilt and Shame & How to Finally Forgive Yourself

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Have you ever struggled with guilt or shame? Why do you think self-forgiveness is so hard? Today, Jay sits down with the incredibly talented and resilient Jelly Roll, a Grammy-nominated Nashville native who has captured hearts with his raw, soulful music. Rising from a troubled past marked by addiction, incarceration, and personal struggles, Jelly Roll has turned his life around through music, earning widespread acclaim for his deeply emotional lyrics and raw storytelling. With a top-three debut on the Billboard 200 and multiple awards to his name, His music resonates with those facing hardship, offering a message of hope, redemption, and healing. Jelly Roll shares his powerful journey from a turbulent past—marked by addiction, incarceration, and emotional struggles—to becoming one of the most celebrated figures in country music today. Together, they explore topics like the impact of childhood trauma, battling demons, overcoming addiction, and the importance of love and healing in personal transformation. Jelly Roll opens up about his rise to success, reflecting on how music has been a healing force not only for him but for the countless fans who resonate with his lyrics. From finding solace in Jay Shetty’s book Think Like a Monk during a dark time in his life to creating music that speaks directly to those who feel unseen, Jelly Roll's story is one of redemption, hope, and purpose. In this interview, you'll learn How to find purpose in your struggles How to forgive yourself for past mistakes How to overcome addiction through accountability How to turn negative experiences into positive impact How to create emotional resilience in tough times How to find peace in moments of darkness No matter where you are right now, it’s never too late to rewrite your story and create a life filled with meaning and growth. Keep pushing forward, and believe in your ability to rise.  With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 04:24 Rediscovering Purpose After Struggles 07:26 Coping with the Loss of a Father 10:34 How His Mother Sparked His Musical Journey 14:48 The Impact of Deep-Rooted Insecurities 17:25 Embracing Accountability for Personal Growth 19:51 The Barriers to Self-Forgiveness 21:08 Reflections on His Fifteen-Year-Old Self 24:26 Life Behind Bars as a Juvenile 28:47 The Fine Line Between Accountability and Self-Sabotage 32:56 Developing Emotional Awareness and Growth 37:21 The Reality of Food Addiction 40:34 Breaking the Chains of Addiction 42:22 Finding Someone Who Sees Your True Worth 49:45 Why Asking for Help Shows Strength, Not Weakness 54:12 Bringing Hope and Uplifting Spirits Through Prison Performances 01:02:13 Addressing Drug Addiction in His Congressional Speech 01:08:50 Understanding the True Victims of Drug Abuse 01:11:31 Breaking Free from Generational Curses 01:18:23 The Profound Impact of Music on His Life 01:25:57 Healing the Inner Child Through Faith 01:31:14 A Heartfelt Letter from His Brother  01:35:36 Fast Five with Jelly Roll   Episode Resources: Jelly Roll | Website Jelly Roll | Instagram Jelly Roll | Facebook Jelly Roll | YouTube Jelly Roll | TikTok See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is your space to explore mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, and I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday. Listen to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Take good care and we'll see you there. Our twenties are often seen as this golden decade, our time to be carefree, make mistakes and figure out our lives. But what can psychology teach us about this time? I'm Gemma Speg, the host of The Psychology of Your 20s. Each week we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of our 20s, from career anxiety, mental health, heartbreak, money and much more to explore the science behind our experiences. The Psychology of Your 20s hosted by me, Gemma Speg. Listen now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Bring a little optimism into your life with The Bright Side, a new kind of daily podcast from Hello Sunshine, hosted by me, Danielle Robay. And me, Simone Boyce. Every weekday, we're bringing you conversations about culture, the latest trends, inspiration, and so much more. I am so excited about this podcast, The Bright Side.

You guys are giving people a chance to shine a light on their lives, shine a light on a little advice that they wanna share. Listen to The Bright Side on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search The Bright Side. I'm honest enough to be on your podcast today to tell you that I still get stuck here sometimes.

I probably never said it this honestly, but this is the podcast to be that real about. It's that I have just... He's a crossover artist in more ways than one. Multi-genre, multi-classy. Give it up for Jelly Roll! You went to jail for an armed robbery at 15. Have you ever thought about what you'd say to that person

if you met them again? Ooh, it's the best question I've ever been asked. I've avoided this question. Do you truly believe that you're a horrible person? I can't imagine you having a horrible heart. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on any of our new releases. We're dedicated to bringing you the content you love. Our team carefully analyzes what resonates most with you to bring on board the best experts and storytellers to help you improve your life.

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Hit subscribe to not miss any of these episodes. If you think of someone who would love this episode, send it to them to make their day. The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose,

the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. Today's guest is someone that I have been dying to have on the show. Ever since the moment I saw him perform live and I got to give him a big hug the day after. This guest's story is truly unbelievable, truly inspiring, truly spectacular. I'm speaking about the award-winning, Grammy nominated,

Nashville native singer-songwriter Jelly Roll, who debuted top three on the Billboard 200 All-Genre Chart and number two on the Top Country Album Charts with his debut country album. And it earned him the biggest country debut album in Billboard Consumption Chart history. Jelly Roll was nominated for Best New Artist and Best Duo Group Performance for Save Me

with Lainey Wilson at the 2024 Grammy Awards, a four times winner at the 2023 People's Choice Country Awards and the most nominated male at the 2023 CMA Awards with five total nominations, capturing his first CMA Award for New Artist of the Year. For the 2024 CMA Awards, Jelly Roll was just nominated this morning for Entertainer of the Year,

Album of the Year, and Male Vocalist of the Year. Jelly Roll is set to release his new album, Beautifully Broken, on October 11th, and launch his Beautifully Broken tour on August 27th. Welcome to On Purpose Jelly Roll. Yeah. As you kept reading off, I was getting nervous.

I was like, wow, this is all associated with me. Oh man, it's beautiful to see it. And you know, you just said to me outside, you said, did you ever dream of this? And I said to you, no, I didn't dream of it. And you were saying it was the same back. And I just want to take folks back to how we connected because I went to Clive Davis's pre-Grammy party. That was the first time I've ever seen you perform. And I was just like, who is this guy? Like that's a hard party to perform at, I feel. There's short segments, it's moving fast, there's so much going on. And you came on stage and you had everyone in Raptures.

I remember like MGK was bopping along, that stood on his chair or it's like on his table. Like everyone was rocking out to you. And I was thinking you had everyone in there, fully present, fully locked in. It was beautiful. So I posted it, I took a video, posted it. I thought nothing of it. I was just like, this guy's amazing.

Can't wait to follow his work, listen to more of his music. And then you DM me back and I was just taken away because you said you were aware of my work and you'd read Think Like A Monk at a really low time in your life. And I was like, I was genuinely humbled. I was like, no way. I was like, I didn't have a clue that you knew who I was. And I was just so grateful. And I wanted to ask you there, like, how did you even get, think like a monk?

How did you find on purpose? Like, what was the low time in your life that it found you at? It's funny, man. So in 2019, my father passed away in March of 2019. He got sick in January of 2019. And I had spent the last three months of his life with him. And every day because it was kind of one of those really kind of slow 90-day declines.

And I was coming out of that really, really struggling. And about a year later, I had gained like 60 or 70 pounds back, right, because I had lost a lot of weight at the time. And I just felt it weighing on me. And we were going into COVID at that point, too. And I had discovered you on YouTube. And I think this, I don't remember, when did you launch On Purpose? Because I think this was before-

2019. Yeah, so I just discovered the pod and I was watching just like the initial stuff. Like I got into the super earlier stuff where you were just like direct to camera stuff before the pod. And then I was like, I should read this book. So my wife knows, side note, I've always been obsessed with monks and like that whole I live a very chaotic life and I maybe Romanticize this idea of disappearing to the mountains for a year and refiguring my life out I'm like every other kid that watched Dumb and Dumber

It's like, you know, like maybe this will work So when I read it and it was a really big transition for me. My father had just died. I thought my purpose had been taken away from me because to that point, music to me was a donkey to get to people, right? And that was taken away. I couldn't get to people the way I used to get to people.

I was used to doing 200 bar shows a year. So I'm trying to grieve my father and we're all going through this national pandemic together. And of course, the fear of it initially was really strong as well. And that was kind of that season of life that I got introduced to Mr. Jay Shetty, man. It was really, really cool.

Because I've always believed that what we put in our body comes out and that's a lot deeper than just what we eat or drink. I think it's what we consume. If I'm watching a bunch of murder mysteries, I'll feel a certain kind of anxiety if I watch them for a month straight.

If I'm listening to On Purpose or Dr. Dispenser, these people that I look up to, Tuberman, these guys that I think are just great, you know what I mean? That I'm always putting out better stuff. So yeah, you have no clue how much your art helped me. And in exchange, I think my art's been able to help people. It's funny how iron sharpens iron without us even knowing each other. You know what I mean? That I was being inspired by what you were saying and what you were doing. Now, what you're doing is so inspiring.

I mean, whenever I'm hearing you, any music you put out, I'm like, I can pray to this, I can meditate to this, you know, I can dance to this. Like it's real heart music and soul music. And for me, hearing that from you and the big hug you gave me at the Grammys, I was feeling so much love. And so thank you because knowing that someone

who was having such an incredible impact That I'd somehow been connected to your life was really profound, but you spoke about your father then losing your father What was your relationship like with him up until that point and what was what walk us through that moment of losing him? And what that felt like he was he was like really we were really really close When I was a really, we were really, really close. When I was a really troubled juvenile, my father was an alcoholic, my mother had her own struggles. And we wasn't as close whenever I was a kid because I was just so rebellious in spirit.

But as I got in my 20s and finally got out of that revolving cycle of the judicial system, me and him started really getting close and I started leaning on him and we would go to to happy hour three or four days a week every day, and we'd go sit at the same spot at the same bar on the Mumbran Street in Nashville called the 10 Roo from 4 to 6. And he was such an impactful man. Later in his life, he really started becoming enriched in his community and his church,

helped with the Room in the Inn program for the homeless every Thursday. I mean, he just was a, but he also kind of taught me that duality of man because he'd still throw one back and party. He wasn't like a square, you know, but he was like, it was cool. So he kind of encouraged me and we were really close and he was one of those situations, Jay, that I didn't see it coming and he didn't either. We all thought he was good. I knew he was getting older. He was probably about 76, but he was still sharp as a tack. And it kind of out of nowhere, he got a really, he thought he just got sick and it turned out

that he'd had leukemia for a few years and just never even really checked on it. But he was one of them old tough dudes that never went to the doctor, didn't believe in, you know, he was one of those guys that grandpa's cough syrup and a good sweat will get any cold out of, you know, drink a little bourbon and go to sleep in a hot room with two blankets you'll be like old like penitentiary dudes that'll just try to sweat colds out it's like just

sweat it out so those last 90 days were really cool for me Jay because I got to really spend the time with like when he got sick that day I showed up to his house I put him in my car drove him to the hospital closest to my house and I got to drive up there every morning and hang out with him all day, you know, all the way until the end. And it was really cool because he taught me how to live and he also taught me how to die. And because, man, he did it like a gangster. He did it just the way I thought my father would do it.

You know, not a tear in his eye, not a worry in his face, just a man of faith that was just kind of ready to go. You know? But it hurt. You know, it hurt hard. Was there a lesson or something he said at that time or was it just the way he was? Just the way he dealt with it. Um, he, uh,

He was I think not even what he said. One thing he said, I'll never forget. That was funny, but it stuck with me was The nurse came in to give him his pain pills or whatever medicine it was and he chewed it You know, just old tough just swallowed it I said that don't bother you and he was just just as quick as he could say it He said sometime when a pill is too hard to swallow. You just got to chew it Right, dude that stuck with me dog It's like and I thought about that cuz I was like that's so much bigger than just this particular moment

You know what I mean? But he was always full of those little one-liner wisdoms. That's kind of how he was. He was the opposite of me. I'll talk to everybody a lot. My dad was very kind of reserved and when he spoke, it really counted. You know what I mean?

And what about your mother? Because I've heard that she also was dealing with her own mental health challenges when you were growing up. What was that experience like of having a father that was this way and then what was she like and was she complimenting who he was and how did she impact you?

They were polar opposite. She struggled with drugs and just real mental health stuff. She started becoming really reclusive. There was a 20 year period in my life that I didn't see my mother outside of a nightgown, but maybe twice ever. I just never seen my mother outside of a nightgown, but maybe twice ever. You know, I just never seen her come out of her room very much, more or less out of our house. And I didn't understand anything about drugs at the time or mental health, but she really, really struggled with that.

But I connected music with her mental health, right? Because the few times when she was out of that bedroom and at that kitchen table, she was thriving. I mean, it was like, and she would hold court and she was so special in how she dealt with people. And she still, she's still like this, that she would come downstairs and sit at that table. And it was almost like a light shot out of the top of the house. The whole family would come into the table. We wouldn't talk about it. We just like, you would just see them start,

neighbors would start to come over. Her girlfriends would start to pull up. She'd start playing music, smoking cigarettes, telling stories, talking shit, holding court at the kitchen table. And it'd be like a group of us. She'd have her four girlfriends sitting around the table. We'd all be standing around them.

Some would, I mean, like, it was like a crowd trying to just take anything she'd give us, you know? But that's where my love for music came in. Because imagine you're 10 years old and you don't see your mother in a healthy space very much. But when she seems her healthiest, there's always music playing. There's always this record player.

There's always, and I always tell the story, Jay, that it was that you're old enough to remember this era that we didn't have Google. We didn have a bunch of the sources. You just had to believe people Yeah, so they would just tell these wild stories about I don't know if any of these stories I heard about all these songs are true But she would always set up a song first with a big story and then play it So we were like all on the edge of our seat and she'd hype up a song that we'd never heard and then play it We were all like listening like we were watching a movie like the first time she played coward of the county

or the gambler, like we're like ears locked. You know what I mean? Or that, oh, where, oh, where can my baby be? You know, we're just all like, she's like, listen, listen, listen, she wait for the good parts. We'd all get goosebumps. We cheer at the end of a song. And it really, really kind of brought that being young to me.

I was like, oh, this solves problems. This brings people together. This makes sick people better. Like there's something happening with this vibration that's different. And I probably 10, Jay. And right then I was like, I want to write songs. I came down like a week later with a poem.

You know what I mean? I didn't know how to write a song. So like, I wrote a poem. You know what I mean? Did you sing it and perform it for her? Oh yeah, every time. Oh dude, it got to the point where like, and if she was downstairs with her girlfriend,

she'd call me up there to read whatever the most one I wrote was. She was very, looking back now, you don't realize how much that feeds the positive side of reinforcing a little dream in you as a kid. But she, I don't even know if she did it, but she hammered it home.

Cause she made me feel like the belle of the ball. I mean, she'd be like, Jason, come down here, little jelly. Come down here, little jelly. And I'd come down, she'd go, show Pat that thing you wrote last week. And I'd run back up, get my little sheet of paper, and I'd come down like, check this out. Pat and Pat would act like it was the coolest thing ever.

You know, it sucked, of course. I was kidding, it was horrible. You know what I mean? But they were super, super complimentary, and that was something that really encouraged me. Do you still have any of those original poems? No, dude. We are such a white trash family. We lost all our pictures, all our poems. We lost everything, man.

Yeah, that would... I could imagine just... No matter how bad you think it was, it would be fun to look back and see what you were writing about. Just to see that... I'd love to see some of them home videos. I was watching... I forget her name, I think her name's Sadie. She's with the Duck Dynasty family, but she's a pastor now. And they were showing a video of her standing on her kitchen table when she was two going, three going, Jesus forgives everybody, He'll love you. And then fast forward and she's 28 now and she like runs a mega church and it was like,

oh, that's funny. I wonder if there's any videos of me being a little asshole. I had to run around rapping to people. That's beautiful, man. That's beautiful. How does it go from that to then being incarcerated at 13? Like I feel like, you know, that's 10 years old, you're saying.

Seems like there's the ability to find joy. You're looking back and smiling, but then 13, that incarceration journey begins. It deep-rooted insecurities early. I was always a bigger kid, always struggled with an eating disorder. I just... I think I ate my emotions whenever I was younger

and feelings and what was happening in my environment and the household and outside. So, I had a little chip on my shoulder naturally as a young kid. I was... I've always said this and it's... So I had a little chip on my shoulder naturally as a young kid. I've always said this and it's, but it's true, excuse my language, is big kids are one of two ways. They're either very shy and very timid or they're very funny and can be very aggressive. And I was the funny aggressive big guy, you know what I mean?

And I carried that in my neighborhood was, you know, I mean, it was happening. It was a very active area. You know what I mean? It was a very normal middle, lower class neighborhood in the 90s. So there was just so much crap happening. It was so easy to get involved.

When you're a kid, you're just looking for any kind of acceptance, any sense of belonging, any sense of warmth. And the streets will always give it to you. You know what I mean? They're praying on it. They're praying on it and praying for it, that it happens. And I just immediately got washed into it.

And I also was one of the people in my family that had a, I've probably never said this this way, and I hope I don't get in trouble. I didn't have a good relationship with how I looked at money. You know, I looked at money as the way out of this particular situation and I was willing to do whatever it took to get that and I had no morals about it. I had no moral compass at all. You know, I mean, I look back at those years, Jay, and I'm so embarrassed to talk about him. I was such a, I was still a bad person in my early 30s, but I mean, I was a really horrible kid

all the way into my mid-20s. I was, people are always like, you're the nicest dude I've ever met. I'm like, I'm so glad y'all haven't met nobody that knew me 20 years ago. You know what I mean? But yeah, so I just immediately started getting in shit. And the first time I caught a real case, I'd gotten real case, I got caught with weed and stuff and all that

little two days in juvenile stuff. But I'd gotten in a fight with a kid and back then they had the chain wallets. And when we were wrestling, I grabbed a chain wallet to try to hit him with it. And that was a strong arm robbery case. So I ended up in the system for like 20 something months when I was like 13 for that strong arm robbery. Do you truly believe that you're a horrible person? I can't imagine you having a horrible heart. Yeah. I don't, I kind of lean towards, I don't know if I had a bad heart as much as I lean

towards kind of the Damascus thing, where I think I was just a really less than admirable person. I just, I was desperate and delusional. I was, admirable person. I was desperate and delusional. I was a desperate delusional dreamer, and the desperate part got me in a lot of trouble. I encourage delusional dreamers. Be a delusional dreamer. Just don't be a desperate delusional dreamer. But I definitely was consciously making really horrible decisions.

I just had such an anger. I was just so mad at life. Everything that wasn't right was everybody's fault but mine. I had such a victim mentality. I took zero accountability for anything in my life. I was the kid that if you asked what happened, I immediately started with everything but me. You know what I mean?

And it took years for me to break that, like years of work, solid work to just like break that. It also has taken years of work for me to even forgive that kid. Years of real intensive work to just be like, you know what? Because when you're 16 and you do something very manipulative and you look back at it, Jay, you're like, man, that was super manipulative. Like, man, what was I thinking back then? That's just, I knew what I was doing. I knew that was super manipulative. Like, man, what was I thinking back then? That's just, I knew what I was doing.

I knew I was being manipulative. Man, I was also 16 when I was a kid. And I know that because I now have a 16 year old. Jay, man, she's the smartest kid in school. And of course everybody thinks they got the coolest, smartest kid. I'm no exception, you know? But she's the smartest.

She's so much smarter than me. She's so much better than me. She's gonna be everything I wasn't in life. It's going to be so fun to watch. But she'll still do shit that'll make me go, oh, she's 16. You know what I'm saying? Like all the time. Like I have moments where I look like, dude, I think you could build a rocket.

And then I have moments when I'm like, I think you put your shoes on wrong today. You know what I mean? She's 16, you know? So I've been able to do the work and forgive myself for being what I was, but I definitely did a lot of work to change my whole outlook on people and love. That's why I'm such a hugger. Man, I was not a touchy guy, dude. I was a fist bump, stay away from me, flat faced,

you know, I was kind of a jail guy. And now I'm like a just, I joke all the time, I didn't cry until I was 33. Now I can't quit. I mean, it's like I thought I'd caught up by now, but I mean, I still just for no reason, I'll just sob. I love that. What does it take? What's blocking us from forgiving ourselves?

I think accepting our responsibility and what we did is really hard. For me, that was the hardest part of forgiving myself was just really when I quit running out of it was this person's fault, it was that person's fault. It took a long time for me to, as my father would say, chew that pill of realizing that maybe it was me. You know, it's the classic quote of on relationship number 27, you look up and go now. There's no way I picked 27 crazy women You know what I'm saying like at some point. Maybe I am the problem and That's the first thing I did to forgive myself was just almost like the basic principles of AA I just had to admit like you know what this is this is me

This is all a reflection of the way I've carried myself Yeah, things happen to me in life that created this. And yeah, there was a lot of, I don't look at people and go, what's wrong with them no more? I look at people and go, what happened to them? But that is no excuse not to move on. And I was tired of forgiving everybody but me, and I couldn't figure out what the problem was. I'm like, I forgave everybody. I don't have a bitter heart about nothing. Like, you haven't forgave you. And man, I just, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

You went to, you went to jail for an armed robbery at 15. Have you ever thought about, or maybe you have even met them, but have you ever thought about what you'd say to that person if you met them again? It's the best question I've ever been asked. I've avoided this question hoping because I don't know how to answer it, Jay. I really want to have a conversation with them. I've thought about reaching out. This has been 24 years ago now, and I just don't know how that would even start.

You know, how I would go about it. Cause sometimes I wonder if they might've even seen me in passing or, and are aware of my success. And I wonder if they've even correlated. I mean, I've obviously dramatically changed. I was 15, dude. You know what I mean? I couldn't grow facial hair at all.

I didn't. I hardly hit puberty. I still had my hay voice when I did that robbery. So I've thought about that a ton. And they're definitely on my list, my men's list. I just haven't made it that far down yet. What do you think you would say?

I would just ask them to just one, forgive me, because there's no excuse. And that the first accountability is no matter how old I was, I had no business taking from anybody. Just this entitlement that I had, the world owed me enough that I could come take your stuff. Just what a horrible, horrible way to look at life and people. Just what a horrible way to interact with the earth, you know, and I would apologize for that first. Just flat, just one, accountability is what I'm so big on now, Jay. Just look at them and I go, man, I f***ed up. And then I would hope they would give me a little grace as I explained to them that I was 15 and and I was just trying to be I don't know what I was even trying to be when I look back now

I don't know what my thought I don't have this is how I know I was 15 because the more when I try to make logic Of it, I can't there was no logic to what I did It made absolutely no sense and I learned so much from it and the way that I interact with people And I hope that they would see that I've made it my life's mission to change and to change people because That's what I'm Representing the most and what I do with my this this whole thing for me is I think people cheer for me Jay because they see

A little bit of me in them or they see their cousin or there. I'm a family member They relate and I speak for an unspoken group of people. You know, and I hope they would know that, you know, money doesn't create character, it reveals it. Right? If I was an asshole, what a great time to start. You know what I mean? What a great time to show the world. You know, I think that I'm trying to diligently prove myself that I'm... I've not only changed that I took the platform serious, and it's making me change more every day. You know, the responsibility that God's making me change more every day.

You know, the responsibility that God's given me and I would hope they would forgive me. That's beautiful. Even sitting with you for a few moments and the few interactions we have had, it's so evident to me that you've done so much work. Like it's so clear. It's so clear. And I think you remind everyone of the potential we do want to see in humanity. Like it's like, that's what we want to see. Like when we see someone struggling, we want to see them have that transformation. And I think what you were saying that when people see you, I think they're reminded that, oh, it's possible. Oh, it's real. It can be genuine. Like it, it's so genuine to your core when you're talking about it to me. Like I feel the vibration of just, you know, the growth and transformation you chose.

What I'm fascinated by is how did it affect you at the time to make a mistake in your early years? How long did that end up putting you in jail for that time? That's the time I got charged as an adult. So I still have that felony on my record of this day for that crime. That was, I did a few years. I mean, I came home, right? I made bond right before I was 17.

So I did two and a half years and then I ended up having to go back and do another few years for the actual case when it settled out. The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is an NAACP and Webby award-winning podcast dedicated to all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. Here, we have the conversations that help Black women decipher how their pasts inform who they are today and use that information to decide who they want to be moving forward. We chat about things like how to establish routines

that center self-care, what burnout looks and feels like, and defining what aspects of our lives are making us happy and what parts are holding us back. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. And I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday. Listen to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Take good care and we'll see you there. Our 20s are seen as this golden decade, our time to be carefree, fall in love, make mistakes and decide what we want from our life. But what can psychology really teach us about this decade? I'm Gemma Speck, the host of The Psychology of Your 20s. Each week we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of our 20s from career anxiety, mental

health, heartbreak, money, friendships and much more to explore the science and the psychology behind our experiences. Incredible guests, fascinating topics, important science and a bit of my own personal experience. Audrey, I honestly have no idea what's going on with my life. Join me as we explore what our 20s are really all about, from the good, the bad and the ugly, and listen along as we uncover how everything is psychology, including our 20s. The psychology of your 20s, hosted by me, Gemma Spagg, now streaming on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or

wherever you get your podcasts. Get emotional with me, Radhita Vlukya, in my new podcast, A Really Good Cry. We're going to talk about and go through all the things that are sometimes difficult to process alone. We're going to go over how to regulate your emotions, diving deep into holistic personal development and just building your mindset to have a happier, healthier life. We're gonna be talking with some of my best friends. I didn't know we were gonna go there on this.

I mean, unless we got this one. People that I admire. When we say listen to your body, really tune in to what's going on. Authors of books that have changed my life. Now you're talking about sympathy, which is different than empathy, right? And basically have conversations

that can help us get through this crazy thing we call life. I already believe in myself. I already see myself. And so when people give me an opportunity, I'm just like, oh great, you see me too. We'll laugh together, we'll cry together and find a way through all of our emotions. Never forget, it's okay to cry as long as you make it a really good one. Listen to A Really Good Cry with Radhie Devlukia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What does that experience do to a young person?

Walk us through that because I feel like you're now looking back at it when you're, you know, late 30s. But when you're looking back at it, it's a different perspective to like when you're actually 15 in jail for two and a half years, going back in and out, cases. What does that do to the mental health of a teenager? Well, here's the perspective, Jay. Imagine us as adults now, me and you go have a conversation. I go, hey man, let's go spend three months in the mountains together, not use our phones,

just fellowship. I love it. You would look at it like, great idea, right? You're like, it's just three months, it'll be fun. I mean, I think this will be great. We'll bring our wives, we'll invite other people. Let's actually make a thing of this. Now, because us, because we know in our age

that three months is, the hardest we're working three months, but I might need the break we need, you know? When you're 15 years old, three months is your life. It's an entire semester of school. You're now gonna be a second year freshman, or you're gonna have to make up these whole classes next summer because of three months, you know?

So imagine getting thrown into that vortex for three years. I missed high school. I missed any kind of normal socializing, any kind of what would be growing up, what would be developing in those areas. And I was developing in a room, and I did a crime that deserved this by the way, but I was developing in a room with stone white walls, a steel commode and a steel bunk and a six by eight cell, six foot wide, eight inches long.

By the time I was an adult, I had to sleep with my legs curled. Couldn't stretch all the way out, you know? I'll never forget being 17, realizing I grew enough that I couldn't fit in the bunk no more, lengthwise. So you go through these things as a juvenile and do you ever see Blow? No. Oh, you got to watch the movie Blow. No, I haven't. It's incredible. It's a crazy movie. It's about a guy named George Young that was a huge Johnny Depp played him. Huge Johnny Depp fan. Oh cool. I love Johnny Depp. But he was a big weed dealer and he finally got some federal time for moving hundreds

of thousands of pounds of weed. And the joke he says in the movie is, I went to prison with a bachelor's degree in marijuana. I left with a PhD in cocaine. Because he came home and ended up being the biggest cocaine dealer in American history. So that's the truth though. That's how that impacts us, Jay. When we're in these situations, our judicial system is set that when you put the worst of the worst in a room together and give them nothing to do but talk, argue, and fight.

You're only making smarter criminals. They're only when there's no outlets, because there was very few outlets for us, even as a juvenile. We didn't have no outlets. I didn't get my diploma. I didn't get my GED until I was 25 in adult jail. We didn't have real classes. We didn't have a real rec yard, an exercise program, a mentorship program at the juvenile. We didn't have a real rec yard, an exercise program, a mentorship program at the juvenile. We didn't have anything. I mean, they treated us like lifers, you know, orange jumpsuits. These were heinous crimes we were committing. I understand that I am huge on discipline.

I'm one of the few people that even in my justice reform doesn't anywhere do I believe people shouldn't be incarcerated. I think that I've learned some of the greatest things in my life and that just changed my life. But what changed my life the most in those facilities was later when I started getting resources in them. When I started having education units where I could get my GED, and they had a Christian program

that I could go to called Jericho, breaking the walls down. These were the things that I started learning these fundamentals and they had AA and NA. And I started getting access to different kind of books and literature and these things. But all through my juvenile years, Jay, none of that. You're just sitting in there, you know, there's kids that went to juvenile at my age and came home and couldn't never could read and write.

Wow. Yeah. No, I appreciate that perspective. And it comes back to what you keep referring to is this principle of accountability and I think accountability gets a bit of a hard rap right now. Like it's a difficult reputation that accountability has because talk to me about the difference between accountability and self-sabotage or self-blame, right?

There's a difference. Huge. And I can tell you know it because from the way you're using the word. But I think people get scared of accountability because they think, well, if I think it's all my fault, then maybe I shouldn't be here or maybe I don't matter or I'm not enough. How do you see the difference? There was a poem called The Guy in the Glass. Have you ever read this poem? No.

It's an incredible poem. I used to have it memorized, but I read it in jail and I hung it up on my jail mirror. And until about two years ago, it was on the mirror in my bedroom every day. My whole, as long as me and my wife have been together, it's something I live by. The guy, it pretty much says that, you can be king for a day and get a pats on the back

in life as you pass, but it's only heartache and tears if you fool the guy on the glass. That was the moment where now, if there's a triggering thing that happens in my life I used to the old mentality was who did this? First thing I do now is I go straight to the mirror go. What could Jason have done differently? What could I have really done differently to avoid this situation? Because once I learned that there's Accountability this old head once told me if I'm running up a flight of steps and I slip on a step and fall, whose fault is it? It's a mind of the steps. I go, it's mine. He goes, what if there's a

crack in the steps? I go, it's the steps. He goes, you think? And I go, well for sure, that's the variable, right? If there's a crack in the steps, it's the steps fault. He said, the steps didn't have a choice to be there. You had a choice to run up them. Man, those are the moments where you're like, oh, so, and then if I can assess that I did everything right, that's how I avoid self-blame. Real self-assessment, honest self-assessment to go,

because a lot of times we just don't honestly assess ourselves. Something I learned through AA that I love so much is going home and having these, like you assess your day, you write, what did you do? What do they call it? Like a moral inventory, right? And having these real moments.

And then you get freedom because sometimes you find out it ain't you. And then you're like, you know what? I actually did pretty good by this. Then you can start handling your business and then going down the line, all right, well, where did this fall apart? You know what I mean?

And then you can start checking your boxes. But I've learned that even in the end, it'll always come back to you. Because even if it's somebody you hired to do a job and they failed to do the job, I still hired that person to do the job. That was still my own going. And that just changed everything.

I had to do it that way though, Jay, because I was a chronic, I was the Spider-Man meme. You know what I mean? All the time, dude, it was everybody, you know what I'm saying? It's him, it's him, it's him. It was never me. You know what I'm saying? Turns out it was pretty much always me. But I love that you can laugh at that and say that, right? I think that's the beauty of it. When you start realizing that even when you got it wrong, it wasn't this like deep, dark

pain, it was just like, we're young, we're stupid, we think about things. We, we're kind of, we're kind of trained to believe the problem's not us. Right. And when we do make it us, we don't need to hold it as like this heavy, dark weight. It's like, Oh wait, let me just relieve myself of this stupid idea I have that it's not me. And maybe if it is me, I love that poem, Guy in the Glass, you said? You're gonna call the guy on the glass. I'm gonna check it out.

You'll love it, man. It's big. I got a question and depending on that, how do you think that, how do you encourage people to get over that? Because that's a real thing you're saying is to be like, when you do assess at you, there is a heavy, heavy feeling. For me, I just started finding freedom in it to be like, like you said, it was more, I started looking at less like, damn, I'm up to more like, Oh, I can let that go. I blew that. What did I, I started taking this mentality of I don't lose.

I learn. You know what I mean? Like, like, like, yeah, like we don't, this team, we don't, we might screw stuff up, but we don't just, we learned something. It was all valuable. Yeah. What do you think? What do you think that process is? There's two things that come to mind.

One of them is in the monk tradition, our higher self is called the monk mind, and our lower self is called the monkey mind. And so whenever you're acting in that way, it's compared to a monkey. So if you see a monkey, and obviously you're not going to see a monkey in most places, but at least in India, when you see a monkey, monkeys are crazy. They're silly. They're jumping from branch to branch. They're swinging around.

They make funny sounds. They're playful. They'll show you their teeth to scare you a little bit. They'll steal your credit card and trade it back for a banana. They're silly. And the reason why the mind is compared to a monkey is because it often acts like that. It's silly, it's unreasonable, it's awkward, it does funny things. And so when you look at the mind that way, you're like, Oh, it's just a monkey. Like, it's okay. Like it doesn't have to be this serious heavy thing.

You recognize that the mind's nature, the mind's propensity is to be that way. And then you go, wait a minute, I wouldn't judge a monkey if it did that. So let me not judge myself. Let me free myself of that guilt and shame. And I think the bigger thing there is guilt blocks growth. Guilt doesn't make you want to grow. It might make you start to grow, but it won't help you grow long term

if you keep guilting yourself. Shame is not gonna help you shift. If you keep shaming yourself, you're not suddenly gonna shift. It may shift you a tiny degree, but it's not gonna cause a transformation. And so guilt, shame, and judgment don't help you grow, shift, and transform.

And I think so many of us have to realize that it's just not a useful emotion sustainably. It can be useful in the interim to like get you off your backside and get you going, but it's not a, where I see you today, it's not like love and grace and compassion. Like these things are sustainable. These things are infinite. Whereas shame, guilt and judgment are finite reasons for motivation. They run out. I don't know if

that makes sense. No, 100%. Yeah, so that's how I see it. Yeah, that's how I see it. And that's big to touch on, especially with shame. That shame spiral for me has been my biggest demon. Really? I mean, it's the monster in front of me all the time. It's the monster that I battle the most with my obesity, which to me is one of the things that I'm working on, but it's clearly where I have the most work to do. My nan would always say, you can't quit everything at once. I was with my dad one time, my nan was at a nursing home

and she was so funny, man. And we came in and first thing my dad tells her is, Jason quit smoking cigarettes. Old baby Jason quit smoking cigarettes. She said, good. I said, Grandma, I ain't gonna lie, man. It was hard as hell. And buddy goes, my dad goes,

hey, you can tell he didn't quit cussing. She looks up and goes, well, he can't quit everything at once, can he? I like that. So I'm finding that getting out of that shame is I'm focusing on emotional sobriety. So I'm really focusing on that. You know what I mean?

It was just in the last few years, I did enough work to even learn what emotions were. When I seen an emotion chart for the first time, because you ever heard people ask you, how do you feel? And I just like, it was always one of two things. It was always just angry. You know what I'm saying? For so many years, every emotion that came to me was anger.

But I didn't know that it wasn't really anger. It was, sometimes I was disappointed. Sometimes I was sad, you know? Sometimes I was guilt, I felt guilt. Sometimes I was in a shame spiral, but I didn't know that. So to me it was like, they were like, well, you know what, tell me how you feel right now. I'm like, it was just always angry.

You know, and then I worked my way through that too, learning more about the emotions and trying to anchor down and being honest about how I feel. Now where I still struggle, Jay, is I still struggle when I get stuck ruminating. You know what I mean? I still, my time of clearing my head and getting a logical thought sometimes

still takes a little longer than I want it to. Cause I can actually only get stuck miles. You see miles, my buddy from onsite, he always calls it, I don't know if he calls it rumination lane or rumination road, but I'll just end up, instead of making a decision, you know, it's freedom or grace here and you can ruminate here. And I'm still the guy that'll just pace here for three or four days, just making

myself madder about something until I finally let it go. One of the things you're reminding me of is this idea that like, one of the most addictive things in the world is actually shame. Shame is such an addiction. We get addicted to it and it just becomes our rhetoric, our habit, our go-to place. It's a go-to comfort and it's a go-to pain and we know it's both but we kind of hold on to it like an addiction and we get caught in that spiral. I think that's real. But it sounds like you're taking a

lot of steps in your health journey. You were just saying to me, drinking like two gallons of water a day. You know what's crazy though? I'm just having a fan moment right now where you just looked at me and said the kind of shit I watch you say on this podcast. That inspires me, but it was to me. You know what I'm saying? That was so cool.

Thank you. I was just sitting here like a little giddy kid. Like I see this all the time. This is cool that I'm on the other side of this now. Anytime. Thank you, brother, man. Please. That's so humbling for me. I think the weight for me right now is the mountain in front of me.

And I'm taking it, I'm learning. I'm being very diligent with it. And I'm taking it serious. I'm drinking a bunch of water. I'm cold plunging. I'm eating right. I'm doing good. I just have to fight that little pirate on my shoulder that's,'s you know them late nights and just I'm a food addict man

I've always I probably never said it this honestly But this is the podcast to be that real about is that I have just had a bad relationship with food from birth I've never had a good relationship with food. I've never had a good example around me of it you know what I mean, and I've always said that I believe obesity is directly connected to mental health. I know how easy it is for people to go, just quit eating so much, just work out, it's so easy.

You know what I'm saying? I wish I looked at food that way. But I understand it from the perspective of an addict because I know what addiction is, you know what I mean? And how I struggle with food is the same way I struggle with codeine. It's the same way I struggle with cocaine. Like, couldn't, you know, even getting it away from me. It took years to be able to be around people doing cocaine and just not be doing it. You know, just to know what's happening in my environment and be okay with

that. So I'm having to take that same approach with food to be honest. And I'm not ashamed to say it that I'm having to make those dramatics of decisions where I'm like I don't need no nothing to eat in my green room. You know what I mean? I need to I need to change my entire relationship with how I look at food. But a lot of that changed with me how I looked at myself. You know what I mean? A lot of that started changing with me loving me and really starting to love me because I went through this thing forever

where I did all this work and started loving people and hugging people and I still laid down and hated me. You know, and I still deal with days of this. I still deal days, it's real. I'm honest enough to be on your podcast today to tell you that I still get stuck here sometimes and it's scary, man. It's really scary. I scare myself.

But I've got a good support system around me and I will say that all that cliche stuff is real. When they're like, go walk out in the sun, drink water. You remember you hear it as a fat person, I'm like, you it's not that easy. This is hard. And then I started walking around in the sun and drinking water. I'm like, dude, I feel so much better. You know what I mean? It's crazy. I feel like it sounds like though, that because you've been through other addiction journeys,

there's a part of you that is inspired and knows you can do it. Yes. Right? It feels like you've been able to break so many habits and so many addictions at this point that it feels like you have an inner belief that you can. Would you agree with that?

I believe it in my spirit. I see it. In my soul I believe it. And I also believe it's because God's purpose for me is so much bigger than even what I'm doing now. And I almost feel like I heard the Spirit, my Spirit tell me that you're holding you back from what's really for you. You know, your physical is what's holding you back from what we really for you. You know, you're physical is what's holding you back for what we have for you. And I want to shed that skin. I want to shed it bad. But I also want to do it to inspire kids. The same way I'm inspired. I

never thought I would be able to talk to you in real life. I never got into this thinking I would be a mental health advocate or that I would be a, you know, this wasn't, I just wrote songs about how I felt and how people around me felt and the brokenness that was in my life. And man, it's helped so many people, Jay. The messages you get, you know, I think we could connect on that, the messages, because I've sent you messages of how I feel of things that we actually are helping people. This is called on purpose. Purpose is what changed my life. Shia LaBeouf did an interview one time where he said, I quit trying to be happy, I started being useful. I started trying to be useful. And I've lived by that quote

ever since. It's like once I started prioritizing my purpose, it's funny how much life's just awesome. You know what I mean? When I was trying to make life awesome, it sucked. When I started just trying to be a man of purpose and just try to walk in my purpose and what I think God put me here for, it just opened up everything for me. It's been such a dynamic shift. Yeah, you said, I want to read this from you because it's from your own post, but this was to your wife. You said, happy anniversary. this is my best friend. Literally people ask me what was the turning point in my career, and the answer is simple.

I married my best friend, period. This woman changed my life. Four years ago on a drunken night in Las Vegas, my wife and I made a decision. That night, during a death tone show, I walked on stage during Yellow Wolf's performance. Thank you for this brother, I'll always be grateful for that moment. We rushed to the courthouse and got married at some random chapel.

I was a lost cause. I was in the middle of custody battle. I was broke, living out of a van, doing 200 shows a year for $200 a show. I was addicted, bruised, used, and barely breathing. She came in and changed everything. She made me whole. She gave me purpose. It was truly the turning point in my career and life.

I mean, when I read that, I was like, you know, you can't read that and not feel moved by that. How was, how were the people we choose to spend our life with? A, why are they so important? And B, how did she help you find your purpose? Like that word especially.

First of all, it felt like somebody actually believed in me. And I hadn't felt that in a while. My father believed in me, my mother, you know, but like outside of my little crew, she just prophesied it over me. I'll never forget the first time we hung out, she whispered in my ear, she said, I don't know what it is, but you're special.

She was like, you're special. And I felt the same way about her. We just celebrated our eighth anniversary last week. Congratulations. Thank you, man. I'm talking to you about, I've done so many interviews and never talked about this. I was so insecure in my body for so

many years that I found validation through women. And I thought that if I could pull pretty women, then I wasn't that. You know what I mean? It was just something else. And because of that, I had a really, really bad relationship with women, multiple women all the time, many partners that I could get living double, triple, quadruple lives, relationships with all these people. The first thing that happened was when I got with Bunny, it was something that just happened where I was immediately, I didn't want to talk to nobody. I just wanted to be with her. And somebody used to always tell me that anybody who's ever built an empire, it was a modern era, it was always a one woman man. You know what I mean? Because when you focus on one woman

and one woman focuses on you and y'all focus on building together, I've seen it with you and your wife. It's amazing what happens. So it's crazy, Jay, just what happened the day I just was like, this is all that matters is just me and you and building this thing together. And she came straight in and now keep in mind,

I'm fixing to get custody of a kid that I don't even have a place for them to live. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. Bunny comes right in and goes, look, I don't know if we're gonna work or not, but I'll help you get custody of your daughter. Let's go get an apartment for you. I'll go stand in court beside you as a person of this.

Like she put together this thing for me to get custody of. We call her our daughter now because she raises her as her own and she calls Bunny Mama. We've had that little girl for eight years now. And she gave me purpose because I felt like our story was one that could help so many people. Two broken people that were able to kind of heal and then come together, not as healed as we probably should have been even, but then we were able to heal together and grow together and learn

together and just knowing I have somebody that really supports me, really encourages me and holds me accountable too. Bunnie will, you know, I'm sure your wife's the same way, when them doors close, man, Bunnie will get in my ass. Yes. Bunnie will tell me what's really going on. She will check me. If I start egoing out a little bit

or getting a little something, Bunny will be the first person to go, man, I don't know what's up with you, man. You know what I'm saying? She was the first woman, and I know people are gonna say this ain't right, but she was the first woman I had a healthy amount of fear of.

I've never been afraid of losing something before, ever. Never. I was always lived by the motto of heat. If you can't get rid of it in 30 seconds, it don't need to be in your life, you know? And she was the first one where I was always lived by the motto of heat. If you can't get rid of it in 30 seconds, it don't need to be in your life, you know? And she was the first one where I was like, I don't want to lose this. I don't want to blow this. I'm willing to do the work for this. I'm willing to get in there. Talking about doing work, this will be a cool podcast. Share this story. Me and my wife, I was learning about how trauma affects us in our children years and about,

my wife was in a place where when she was growing up, she had a very abusive stepmother and a father that was detached. And she was grounded to her room a lot. So her room became her safe place. When I was growing up, I had a mother that never left her room. So for me, the room is a dark place, right?

It reminds me of a story about you and your wife, the dishes. Yeah. For the dishes story. Yeah. You sit down, you do them after y'all watch TV. She does them before TV. Yes. Yes. Well, remember. Yeah. So it's like, this is a similar thing, but you know, so imagine when she would shell up and life would be hard on her, she would back into the bedroom. What does that trigger for me, Jay? It's my mother. I gotta go entertain my mom. What's wrong?

Go to the room. I'm trying to hoist her out. But I think she needs to come out here to be better. But this is better for her. And you could imagine this is rubbing rocks together. We're starting fires all the time. And then as soon as we really did the work and I found out that about her,

man, we do, we argue, we have a typical relationship argument once a year and it's almost always over the kid. You know what I'm saying? But it's like, once I learned that, now it's like when she goes to her room, I'll walk in, hey baby, are you okay? Cool. Do you want to talk about something? I want to talk. Cool. I love you. I'm downstairs. Call me if you need me. Cause I know that's how she processes. You know what I mean? I don't take it personal no more. But those are the things. And I learned, she's taught me so many things like that.

Her patience with me, Jay. Man, I don't deserve that. I didn't earn that patience. That's just grace. She just gave that to me cause she loves me. Very, very, and she lets me be the wild horse I still am. As something else, every other woman still tried to tame this old wild Mustang. I got to run.

You know what I'm saying? I'm programmed to go, Jay. Two or three hundred days a year, I'm out of the house. It's just how I operate, you know. And she's the opposite. She's a homebody, prefers to be home. But she cheers for me, man. So, yeah, that's my best friend, dude.

I love that, man. It reminds, it definitely reminds me of me and my wife in so many ways as well. Like I talk about that example in my, in my second book, Eight Rules of Love, I talked about how just like there's love languages, there's fight styles. And so my fight style is venting. I want to talk about it. I want to fix it. I want to get to a solution by talking about it. And my wife's fight style is hiding. She wants to go into a room. Like she doesn't want to talk about it. I want to fix it. I want to get to a solution by talking about it. And my wife's fight style is hiding. She wants to go into a room. Like yours, she don't want to talk about it. And in the beginning of our marriage, I used to think she doesn't care about it as much as I do.

Because I want to talk about it. That's because I care. But what I didn't realize is her having that space, that was her caring. So that she could come back with a solution. So that she could come back with the energy and the capacity for going to some resolution. Whereas to me it was like, oh you don't care as much as I do. I'm standing right here ready to fix this and solve this and you just want to run away. What does it take to have the humility to have your partner help you heal? Because I think it requires humility on both parts to A, allow someone to heal you,

and B, heal someone else without judging them, and like you said, giving grace and space. Like, how do you strike that balance, especially as a man of putting your ego aside and allowing someone to come in with the medicine? I had to quit looking at the word help as an ego death and start looking at it as... I had to start looking at it as an empowerment almost. That's so good.

You know, to just be like, hey, can I get some help? There's a book that I read when I was on on-site doing some therapy work. I'll always butcher the name, and they should've changed the name because of this, by the way. But it's like, you probably read it. It's a children's book, but it's all drawn. It's like the horse, the mule, the donkey,

and the fox, right? And it's this version of Winnie the Pooh. They could've done way better. They picked weird animals. That person should call me. I'll help him with the next book. But they had some really good stuff in it. But it goes to the horse and it goes,

what's the hardest thing you've ever had to do? And the horse goes, ask for help. I cried. I seen that illustration the first time sitting in that cabin. Of course I was in a highly emotional place. I was doing some intensive therapy. But I just bawled because I was like,

man, that's a core thing with me and my wife. We got to look at the word help is we're trying to make the word help sexy now. You know what I mean? Like instead of like this, Oh help, cause that's how we're growing up. Like you don't ask for help. I'm trying to look at it like, Oh, that's sexy. She asked me to help her with something. You know what I mean? Like, Hey, yo, can, can I run something by you? That's like, man, I get goosebumps. If she hits her, she hit, if I hit her with that or she hits me, it's like, oh, this is the good, we're growing.

This is where we grow, baby. You know what I mean? We call it the foxhole. That's the biggest thing is that we started making it fun. Like, let's get in the foxhole, let's huddle up. Let's talk about this. You know, like making real decisions. It's kind of where we started thriving.

So it went from being afraid to ask for help to like, now it's like our thriving point. Like when we can really get in that foxhole and start trying to sharpen each other's skills, it's really cool. Yeah. That, that putting your ego side's huge. I wrote another chapter that was called, um, your partner is your guru. And it was that idea that your partner is your teacher, but your partner

never makes you feel like they're your teacher and And you never feel like you're the student. Like there's learning, there's growth without the other person kind of like pointing a finger at you, making you like pointing out your mistakes in a negative way. Like my wife will call me up and call me out, like you're saying, but I know it's full of love. Like I know it's to make me better. I know it's because she actually cares about me, not the perception of me. And she doesn't want me to get carried away.

But you have to trust that because as a man, it's so easy to have your ego rise above that and go, who are you to tell me? Or, you know, where's that coming from? Or you don't even see it, you don't know it. And so I love hearing how much you've been able to put that ego aside and truly allow it in. I think that's really inspiring.

Oh yeah. Well, the first step for me was just admitting I had an ego. You know how hard that was? I was like, I thought I was the only dude on earth that didn't have an ego. I was like, I'm telling you, I'm the most ego-less dude ever. And I had such an ego. And I still have to fight that guy a lot. I always joke with my management,

but it's true is that I need an hour when I wake up before I deal with people to, I need to, I gotta kill the bad half of me. Me and that guy go to war as soon as I wake up, because he's there, he's waiting for me, he's by the nightstand. You know what I mean? Be mad, be mad, because I used to just wake up angry.

Just woke up mad. And I fight that guy for an hour every morning, we wrestle. You know, I feel like Jacob, I break a hip every day, wrestling with God, you know what I'm saying? But it makes me, and you'll notice it, because I'm a lesser, better version of me if I don't get that out. I come out and you can kind of still sense it on me.

But that's all about that ego death, man. But I started, I just replaced ego with love and compassion and started going What would love say because it's so funny how fast you separate? What's love and what's not when you really think about it when you go? If you really just bring everything back to like did I say that really out of love or was it a loving way? I said it most of the time I say I blew that one. You know I could have reframed that for sure When you find that bright spot to help you get through your day, it's powerful.

That's where The Bright Side comes in. A new daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that's bringing you a daily dose of joy. I'm Danielle Robay. And I'm Simone Boyce. Listen, both Danielle and I are reporters. We've covered the news and we know the world can feel heavy. But the Bright Side podcast is a space to have a little fun,

to learn something new and get into some friendly debates. That's right. Join us five days a week to see how life can look from the Bright Side. We'll hear from celebrities, authors, experts, and listeners like you. Whether it's relationships, friend advice, or figuring out how to navigate life's transitions, we'll talk through it all together. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine every weekday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Overcomfort Podcast with Jenica Lopez.

Yup, that's me. You may know my late mom, Jenny Rivera, my queen. She's been my guiding light as I bring you a new season of Overcomfort Podcast. This season, I'll continue to discover and encourage you and me to get out of our comfort zones and choose our calling. Join me as I dive into conversations that will inspire you, challenge you, and bring you healing. We're on this journey together.

I'm opening up about my life and telling my story in my own words. Yes, you'll hear it from me first before the cheeseman lands on your social media feed. If you thought you knew everything, guess again. So I took another test with Ancestry and it told me a lot about who I am. And it led me to my biological father.

And everyone here, my friends laugh, but I'm Puerto Rican. Listen to the Overcomfort podcast with Jenica Lopez as part of my cultural podcast network available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Eva Longoria. I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon. We're so excited to introduce you to our new podcast. Hungry for History. On every episode, we're exploring some of our favorite dishes, ingredients, beverages from our Mexican culture. We'll share personal memories and family stories.

Decode culinary customs. And even provide a recipe or two for you to try at home. Corn or flour? Both. Oh, you can't decide. I can't decide. I love both. You know I'm a flour tortilla girl. You're't decide. I can't decide, I love both.

You know I'm a flour tortilla girl. You're team flour? I'm team flour. I need a shirt. Team flour, team corn. Join us as we explore surprising and lesser known corners of Latinx culinary history and traditions. I mean, these are these legends, right?

Apparently this guy, Juan Mendez, he was making these tacos wrapped in these huge tortillas to keep it warm, and he was transporting them in a burro, hence the name the burritos. Listen to Hungry for History with Ivo Longoria and Maite Gomez-Rejón as part of the MyCultura podcast network available on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's hearing about your purpose through your wife as well. There's, I mean, I'm just going to read a few things that are happening right now because they're so beautiful

Save me is one of the most played songs at recovery centers. I mean that how does that let me before I go on How does that feel? unbelievable, man, it's One of the coolest experiences of my life is being able to Especially catch people in that first 30 days or those first 10 or 15 days, anytime we get to go back to a detox center and love on people and play songs for them. We go to prisons all the time and play and we go to homeless shelters, but you catch

somebody on them first 10 days. Man, because I know what them 10 days are. And to know that that's the song getting people through that particular stretch, I couldn't, you know. It's like when they told me that Save Me is becoming the new Free Bird in the South for funeral homes. Because you know, Free Bird, Rollin' or Skinner's song has been like the famous funeral home in the South. And they said they get more requests for Save Me now. And that used to really bum me out and make me sad because I used to carry that. But then I started thinking about how much that's helping people grieve.

Because how many songs have really helped me grieve. You know what I mean? Toby Keys, I'm gonna miss that smile. I'm gonna miss you my friend. I mean, it got me through the death of my father. I listen to that song every day. So I know how music can do that, even though I'm leaving by Luke Combs, you know. I think it's beautiful to hear that, to feel that your music's there. And then this one too, when you performed for the Oregon Prison Mates, the inmates, it's the first time the prison has allowed live music in 20 years. I mean, how does that feel?

That's cool. Stevie Ray Vaughan. So even cooler shoes to follow. For them to trust us enough to bring our message to a yard, that prison has the most lifers in Oregon. There's 12 prisons in Oregon, it has the most lifers. I probably met 30, 40 men that day that were doing life. It was such a different perspective, Jay, because you're not, normally when you go into a jail, you're kind of trying to show that change is possible and that, you know, recidivism

is, you know, you can bring down recidivism and go home and actually do something productive with your life. It's a whole different thing when you're looking at guys that aren't going home. Which made it even more special because then you're just spreading one thing, hope. Just a little smile, baby. A little love. All I'm looking for today is a smile because I know this is a place that not a lot of that happens.

I just want these guys rocking and it was chicken soup for the soul, Jay. You should come with me one day. I would, you know, I was just speaking to the gentleman outside, forgot his name. Miles. Yes, and I was telling him when I was reading about researching the work you're doing, I would love to be alongside you in any way I can. I think it's amazing. We're going to reach out. We're setting up something big with a big prison. We'll talk about loft camera, but we can use all this, but I'll tell you the exact one. You'll be like, oh, but we do it. I'd love to have you come out. I'd love to support in any way.

I think the work you're doing is spectacular. When I was researching for this interview and reading about all the stuff you do, I was like, I couldn't believe it. I was like, this is, this is exactly it. I mean, this is what's needed. This is the most important work you could do right now. So anyway, I can be helpful. Thank you, man.

I'm all in, you just let me know. I will call. I'm putting feet on faith, baby, that's what we say. Yeah. You know, it's one thing to sit in these interviews and talk all that shit, but it's another one, you gotta get up and go do it. Absolutely.

And I, as a musician, I make it a point to go do it. It's also so much easier what we do than what most people do because, you know, it's music, right? It just works anywhere all the time. You know what I mean? It's just super. It's like, I love, sometimes we'll go to these places, we won't talk at all. We'll just go in and sing three or four songs, just like a regular show. You know, we don't, it's just being present, man. Just seeing inspiration, inspiring these guys, it's such a dark place. Those places are, people are getting sexually assaulted every day in there.

You know what I mean? It's, people do not truly understand how dark prison is. It is the scariest thing I've ever lived through, any kind of incarceration. So you see them dudes out there smiling and nodding their head for a day and dancing, dude? Man, I'd make you cry like a baby on the way out. Oh, man. Are there any memorable interactions you've had with any inmates that kind of stick out to you

or any conversations that you have had that? Tons, but I'll start with the Oregon State Penitentiary, Jay. Man, so there was some guys that were working the prison. So they're the ones who set up the equipment that day. You know, they're the trustees is what they are. They're the people that they trust in this prison. So I first moment talking about ego death, I'm singing and I come off stage. I go, Hey, I'd love to meet as many of y'all as I can before I leave.

So I go kind of stand over here and everybody on that yard formed a line to get an autograph from me and I was like what an ego death for these guys like these are tough dudes these are you know these are murderers you know what I'm saying that are standing in line to get one for their daughter or their wife so you see the humanity in them you know what I mean and the in the in the gratefulness because they've been incarcerated so long that getting an extra snack at dinner is a big deal where to thank you, thank you, thank you. So it was like, but then after I meet, I meet 300 inmates, sign autographs, hug everybody,

I touched everybody. It was just, it was emotionally. I come back and there's these 20 trustees, Jay, and they go, can we grab some pics? I was like, of course, I'm taking pics with all of them. And the guy taking the picture has been in there for 39 years. He spent 30 something years on death row before they got rid of the death penalty in Oregon, completely in solitary.

Now he's the camera guy for the prison. He's still incarcerated. But we're all taking these pictures. And at the end of it, they go, hey, can we take one with just the lifers? And I'm like, yeah, now these are the trustees. These are the best inmates in this prison. And when they said the lifers,

I thought maybe it was two or three of them. I've been talking to these guys. Every one of them were the smartest, most talented. They were just awesome guys. 12 of the 20 were doing life, Jay. And I was so emotional in that moment, dog, because they were so full of life. They were so grateful I was there.

And these dudes will never see the streets again. And we're taking a picture and I'm starting to cry like I am now and I'm like, God, it's just, cause they were just. I was hopeful that, I was hopeful that some of these guys were going home. Because they're telling me their dreams, their wives, their kids, showing me pictures. And I'm excited. I'm thinking, oh, these are the trustees.

At least some of these guys have got a chance. And it was just sad, man. But the good thing about humor is while we're taking the pictures, I go, damn, it's 12 of y'all. He said, yeah. I said, well, hell, it would have been easier to just tell the eight that wasn't doing life get out of the picture.

You know what I'm saying? And the one good thing about prison is every one of them cried laughing. Every one of them cried laughing. I said, and right before I turned around left, I said, I'm gonna come back and do this again next year. And they said, we're not going anywhere. And I was like, thank you all for making me laugh.

But it was just such a moment because I had never even fully experienced that yet. I've been to a lot of prisons and a lot of jails, but I had never got to do the yard or do three, 400 inmates. And I had never got to really go into death row or going to see this many people doing it. It's such a different perspective. You go to jail, I'm spreading hope.

Like, Hey, you're coming home. You could change. There's dudes that are never coming home, you know, never coming home. And, uh, man, I just really, really, really put me a little bit. Absolutely. Sorry, I got emotional on here. No, man. I think you, you invited us into a world that we wouldn't have a understanding of.

Right? Like that isn't a daily experience. We're not getting to interact with what that feels like. And we can have all of our views and assumptions or whatever it may be, but I think through you, we're getting to have a human experience of what that looks like. I wanted everyone to know this. If you haven't heard Jelly Roll's congressional speech,

I highly recommend it to everyone. I thought that was one of the most powerful things that I've seen you do. Every line was just so, what's the right word I'm looking for? It was just so clear. It was so powerful. It was so, it just grabbed my attention immediately.

You said, there was one thing that just stood out to me. I had to write it down. You said that there's 190 people every day that die in the USA. And you said that that was based on, well, I'll let you explain it. Actually you explained the point because you went on to compare it to a 737 plane. Yeah.

And when I heard that, I was like, I'm going to let you explain, because it's so powerful, but I want everyone to go listen to that speech as well. The idea that I said was, could you imagine if there was a plane crashing every single day in the United States of America with 200 passengers on it? How many days would that happen before, as Americans, we completely lost it, canceled every flight, looked under every engine of every plane again, whatever, I mean, we would, you know, I also use the comparison sometimes that if there was 11 squirrels a day dying in Central Park, unexplained.

I bet that don't go four days before the EPA comes out there, shut Central Park down and it's a national crisis. I bet 50 squirrels die before it is like, hold on, we've got to figure this out. But 190 humans, Jay, every single day are dying. Because of drugs. Drug addiction and fentanyl. And the way we have looked at them previously as society is,

that's their fault. That's their choice. They chose to be drug addicts. They should make their bed and lay in it. One, it's just such a not compassionate way to look at life and humans. It's just such a way to dehumanize people. And I think part of us dehumanizing people is why America has got put into all these separate boxes and so against each other. I say this and I mean it.

I went and spoke to Congress because I had a moment where I was like, maybe I should bring these statistics here because there's no way our federal government could know this is happening and not be doing nothing about it. Right? I just, I would like to believe in the betterment of the world, that they just don't know. Let me be the guy that goes and tells them, hey, maybe y'all are missing what's really happening out here.

Y'all are so busy arguing with each other about stuff that people have been disagreeing about for 100 years anyways. What I know is, and I said this in a speech, and I really, really do hope y'all go check it out, this is somebody's cousin. Jay, have you ever known somebody that's been addicted to drugs, like real, like a heroin addiction, like a full blown, like somebody close to you by chance?

Yeah, close to a friend. Yeah. If you've never experienced that for the people watching it might not have. It's like seeing somebody you've known your whole life become a zombie. It's like watching somebody you've known your whole life become a completely different human. They talk different, act different, it's irrational, it makes no sense at all. You have no clue what drugs do to people if you've never really experienced that. Those are mostly the people who are quick to go, oh, they just shouldn't have done them in the first place. It's like, man, you don't know what it was like when that young lady broke her back in that car accident and they started feeding her these extremely addictive

pain pills to help with the pain that she couldn't shake herself out of. And then eventually you're doing 30, 20 Lortabs a day, it's cheaper to go get a gram of heroin. You know, this issue, these are humans. It's kind of like I try to talk about the inmates, man. Kids, they've done horrible things, but they're humans. And I I want to humanize what I wanted to do in that speech day was I wanted to humanize drug addicts I wanted people to remember that and that's why I said to that panel. I said it's some of y'all right now

Sitting up here in this Senate that have family members that you're thinking of right this moment that are addicted to drugs And you know what I'm telling is the truth Does that person have to die before you walk up here and make a difference? That's all I want, man. And just back to practice and what we preach. It's sad that we didn't learn nothing from, they said history is bound to repeat itself if we don't learn nothing from it. And I don't think anything could be more true if you watch what was the cocaine epidemic into the crack epidemic, into the pill mill epidemic, into what was the heroin epidemic that's now into the fentanyl epidemic. And it has done nothing but it's a snowball that's just getting bigger and bigger and

less addressed. We got to do something about it, man. How did they receive it? What was the, what did you feel was their response? I felt genuine love in that room. I felt like they were very receptive. I think the bill got passed into law, which was a big, which was a huge, huge deal.

Cause that bill had got put up three or four times before it never got passed. That's huge. But what it did the most, Jay, was I'm walking the Grammy red carpet, and I will never say the names, but when I tell you A-list celebrities, we'll talk about it off camera, friends of ours,

friends of mine now, probably been friends of yours, are dragging me to the side going, hey, I just want to tell you, I have never heard a song yours But I watched the five minutes of 37 seconds that you gave that speech to Congress and I cried because my son is seven years sober and Right then I was like this is what God's purpose was for me was for these kind of conversations to not be taboo no more to be these aren't conversations that are being had on Grammy red carpets.

These aren't conversations being had at Clive Davis' party. And I'm creating this kind of vulnerability with people that they'll walk up to me. And it wasn't even just celebrities, people that work there. Security guys, hey man, what you did at Senate, man, thank you, I got a nephew. I got a niece. It showed me how it started putting faces to these 190 people a day. And once we started putting faces to them,

I think things will change. It's my hope at least, you know? No, I think that's what, whether it's you telling us the stories of the inmates or the congressional speech, I love that you said it in your own words, that it's really humanizing these stories and these experiences of people that are happening all around us. And we either choose not to believe they exist or we live in a blissful ignorance

or, you know, hide away from it all or put it away into this area of society. And I think it, it's, it's harsh, but it's like until we have to deal with it face to face, we don't really deal with it. And so being aware of it, hearing about it in all of these spaces, opening up conversations. You're right. I mean, I hear it. I hear about, I'm sure from this interview, I'm going to get so many calls and messages saying, oh my God, I saw the clip of you and Jelly Roll and Jelly Roll speaking about that made, you know, that's going to happen. Right. I hope so.

And I think that's the beginning of the opposite snowball effect, the one you're talking about. People having real conversations about it. And maybe that'll start helping. I mean, dude, getting into a rehabilitation center in America is so hard. Getting into a real rehab, the ones that are state funded or federally funded are backed up for years. You can't afford the other ones. You know, I mean, it's a big problem to fix, but

it's one of the ones I'm going to advocate for. I'm definitely going to spend my time in life pushing towards that because I know what drug addiction did to my family. You all hear all this in the speech. You know, my daughter is a victim of drug addiction. I used to think drugs was a selfless crime, right? I used to think that it was like a nobody got harmed kind of crime. It was like, this was a fair exchange. You need drugs, I have drugs, you have money, here's the drugs for your money.

It was just like, I used to justify it like, it's no different than KFC selling that chicken that's killing people. You know, that was, now you get an insight into how I used to think when we were talking about it earlier. And then when I came home from jail and my daughter was born and her mother was addicted to heroin and was completely out of her life. Now I every day look in the eyes of a victim of what drug dealing is and what drugs are.

And I was a guy that sold drugs. I went to jail for selling drugs. I got caught with the same pain pills that lead to people doing heroin. I got caught with cocaine. I got caught with the same pain pills that lead to people doing heroin. I got caught with cocaine. I got caught with crack. I got caught with these, I was selling these same drugs. That's why I'm so passionate about it, Jay.

That's why I tear up when we talk about drug addicts or prisoner inmates, because I remember genuinely being the other side of that problem. The same guy, this has been so good for me, the same guy we talked about 40 minutes ago where I was like, that dude did not think logical at all. You know, thought I was better than KFC.

I had more integrity than KFC, they're killing people and not talking about it. That was how lack of accountability I had in life. Even when I'm selling heroin and I justified it by, well so is KFC. You know, it's like, ah, come on now, big fella. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Well, I hope there's accountability there too as well. You're right. Me too. And I'm like, yeah, I think that does need to change too. Me too, for sure. Yeah, there's stuff there happening. There was this picture that I saw, you spoke about, you know, just for a second,

this picture that I loved. It brought so much joy to my heart. This one. Oh yeah, that's my munchkin dude. It brought so much joy to my heart when I saw that. What's it been like to perform together man? It's been so cool. Just to share anything in life together, but then to share what we both love. I was the first, and I don't know, I think if I remember right, you were the first person

in your family to kind of go into the space you're in. Nobody, we know I don't come from a family of musicians. I come from a family of the opposite. I don't, nobody in my family can carry a tune in a bucket. We all, nobody has music there. We sound like drunk alley cats together. It is nothing. So when my daughter started getting interested in the guitar and the piano, it was like, I tried not to show her, but everything in me was just glowing. Same way I have a niece that plays the guitar,

and I just was so excited when she picked it up. I was like, I think I might have been the inspiration that'll change this family, and that in three generations we'll be a music family. Three generations from now, those kids will be born probably wanting to play instruments because everybody in the family did something, you know? And they'll link back one day and go,

we've always been a music family. And somebody gets to go, no, actually, you had a great-great-grandfather that wrote a bunch of country songs that was famous. That's beautiful. That's beautiful, man. It's like you're getting to rewrite your family's history. Yes, sir. Breaking generational curses. Bunny and I were... That was our mission too, man.

Taking an ex-drug dealer, convict and an ex-prostitute and showing people that you can really come from the sketchiest of past and completely change everything about it. Change everything about the way you look at life, how you interact with people. It's never too late to forgive, it's never too late to love. It's never too late in life. Anyways, Jay, I'll be 40. I didn't, this shit didn't start working for me

until I was 37, you know what I mean? You know how long I was throwing darts in the dark? There had to have been groups of people around me that loved me that just, now I'm glad they didn't. They were just scared to come go, hey, Bub maybe you know what I'm saying I don't know when's your birthday? December. December the fourth. Yeah I'll be 40 December the fourth baby. I love that yeah that speech you gave at the CMAs last year I mean that just like you you like took us to church that's what it felt like when I saw that I was like I felt like I was at church. Thank

you it's like a jelly roll show I gotta got to get you out to one. I used to, I have a natural love. I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, so I have a natural thing that happens whenever I speak. But one day I came off stage and somebody said, that was church tonight, that was church. This was a 200 person bar. And my wife goes, it was church. And I looked at her and I was such a Southern Baptist still, I was like, I hadn't really forged my own true relationship with my higher power like I have at this time. And I was like, hey, that's where I'm from, that's sacrilegious, I don't wanna call this church.

I know some people, no, no, no, no, no, no. But what you're gonna love where this goes. And she goes, this is the only church some of those people ever walk into. Jay, I changed it. Now it's church. I make it church. So you saying that, that's what I want people to feel. Because I have a room full of people every night that might be disconnected from any kind of spirituality, but they're all hurting and this music has helped them in some way. And this can be church for them. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I want you to laugh, I want you to dance, I want you to cry, and

I want you to leave inspired and feeling 10 pounds lighter. You know some cries will put you to sleep and some cries make you feel better? I want to make you feel better, not to put you to sleep crying, you know? And that is it. And ever since then, we lean into it. We call it, it's the church, man. This is church. We say it on stage every night, brother. This is church. And once again, my wife, my purpose, reframed that for me in a way that I needed it. Because she was like, why would you go away from what you naturally do? God naturally gave you a gift of evangelism, of the way that you speak. Like, this is church. that you speak, like,

this is church. Right then I was like, you're right, this is church. And ever since then, it's been church, baby. Yeah. No, I love that. It's, for me too, it's been like, in our tradition, it's almost like you carry a temple in your heart, right? Like, you carry God within your heart. And so, a lot of people to me would also be like, why are you going to this event? And why are you in this? Like, why are you going to this event and that? And I'm like, if usually when I go to these events, someone will come up to me

and start a spiritual God centered healing conversation. I'm like, but if I don't show up in these places, we're not going to have that conversation. So that conversation heals me. That conversation hopefully helps and supports someone else. It's like, I get to go as an ambassador for spirituality and get to just put in a little sprinkle of a reminder. And that to me feels like a hopeful, beautiful thing to do because you never know who's going

to need that conversation, that interaction, that connection. It's not that I'm doing it. I don't have any of that power. But when we're being a vessel, when we're being an instrument and we're happy to play that, play our role and play our part and just be there as a connector of worlds and be a portal, you know, I don't have any power or any of that, but the ability to just represent whatever that may be to the individual, I think to me, that's how I see my role in these places. And it's, to me, I feel like that's what I needed. Yeah.

Well, sometimes the messenger has to become the message. Yeah. Right? And your presence, Jay, sometimes you gotta go places like, I think about us. I don't know how long it would have took for the universe to put us together had it not happened at a Clive Davis party. I know I've been wanting it to happen. And also equally, the last person I thought I was going to meet at a Clive Davis party was Jay Shetty. You know what I'm saying? So it was really cool for me to be like, because I'm an example of that, of you being somewhere where somebody might be like,

you know, what's he doing out at this party at one o'clock in the morning? But it's like, you've helped me a ton and getting to see you lifted, just seeing you and hugging you lifted my spirit. It's like, I always call them them little arrows that are showing you you're going the right way. And we ignore them so much in life, we miss them.

And to me, you're an arrow. You were an arrow that night you know what I mean Tyler Childers was at my table he's a country music artist I love I'd never met him and he's a big fan him just saying that to me was like that's an arrow yeah I'm pointing I'm going the right direction around here you know what I'm saying this is all right I wasn't as lost as I thought I'd be at a big LA party yeah that's what I mean like that idea it's a big LA party and same. I was like, I'm watching this guy sing about God on stage. Yeah. This is insane. You know, it was so special.

And I think watching you just grow. I mean, this new album, I've picked out some of my favorite lyrics from some of my favorite tracks from yours. There's this, oh, this one, Heart of Stone. Yes. There's one lyric that says, I've had enough of my demons, but angels only meet you where you are, and I'm in the dark. Hey everybody, welcome to Across Generations,

where the voices of Black women unite in powerful conversations. I'm your host, Tiffany Cross. Tiffany Cross. I want you all to join me and be a part of sisterhood, friendship, wisdom, and laughter. In every episode, we gather a seasoned elder. But even with a child, there's no such thing as the wrong thing if you love them.

Myself as the middle generation. I don't feel like I have to get married at this big age in life, but it is a desire I have and something that I've navigated in dating. And a vibrant young soul for engaging Intergenerational conversations. I'm very jealous Of your generation that didn't have to deal with Instagram and Tinder This is a cross generations or black women's voices unite and together, you know how we do we create magic Listen to a cross generations podcast on the IHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever

you get your podcasts. What's up, y'all? This is Questlove. And, you know, at QLS, I get to hang out with my friends, Sugar Steve, Laia, Von Tegelow, Unpaid Bill. And we, you know, at Questlove Supreme, like to nerd out and do deep dives with musicians and actors and politicians and journalists. We give you the stories behind all your favorite artists

and creatives that you have never heard. I'm talking about stories behind their life journeys and their works of art. I love QLS because of the QLS team supreme. They're like a second family to me. Your fan is deep diving into music, everything, almanac-ing your musical history, and learning things about hip hop artists

and things you never thought, then you're a lot like me. But you're also a fan of Questlove Supreme. One of the things I love the most about this show is that we get to learn from the masters. I look at being on this show as my graduate program in music. Listen to Questlove Supreme on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Supremo!

Want to know how to leverage culture to build a successful business? Then Butternomics is the podcast for you. I'm your host, Brandon Butler, founder and CEO of Butter ATL. Over my career, I've built and helped run multiple seven-figure businesses that leverage culture and built successful brands. Now I want to share what I've learned with you. On Butternomics, we go deep with today's most influential entrepreneurs, innovators, and business leaders to peel back the layers on how they use culture as a driving force

in their business. On every episode, we get the inside scoop on how these leaders tap into culture to build something amazing. From exclusive interviews to business breakdowns, we'll explore the journey of turning passion for culture into business. Whether you're just getting started or an established business owner, Butternomics will give you what you need to take your game to the next level. This is Butternomics.

Listen to Butternomics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is my favorite song on the album. I did not know that. I know, that's what's so cool. And it's my favorite song because of the lyrics. I think these lyrics say the most. In this whole album, if they were like lyrically, who do you stand for and what do you stand by on this album? Every song is great winning streak means a lot to me, but this record man That line that angels only meet you where you are and I'm in the dark and it goes at least for now Lord I ain't losing hope that somehow you could make a heart of gold from a heart of stone and

I love songs When you can read a heart of gold from a heart of stone. And I love songs, when you can read a song and it's impactful, that is, as a songwriter, Jay, that's it. That's the telltale, because most of the time our message is in the melody. And if you don't have the melody there, it'll kind of be like, oh, that didn't sound as cool as I thought it did

when I just read it flat. But when I read Heart of Stone, it goes, Dear Lord, can you hear me? Uh, what? Dear Lord, can you hear me? I've fallen out of grace. It's running like the river, filled with all of my mistakes. My blood is getting heavy.

There's metal in my veins. The second verse goes, Dear Lord, can you hear me? I'm shackled in these chains. I'm haunted by the lies of every time I said I'd change. It's slipping through the shadows and that's weighing on my soul. The lights are shining on me, but there ain't nobody home. I get goosebumps reading that and I wrote it. You know what I mean?

To me, that was the ultimate cry for help, you know what I mean? And like, my whole music is about honesty. I love the idea of being like, God, I know I need you. You know what I mean? But you gotta come over here, and I'm in a really dark place if you're gonna get me out of this one, you know?

Yeah, man, that song is just the goose, I just, every lyric on that record, man, just that song was the one, I would not let that song go. We wrote that song three different times. Oh, wow. True story. Just where I'd go home and just be like, it's just not, I wanted every single line.

You wrote books, so you know, every single word can't be a killer. It can't. You know what I mean? But this song I just was like, I want every line of this song to be thought out. I want it to be a killer. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I might do that on a page.

But sometimes you got to get people to it, you got to settle them up for the kill. And so they really get it. You know what I mean? But this was one of those where it's like, I just want to, man, every lyric on that was it for me. So powerful. There's another one that I love. I mean, there's so many, but I'm picking a couple that I loved. And we've talked about this. This is on Unpretty. I hate the man I used to be, but he will always be a part of me.

The man who I was wrong, but he's the one who built me. I feel like that's been our conversation today. Of just being able to accept that he'll always be a part of you, but that doesn't make you any less than. It's, uh, do you ever watch Stutz? Yeah. It's the shadow, right? You know what I mean?

It's that, uh, it's that idea of the shadow that's there. It's yeah, that's, that's exactly the, there was, I'm so glad you got to get into these lyrics and you're picking the ones that were, me and Miles were talking about the other day is that you can tell on this album that I was doing some work. Because it came out on the album,

like the way that I'm, the stuff, the way I'm writing is clearly like, oh, you're like, oh yeah, this kid's really doing some therapy. For sure, for sure. And so clearly, I mean, this is higher than heaven. I get higher than heaven to hide from myself. You know, that, just even that idea, like, is there a place higher than heaven? Right, right, exactly. Yeah, 100%. And then think about this,

you want to get to heaven to hide from you. Yeah. The thought of that was so good. And you hearing that lyric, right, was awesome. I had of that was so good. And you hearing that lyric right was awesome. I had to send back my label. They sent me the list because they try to transcribe my lyrics and I'm so country. They thought I said too high for myself. And I was like, no, no, no, too high from myself. And they were like, okay. And I was like, that was cool too, but not as cool as hiding from myself.

I love that. That's so funny. That's hilarious. No, but I'm so excited for people to hear it. I was lucky enough to get it earlier. I'm so excited. Thanks for taking the time to listen to a couple of them too. Of course. No, I think it's, I mean, it's not even, I listened to a lot of it, but those are just, I mean, I've got so many more, but we could go on for every track.

But I just feel like it's healing music and it's, like I said earlier, I could pray to it, I can meditate to it, I could dance to it, I can hang to it, you know, and I think it's rare that I feel that way where a lot of music, when it tries to be healing, it's cheesy, it's like kind of like a bit corny, it doesn't, you know, and I feel that's when it's your real journey, that comes across. Exactly. Because you're not trying to preach, you're actually going through it. Exactly. You're going through it with the... Me and the listener are going through this together, and we're sharing this experience and feeling together. And it's also, you're right, because you know what? When they try to write songs, they try to write these you songs.

And nobody wants to be you'd. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, write these you songs. And nobody wants to be you'd. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, I know you're feeling down. It's like, you know, you don't know I'm feeling down. You know what I mean? So yeah, they just write it on such a weird, they're so hard to write cathartic music

without it coming off super corny or preachy or. Also, that's why I don't feel a need to resolve every song. And this is where we talk about how my sausage is made a little bit. But I think artists and song don't feel a need to resolve every song. This is where we talk about how my sausage is made a little bit, but I think artists and songwriters feel the need to resolve songs. It's like a song is a story. Yeah, yeah, and it's like, it's not. This is just a part of the movie.

It doesn't have to resolve. There doesn't have to be, hope can happen at the end of the album. Hope can happen on the first song of the album, right? But you can take them through a genuine journey. Everything doesn't have to cap. You know what I mean? It doesn't, sometimes leaving a song unresolved,

Fire and Rain by James Taylor. I feel like that song never fully resolved itself, right? And because of that, it's made it open for my interpretation. And it's Against the Wind by Bob Seger. Never really resolved itself. These songs are the songs I always come back to because you can identify with them every part of your life. When you resolve a song, sometimes you take that away

and you take away the power from allowing the person who's hearing the song to heal from what they're getting from it. I hate when people go, what was this song about? I love it when people like you go, what's up with this lyric, this is deep. When they when people go, what was this song about? I love it when people like you go, what's up with this lyric, this is deep. When they're like, so what's this song about? I'm like, yo, I want this person to get something

from this song, I don't know, they might think about it. I've tell them what I thought it was about, they might not ever hear it the way they need to hear it. You know what I mean? Yeah, because then it's not their story, they're not a part of the story. Yeah, you want someone to fill in the blanks, you want someone to be the guy in the glass.

Exactly. Art is open for interpretation. Yeah. And I want you to find yourself in it, which is also why I write from first person a lot. It's not a big I thing, because I'm not a big I guy. But first person writing for me is a cry for help that we can all feel. Yeah. There's only two more things I want to talk to you about,

because I know you got to get out here to perform today. Yeah, ill pass on Texas, baby. You've been so kind to us. This blew my mind. Jim Todd. Yes. This is crazy. This is crazy. When I read about this, I was like, what? So, Jim Todd, who's the young attorney who prosecuted you, you're now working with him. That's true. This is a fact. It's the first time we told this story too. This is really cool. This is amazing.

Yeah. He's starting the Dinkins Center for juveniles to teach traits for juvenile at-risk kids. And you want to talk about somebody just being awesome. Jay, imagine being the guy who charged me as an adult, bound me over. I mean, the hardest thing that's ever happened in my life, a felony I'm still trying to get rid of, is now working to help juveniles, and then me, the same kid he bound over, who was as wrong as I should have been, are now working.

It's just, to me, one, it's such a change. It's such a signature of like, I keep having these really cool moments, Jay, where I'm like, what a having these really cool moments, Jay, where I'm like, what a full circle moment. God really, you know how there's an old saying that when you do right, they'll restore everything that went wrong? I'm watching it all restore.

It's happening, Jay. Right in front of me, dog. Like my old prosecuting attorneys, my partner now to help juveniles. You know, that old juvenile I was in now, let me build studios in it and paint the walls for the kids. You just like, I look at all these moments and I'm like, man, God is like, he's healing my inner child in front of the world. It's, dude, when I got slimed at Nickelodeon,

I was like, I went back that night and I got to do some Summer Slam, I got to choke Slam Slam at Summer Slam. I was like, God is really healing my inner child in front of the world. You know what I mean? I suffered in silence by myself for so long that I'm now getting to redeem myself on a national platform. The sheriff to Davidson County's jail. His name is Darren Hall. 22 years he's been a sheriff. He was the sheriff whenever I was in that county

jail, last time I got locked up, the day my daughter was born. He gave me a key to the jail I was locked up in. He's the first inmate he's ever gave a key to the jail to. And I got a necklace made. I made it diamond-crusted, got a necklace with a pair of handcuffs for every time I got arrested for it. And I call it my redemption chain. And to have the relationship with Sheriff Darren Hall, that we're close, my mayor loves me, me and Jim Todd, I mean, that guy put me in jail, you know what I'm saying?

Who reached out to who? Yeah, what's funny is they reached out to us. Now, I've always been friends with him because when he became an attorney, we used to talk, and he represented a couple of cases of mine that wasn't that case, because he conflict of interest. The cool part of this story is not even just what I'm doing with it, but him.

Think about the heart change he had to be hands on and watch the system fail these kids for so many years that it bothered him enough that later in life, he was like, I got to circle back and fix that. That's beautiful, isn't it? You know what I mean? Like, Jim Todd's the real hero of that story to me, you know what I mean?

Because I've been changed my life. Glad you came around. You know what I'm saying? That's what it just shows that if everyone's intentionally reflecting, looking at their life, what's possible. That's it. Just a little bit of a... Jim Todd had some Guy in a Glass moment, didn't he?

At some point in time, he went and looked at Guy in a Glass and said, you know what? I was a part bit of a- It's amazing. Jim Todd had some guy on the glass moment, didn't he? Yeah. At some point in time, he went and looked at the guy on the glass and said, you know what? I was a part of the problem at one point too. And I want to be part of the solution now. Let's help these kids. Let's give these kids the resources they didn't have whenever I was a district attorney. And they said that he had that heart back then.

But you want to talk about humanizing stuff, Jay. And I do a songwriter program with a company called The Beat of Life at the Juvenile I was incarcerated in. And we go in there one day and Judge Calloway, who's a judge in juvenile, is there. And she came in to write songs, Jay. And I'm in there watching. For the first time, I'm listening to her and her group.

And they're giggling. They're laughing. They're writing lyrics. They're having a ball and I thought to myself Back to the human thing. I love that we've had themes in this whole conversation She's seen those kids as kids for the first time She got not not an inmate case number that killed somebody or shot somebody or did something wrong she's seen him as little giddy 15 year olds playing cards and trying to write a song they never wrote before. And they get to see her as a concerned mother. And man, it just, it was, I cried. I mean, it was just so special to watch. And it was such a good thing. They were so in the

moment, they didn't realize how special it was. It's when she left, I was like, I want you to know that that is the coolest thing that I've ever seen a judge do. That you came, took off the robe, showed up in regular clothes, and sat down and wrote songs with these kids. Like, that'll go miles with everybody. You know what I mean? Now, I understand you still have a job to do and guidelines you gotta abide by. But I think this humanized everybody. I think we all looked at each other a little different that day in that jail cell. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

And it was cool because you could tell that she loved songs and singing in church. So to be a part of that, it brought out a little child in her, right? And then these kids, they'd never wrote a song. So they're just, they're really tough kids that are holding it back and they just, you start seeing them get excited. And I was like, this is special, man. This is redemption. Spectacular.

It's incredible. I want to end with one thing, Jelly Roll, that we reached out to your brother who sent through this beautiful love letter for you. Scott? Yes. And so I'm going to read it to you, if you don't mind, because you've given us such a gift today

and I wanted to find a way to thank you and I thought who better than the person who's known you for so long? So he says, dear Bubba Love. That's my Bubba. Where to begin? First off, I just want to tell you how unbelievably proud I am of you for what you have achieved,

and even more so, the man you have become. Personally, one of my proudest memories was being in the courthouse with you, Bunny, Dad and Pook, the day you got full custody of Bailey. Makes me tear up a little just remembering how proud we all were of the man you grew to be even back then. One of those moments I remember looking at Dad with a smile and not even having to say

a word. Growing up, I always saw the talent that the world is getting to see now. Thinking back to your first day of middle school, and you had missed the bus, so mama said, take your brother to school. We pull up across from JC Napier Housing Projects, and before you could open the car door, me telling you that it would probably be a good idea

to start rapping, or to not be the guy who doesn't throw the first punch. LOL. You figured it out, brother. You were freestyling every ride after that. I know growing up, I was not always the best role model and the older I got has given me many sleepless nights of regret. You always, always, always came to visit me when I was locked up.

And yeah, I came to Juvenile a few times, but when you got bound me when I was locked up. And yeah, I came to juvenile a few times, but when you got bound over, I was not there. Just know that I had to leave TM Baba. I know it had to hurt you that your brother wasn't there, and I'm so sorry. Being young and where we came from is my only excuse, Baba, although not a good one. But the amazing part of it all is what you're doing as a human now.

Being so young and getting out of being incarcerated over and over, then hearing you had a little girl born while being there, you grew strength and changed everything. Started helping others with your songs, those who went and still are going through similar pasts and struggles as we did. Being at your shows and seeing people cry and be so touched by the words you sing and person you are is amazing. You portray love and hope, JJ. You got out of lockup and totally changed your direction. Taking all the negatives and turning them positive for helping others to overcome what they have gone through is amazing.

Reaching out to me in Idaho Falls several months ago and taking me out the dark place I was in for years and years, I'm forever grateful for you brother. You've always been there for me and our family. I love you more than you will ever know. I know dad is in heaven looking down smiling ear to ear with Nan and Bibi. He called it 30 plus years ago at the Italian street fair in Brentwood, Tian, where you were on stage doing karaoke to George Strait. He looked to me and said, Jason has never met a stranger. One day, he will be an entertainer. Well, look at you now, Baba.

I just want you to know how proud your family is of you, and thank you for doing what only you can do every day. Helping the world to be better and letting people know it's never too late. You're a true inspiration to so many, including your big brother. I love you, Baba. Scott Scooby DeFord.

Scooby, baby. God, man. That is so awesome, dude. It's for you, brother. Thank you, brother. God, I love him, man. He didn't even tell me. He just left. I was just with him three days ago.

Oh, man. I want to thank you for just being an amazing inspiration in my life, brother. Being introduced to you from the moment we met, I was like, this is the guy I need to talk to. I'm here to support you, serve alongside you in any way I met. I was like, this is the guy I need to talk to. I'm here to support you, serve alongside you in any way I can. Thank you, Jay.

And I can't wait to go on to see what you do. I know this is just the beginning and I'm so inspired by you. You're true light in this world and a true testament to every transformation we believe in. You're living it right now. So deeply humbled and we end every episode with a fast five. Every question has to be answered in one word to one sentence.

Alright. And... First of all though, Jay, you... I need to give you your flowers, old brother. You... Thank you again for your impact. You don't know how many people you help. I always have this phrase I use that,

it's not a ticket stub, it's a story. Those YouTube views are souls, baby. And you're touching them. I always have this phrase I use that it's not a ticket stub, it's a story. Those YouTube views are souls, baby. And you're touching them. Thank you, man. Appreciate that. Deeply, deeply, man. I feel that.

I receive it. All right. Last, last few minutes. Uh, question one, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received? Uh, best advice I ever heard or received? Best advice I ever heard or received. As cliche as it is, just don't give up. It just, my father was real big about don't give up. He was just super, super, he believed in the law of hours that if you put enough time and some of it would work.

Question number two, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received? Give up. The worst advice I ever received was somebody telling me, you know, it's not going to work, cut your losses. Question number three, if you could define your current purpose, what would it be? My current purpose is to help and heal. I think my current purpose is to help people heal through music. Beautiful. Question number four, a message you'd like to share to anyone who's listening right now, like just what you need them to hear, what you feel they need to hear right now.

I said it in my speech, but I live by this quote. It's a quote I live by that, the windshield is bigger than the rear view for a reason, baby. You've got to move forward, dog. I love it. And fifth and final question, we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create a lore that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? Love.

Truly love. Truly act out of love. If you just thought to yourself, is that what love would say, every time you were fixing to say something, it would change the way we all talk to each other. Jelly Roll, thank you so much. Thank you brother. Thank you man. The album is out right now while we're speaking and... Sir, Beautifully Broken baby, you got the biggest podcast in the world. Shameless plug. My name is Jason Jelly Roll D Ford. My album

is available. It's called Beautifully Broken. Check it out. I'm trying to have my first number one album. We're going to make it happen. We're going to make it happen. Your mouth got tear j baby. We're going to make it happen. We're going to it happen. Your mouth got tear-jay, baby. We're gonna make it happen. We're gonna put everything behind you. Beautifully broken all the way. I'm so grateful, Jelly Roll. Thank you. Thank you for such a good conversation, Jay.

Thank you. I love you, brother. Love you, man. Thank you, brother. If this is the year that you're trying to get creative, you're trying to build more, I need you to listen to this episode with Rick Rubin on how to break into your most creative self, how to use unconventional methods that lead to success, and the secret to genuinely loving what you do.

If you're trying to find your passion and your lane, Rick Rubin's episode is the one for you. Just because I like it, that doesn't give it any value. Like, as an artist, if you like it, that's all of the value. That's the success comes when you say, I like this enough for other people to see it. Hi, Jenica Lopez here with a new season

of My Overcomfort podcast. What's Overcomfort all about? It's about inspiring confidence in all of us and choosing calling over comfort. Every Tuesday, I'll be having real and honest conversations. You'll hear it from me first before any cheeseman hits your social media feed. Join me as I create a space where opening up is not only okay, it's encouraged. Listen to Overcomfort Podcast with Jenica Lopez on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast,

or wherever you get your podcast. Get emotional with me, Radhita Vlukya, in my new podcast, A Really Good Cry. We're going to be talking with some of my best friends. I didn't know we were going to go there, Amir. I didn't know we were going to go there. People that I admire. When we say listen to your body, really tune in to what's going on. Authors of books that have changed my life.

Now you're talking about sympathy, which is different than empathy, right? Never forget, it's okay to cry as long as you make it a really good one. Listen to A Really Good Cry with Radhita Vlukia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, host of Womanica, a daily podcast that introduces you to the fascinating lives of women history has forgotten. We've always been intrigued by stories of disappearances, whether it's a fraudster from the 17th century who kept evading the authorities, or a novelist who taunted the Nazis and faked her own death.

We all want to know. What happened next? To find out, listen to a manica on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.