The Diary of a CEOVictimhood & Self-sabotage Is Destroying The World In 2022: Africa Brooke | E160
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,425 words- 0:00 – 1:29
Intro
- ABAfrica Brooke
If I'm not drinking or snorting something, what the fuck do I actually enjoy doing? (instrumental music plays) You know, who am I?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Africa Brooke is a speaker, a podcast host, and she's helped hundreds of thousands of people see the world in a new light.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Thank you.
- NANarrator
Legend.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Africa does not give a fuck, and that's why I love her.
- ABAfrica Brooke
If you're on the left, then you're the good person. If you're on the right, then you're the bad person. We're hanging out online where these platforms incentivize binary thinking; are you with us or are you against us? (instrumental music plays) There's only so much you can take. Most people didn't like when I said, that as a Black person I'm not oppressed, that there is a very real difference between being a victim and making victimhood an identity. Because if you don't think that you're worthy, that's always going to be the belief that you feed every single time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What became your dark side?
- ABAfrica Brooke
(instrumental music plays) From the age of 14, I was a blackout drinker. That's when I started to see that I was behaving in the exact same way that my dad did. (sniffs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Sex and sexuality.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Can you talk to me about what you've learned about those topics that might benefit me?
- ABAfrica Brooke
Well...
- SBSteven Bartlett
Without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. (instrumental music plays)
- 1:29 – 8:09
Early years - my father
- SBSteven Bartlett
Africa.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Let's... Uh, I mean if you've seen this podcast before, it's no surprise-
- ABAfrica Brooke
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... where I'm going to start. But, um, I was reading about your story. I was reading about, um, where you grew up-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and where you were originally born. Give me your earliest, most relevant context. Give me the context of, um, where you came from and, and how that context-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... shaped the person that sits here with me today.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Oh, that's good. So I'm Zimbabwean.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABAfrica Brooke
I'm from Zimbabwe, and I think, uh, this accent always fools people into thinking (laughs) that I was born and raised here. But I was born in Zimbabwe, which is in the south of Africa. And I came to the UK when I was nine years old, so I remember my life back home in Zimbabwe quite clearly and vividly, actually. I don't remember it being hard apart from my experiences with my father. Even though he could be the most charming man, and he was such a beautiful man. He was the kinda person that walks into a room and you can feel that Maxwell has arrived. Just a very beautiful spirit. But when he was drunk, he could be very different, completely different. So I think the times that I can remember experiencing most of my sadness or frustration as a child was experiencing that side of my father, because he could be very abusive, and he was physically abusive to my mum and to myself and my siblings. But I don't even look at those things and think that I had a horrible childhood in Zimbabwe. I have so many wonderful, wonderful memories of being home, and I still call it home, you know. When people ask me where I'm from, I always say Zimbabwe before I say the UK or that I'm British. Um, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know when you say that you, you look back on Zimbabwe with fond m- fond memories.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, is that because at the time when, in your household, you didn't understand that behavior-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... you didn't understand that it was bad behavior or that it was abnormal? Or is it genuinely because o- on balance, you, you consider it to be a, a happy childhood?
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah, I think it's actually the latter. I think I definitely understood that this wasn't right, although, to be honest, there were a lot of behaviors that my father exhibited that were considered normal just because of the culture. For example, things like disciplining your wife through hitting her, etc., etc., or your children. It was just kind of seen as normal. But I definitely knew that it wasn't right. I definitely knew that there was a problem. I knew that seeing a person that is that drunk was not something that felt comfortable. It wasn't remotely normal. And I'm able to now, I think in adulthood, hold multiple truths, which is something, interestingly enough, that I speak about a lot in my work, the importance of being able to hold multiple truths. Because like I say about my dad, I saw him as a bad person. I saw him as an evil person, even, and he passed away in 2004. And I never mourned his death because of the resentment that I was holding towards him. But then when I got sober years later, I had to hold multiple truths about him to realize that he was a beautiful man. I got to experience him in the very early years of my life as being a very present father, um, as being a very loving father before alcohol came into his life in the way that it did. So I had to then start holding multiple truths about him, because it, it wasn't all bad. So I think I hold those fond memories because I've had to realize that they did actually exist, beyond everything else.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You said in your teen years you started to realize that he'd been, um, how bad he'd been to your, your mother.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How did you start to realize that at that age?
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm. Through stories. Um, through speaking to my siblings about what we had all experienced in the home, because we never really spoke. I, I don't know what it's like in your family or when you were growing up, but we never really spoke about much, especially when it came to things that were potentially hard to talk about, things that, uh, revolved around emotions and being vulnerable, things that had anything to do with intimacy or a lack of intimacy. Even the most obvious things, like seeing my mum being hit...... and not talking about it, almost just pretending that it didn't happen. So I think in adulthood, when I started seeing how other families were, when I started to see how open other people are, I then started to see the lack in what I had experienced growing up. So I think that's when I started to kind of want, I wanted to know more. Did anyone else see what was happening? Did my aunts and uncles know what was happening? Um, why didn't anyone talk about it? Why didn't anyone talk to us? Why... So I think I had so many why type of questions, which fueled a lot of my resentment. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Some of the times you said, you said, "Before alcohol showed up in his life."
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
As you'll know, um, these things tend to, we tend to attract these things into our lives.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Usually as, as you describe it, as a, uh, a firmer lid to hold some trauma.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I think was some terminology you used, uh, previously, um, in some, some of your work.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- 8:09 – 16:07
What is your dark side?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I had a guest on this podcast called Tim Grover, and he, he talked about his early upbringing. He was, he ended up being Michael Jordan's and Kobe Bryant's trainer, and he says that, um, our childhood experiences tend to create our brilliance, but they also create our dark side.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And he referred to it as his dark side. He told me about-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Gosh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... his dark side.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, dark side can sometimes mean insecurities, it can mean the, the, the worst traits or character flaws within us.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But from the experience you had, what became your dark side?
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm. Oh, that's a fantastic question. You know what, I ended up replicating pretty much the same drinking behavior that my dad had. From the age of 14 up until 24 when I finally got sober, so a decade long, um, I was a blackout drinker. I was a binge drinker, very specifically. I didn't know when to stop, because my intention was never to stop from the first time that I drunk. It's almost as if something magical happened. I realized that I could change who I was, that I didn't have to feel insecure anymore, that I didn't have to think about the areas in which I'm different, the areas in which can lead to me being abandoned because I'm different. And what I mean specifically by that is, when I came to the UK when I was nine years old, I always say this, and I- I will continue saying it, because it was one of the f- (laughs) it's, uh, something that I laugh at, but it was quite big. It was the first time that I realized that I'm black. I had never, Steven, had to think about it before, ever had to think about it. But we moved to Kent when, in 2001, when we first came to the country, and in my school, it was probably me and my sister and one other boy called Curtis. We were the only black kids in the entire school. And I know you've shared your similar experiences with kind of just seeing just how much you stand out in an environment that you have to be in. And we were living in Kent for about three years, and then we moved to London. But the imprint was already made, the insecurity around who I was as a young black girl. When I moved to London, it was completely different, because now I was seen as prissy. I was seen as attractive. But that was also very confusing in itself, because I still didn't quite fit in, because now, to most of the black people that I was around, I was white, (laughs) because of the way that I spoke. By the time I was 14 and I drunk alcohol for the first time, it sort of silenced all of those things. I remember it was in a park with some friends, and the more that I drunk, the more confident I became, or so I thought. Um, and the more that I just felt at ease in myself and in my body and with the people around me. Even though I didn't start binge drinking or blackout drinking from that moment, an imprint had been made, a pattern started to develop, that every time that I drunk from that time, the intention was to get fucked up. The intention was to experience that same level of comfort and confidence that I felt that first time. And I tried and did replicate that same pattern over and over and over and over again for 10 years. And that's when I started to see that I was behaving in the exact same way that my dad did. So I think that's the sort of shadow that started to form.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Lying.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That became-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... a habit of yours.
- ABAfrica Brooke
It did. Compulsive lying.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What w- what was compulsive lying doing for you-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... on a psychological level? What was it, what was it allowing you to escape from, or escape where to, was it allowing you to escape to?
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm.It was allowing me to feel accepted. It was allowing me to, sort of create my own world, because the world that I'd been in, a world where someone that was supposed to protect me and my siblings and my family, um, did the complete opposite and damaged our family in a very, very, very big way. I remember that it did start in Zimbabwe. When I would be at school, when I was quite young, maybe even six, probably around six or seven, I would go to school and sort of tell other kids about my dad and who he was and how amazing he was and all these things that he would, he would do. And parts of it were true, but most of it wasn't. Most of it was just me trying to create a reality that I could live with, a reality that made me feel safe, a reality that made me feel comfortable, a reality that other people could sort of step into for a moment and think, "Wow, that's, that's incredible." So therefore it would make me incredible in some kind of way. So I think I started to get rewarded for that, and then it just became habitual because any time that I felt like I wasn't fitting in in the way that I wanted to or that things were happening within our home that were just very uncomfortable, and I didn't, again, have the language for this. It, it was, it was all just feeling, knowing that something is quite wrong. I would then go into a different environment and just create a story, and I re- When you were speaking, to example, I think he was talking about something similar in relation to lying, where he was saying kind of embellishing the truth-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABAfrica Brooke
... if you will, to kind of create a story, and I resonated with that so much because I think that's exactly what it was for me, just trying to create a different world. And when alcohol was a part of that as well, it was just even more explosive, and I think there was something quite addictive about that, being able to create your own reality and convince other people that that reality is actually true. Um, so it would, it was definitely a big part of my drinking, something that would come out.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's so interesting 'cause when you were describing why you lied, a lot of people listen to this and think, "Well, I can't relate because I'm not a liar."
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But the lens in which I sort of heard that through is, um, pretty much everyone listening to this is lying for the same reason. Th- the words you used were to create a reality, then you said, "I would be rewarded for when I found it better to live in."
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And if you think about an Instagram filter-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah, yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... that's a, that's a form of, uh, creating a world where you feel more comfortable and get more rewards for.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes.
- 16:07 – 22:00
What was the cost?
- ABAfrica Brooke
yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Going back to that per- that period where you were drinking-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and you were engaging in certain abandonment-style behaviors to try and escape-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... from, you know, this, um, who you were, what is the cost of abandoning yourself? What is the cost?
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I know it's quite a profound thing-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... but what was the cost for you of that continual, for almost 10 years-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... finding ways to abandon yourself?
- ABAfrica Brooke
The cost was that I, I never got to know myself. I never got to know myself, not in the ways that I really wanted to anyway. I got, I got to know the version of me that I thought people wanted, so I wasted a lot of time doing that, and there was also very real mental cost because waking up next to someone, not knowing where you are, not knowing if you've had sex with that person, there's a huge mental cost to that. On your self-esteem, it fuels a lot of shame. It fuels a lot of guilt because I would be in relationships sometimes when these things would happen. Not, not, "Have I cheated on my partner, or was this just something innocent because my clothes are still on?" So it, it really, really had a huge mental cost. So there was a lot of anxiety. There was a lot of insecurity. I would even say, you know, a low-level paranoia because when you wake up not knowing whether you've done something but feeling like you will need to apologize for something, um, going through my phone just to have an idea of what I've done or what I didn't do. Who was I with? How did I end up all the way in fucking Surrey when I was in Soho not too long ago? Um, so there was a huge mental cost.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- ABAfrica Brooke
But also there was a spiritual cost because, just like I said right, uh, a few moments ago, not getting to know yourself and then getting sober further down the line and feeling like you're a newborn baby. I, I didn't even know what I liked to do. "What the fuck do I actually enjoy doing?"If I'm not drinking or smoking something, or snorting something, what do I actually, what do I enjoy? You know, who am I as an individual without all of those things? Can I even be by myself? So there was a huge spiritual cost. And once I realized the cost of all of those things, it was around the same time that I discovered the concept of self-sabotage, right? When you get in your own way. And that helped me so much, just to even have that language to understand what this thing actually was, why I had been in that destructive cycle for such a long time. Um-
- SBSteven Bartlett
I wanna just, on that point of the destructive cycle-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... 'cause when you were explaining waking up-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... you know, um, the next day, somewhere where you don't know, you don't know what you've done the night before-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and that giving you guilt, it hurting your self-worth, it's-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... it was... My, my brain was going, "Well, this was meant to be the, the medicine for a lack of self-worth."
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And it ends up taking even more of your self-worth. So it's this kind of race to the bottom of your self-esteem by thinking that the medication is this kind of destructive abandonment behavior-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And it's, and that's weirdly self-reinforcing. So-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... you do it to try and escape, but it harms you so much that you need that, maybe that sort of surface-level attention-
- 22:00 – 25:21
How to break out of a negative reinforcing cycle?
- ABAfrica Brooke
- SBSteven Bartlett
If someone's listening to this, um, and they're in one of those sort of downward, um, negatively reinforcing self-esteem cycles-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... where you're carrying out a behavior because it, because you have low self-esteem, but then that behavior-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... is actually resulting in a lowering of your self-esteem. It can be-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... a toxic relationship where you're staying because they took your self-esteem, so you think that they're the only ones-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... that can give it back, but they're hurting you even more.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I see that a lot in my DMs.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Or it can be other. What advice would you give to someone to try and break out of that, um, that negatively reinforcing self-esteem cycle?
- ABAfrica Brooke
Hmm. I think one of the things, I think questions are always the best place to start. I always like to think of self-sabotage and self-destruction as self-protection. You're actually protecting yourself from something. And, and a lot of it is unconscious. You're not consciously deciding to get in your own way. You're not consciously deciding to stay in chaos and drama because you just absolutely love it. Maybe for some people that might be the case, but for most of us, it's entirely unconscious. But I think getting clear on what the benefits are, because you're getting some kind of reward from it, right? Because if you don't think that you're worthy, if you don't think that you're lovable, that's always going to be the belief that you feed every single time. It's some kind of confirmation. It's like a, "See? I, I... See? I said that I wasn't unlovable. That's why I choose someone who shouts at me. That's why I choose someone who manipulates me. That's why I choose someone who cheats on me over and over again. That's why I choose someone who shames me," or whatever the details might be. So I think there's always some kind of reward that we're getting from that situation, and I think it can be a very... Sounds quite abstract, but I think it can be an important question to ask yourself, "What am I... What reward am I actually getting from this? And is this going to be worth it in the long term?" And all of this, to me, it kind of sounds like shifting your identity and what you're used to, and allowing yourself to get used to things that might not be familiar yet. I think you also have to understand that when you're breaking some kind of cycle, it's going to be uncomfortable. That's why I'm a huge advocate for discomfort, because I think a lot of us, when we change a pattern-... the moment we feel uncomfortable, even though it's good for us, the moment we feel uncomfortable, we pull the plug. And we often pull the plug so prematurely. So I think one of the things that I would suggest, and I say this to my clients and anyone that I speak to, allow yourself to be in that discomfort because a lot of the time it's where you currently are with your identity and the identity that you're trying to step into, someone who is mo- more lovable, for example. But that middle part is going to be quite uncomfortable. And you just have to stay there while things sort of reconfigure.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is that like because you're contending against two counter narratives-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... or counter stories?
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes, yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And it takes time to believe a new story.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So you kind of have to sit in maybe a feeling of im- feeling like a bit of an imposter.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes. Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Or, you know what I mean? It's almost like there's evidence. Bit, right, at the end of the day all these stories are backed by either true or false but it's subjective evidence-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... of who you are and what the world thinks of me and what I'm capable of, so-
- ABAfrica Brooke
That's it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... re-writing new evidence is not an easy or a quick-
- ABAfrica Brooke
No. No, and it's not supposed to be because I think, um, I think we also have this idea that it's supposed to be easy, you
- 25:21 – 37:00
What do you still self sabotage
- ABAfrica Brooke
know, that kind of once you make a decision and you decide that you're going to do it, that it should just work. And if it doesn't, if it's uncomfortable that means it's wrong, that means you should pull the plug. That's not, that's not always the case.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What do you, what do you still self-sabotage with, or how do you still self sabotage?
- ABAfrica Brooke
Oh, that's it. You know what it is for me? Romantic relationships.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Interesting.
- ABAfrica Brooke
And it always helps me when I'm very honest about the fact that this is an area where I still have self-sabotaging tendencies. So what that looks like is (smacks lips) feeling when someone is trying to get close to me, I will immediately start to feel suffocated. I'll start to feel like I need to find something wrong with you so that you don't get too close, even if I want you to get close. But it's because there's a, a part of me doesn't want to be vulnerable because vol- vulnerability in that area means being exposed, it means being raw.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Exposed to what?
- ABAfrica Brooke
Exposed-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Vulnerable to what?
- ABAfrica Brooke
You know what I think it is? I think it's a, to put it very simply, I think it's, it's a feeling of if you really get to know me, you might abandon me. And I think this is not something that's even, you know, on a conscious level because I have a strong sense of self, I know who I am, et cetera, et cetera. But I think there is still those sort of traces from childhood, from everything that I've experienced in my life that are, those remnants of that, that have that voice that say, "If I really let you in, and you actually get to know me, you might abandon me. So what I need to do, I need to find a way to get in there first and abandon you before you abandon me." So that might look like, as I said, once the person is starting to kind of get close, I will feel suffocated, I'll feel like, "Okay, it's getting too much. I need my own space." Okay, "What's, what's wrong with you?"
- SBSteven Bartlett
Danger.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah-huh. Danger. Um-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Where did you learn that model that a romantic relationship might be danger?
- ABAfrica Brooke
Oh, gosh. I mean, take a guess. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Take a guess.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABAfrica Brooke
The, the first relationship that I ever saw, a man and a woman, a couple being together, was my mother and my father, and that's the model in which I had to kind of build my own idea of romantic love and what relationships look like. So I've never wanted to get too close. And I, I could never have said this to you before, I didn't have language for it, but when I looked at the patterns from relationship to relationship, I always saw that they had a timeline as well, never going anywhere beyond the one-year mark, always feeling like, "Okay, that's enough. We've done our time. Let's, let's, uh, really..." (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Keep it moving. (laughs)
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah. Yeah, so I think, um, romantic relationships is one, and I also had one in terms of money and this one I really had to nip it in the bud when I started my consulting firm five years ago. I used to sabotage any opportunity to potentially make more money than my mum, so my mum is a nurse. So when I started sharing my sobriety story and I started realizing that I'm actually very good at what I do in terms of speaking, in terms of supporting people, I'm a very curious person, and I do have a powerful story, a powerful story that allows me to reach so many different types of people, so it gained a lot of traction quite early on in 2016, 2017. So I would start getting speaking opportunities. In the beginning everything was sort of free and I was okay with that, never had to negotiate things around money. Money was not something that was spoken about in my family growing up. I don't know what it was like for you but the only time that money conversations were really had, um, was through arguments. You would only hear money spoken about where there wasn't enough money, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So I always had so many different money stories. Money's very hard to come by, money doesn't grow on trees, you have to work hard for money, um, so many ideas about rich people, rich people are bad, rich people are this, and no one in my family explicitly said that but I think culturally it was sort of just a thing. People don't have to explicitly say it. Culturally we all know what the stories are. So when I would hear or get emails saying, "Africa, we'd love for you to speak at this thing, it's just half an hour. What is your rate? We're offering 3K," um, I would just experience so much discomfort knowing that my mum is working so many hours as a nurse on her feet and she's probably making half of that or just about that.So what I would do, and this was not a conscious thing until I started looking at my money story, I would let those emails sit. Any email that was saying I would be getting paid, I would let those emails sit until it was too late. They've probably offered someone else. Because I just felt so uncomfortable making money so easily. So I would sabotage any opportunity to get paid, but if it was free, I will reply straightaway, "I'll do it." But when you're in business, that doesn't fucking work. It doesn't work. But even outside of that, I- I was shown that because I was incapable of receiving when it came to money, I was incapable of receiving in so many areas. I was incapable of receiving love fully, because when I did, I would shut down because a part of me thinks I don't deserve it. I was incapable of receiving opportunities because I'd feel like, "This has happened way too ea- easily. I'm supposed to... It's supposed to be hard, but this is so easy." So I would be suspicious of it and sabotage it. So those are the two main areas that I've really had to do some work on over the past years.
- SBSteven Bartlett
On the first point-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... um, you were very much preaching to the choir there, as I've talked about quite a few times on this podcast. Why do I see relationships as like a bird trapped in a cage or- or someone trapped in jail? Well, I go, "Well, that's what my father was. My father was trapped." My father my whole life, I- I was convinced he was trapped. That was my first model of what a romantic relationship was.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So of course it was the most, um, most evidence-backed.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And so, you gotta... It's similar to what we were talking about earlier about like stepping into a new story.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And although every part of your being is going, "This is bad. You gotta stay."
- ABAfrica Brooke
You do.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You c- communicate with, in this case the person, say, "By the way, this- this happened, so-"
- 37:00 – 43:09
Left vs Right
- ABAfrica Brooke
- SBSteven Bartlett
I wonder if both extremes, so the far left and the far right-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... I wonder if they're just both low self-esteem.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes. Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because they're the ones that seem to need the, the reinforcement-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... so, "I will be militant about these views because by being further over here, I'm getting more people that are clapping for me."
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes. Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know? Whereas nuance seems to be a place where you don't care mu- as, as much about the clapping.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You're not really doing it for the clap. You're doing it for- i- in my view, more for truth.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes. Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know?
- ABAfrica Brooke
I, I see that a lot. And have you found, um... Would you say... I think from listening to everything you've said, I, I kind of have an idea of what this would look like for you. But would you say that you're more in that nuance? Would you say you've always been more in the middle or have you ever found yourself on either side?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I used to think I was over on the left.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Now, I th- I think I'm somewhere in the middle.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, um, I can't... What you described earlier as, like, an intolerance of ideas-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... it's, you know... And both si- bo- both s- extreme sides, so the far left and the far right are both just really intolerant.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I... And they're not willing to have a conversation with anybody. So, I find myself being pushed more towards the center point, where I find people like me, people like you-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... I think. I, I don't know what, where you consider yourself to be-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... on the spectrum.
- ABAfrica Brooke
The, the exact same. I d- you know what? I don't think I've ever, um, even used language like, "I'm on the left"-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- 43:09 – 54:47
Accountability
- SBSteven Bartlett
speaking of controversial topics-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... one of the things that's become surprisingly controversial over the last couple of years is, and probably for a- a little while longer, um, since the 17th century, um, is this idea of accountability, which to me seems like much of the antidote to self sabotage is like taking-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... personal responsibility for your life and your situation. I've heard you talk about this. I actually think this was the first, the first, one of your first videos that caught my attention was you talking about taking responsibility in a really-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... you know, a- a fairly direct way. So tell me how taking responsibil- what that means to you, but how-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... that helped you to rise out of that phase you had from 14 to 24.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah. Oh, it was huge. It was huge. And it had to be one of the first things that I did. Actually, as I, as I think about this and sort of speak out loud, I think what allowed me to get and stay sober that eighth and final time was taking personal responsibility. I think all of the other times, I had wanted to place blame on a lot of things outside of me. So my dad would have been the easiest person because he was an alcoholic, and because of his abuse and because of everything we experienced and because of the instability, because of coming to a new country, moving to a part of the UK where just me, my sister, and Curtis are the only Black kids, the adversity I experienced from that. So I think there were so many ways that I could externalize, right? But I think the moment that I was able to say, "Okay, well, Africa, what part did you have to play in this? So you've experienced all of this adversity. What now? What fucking now? No one else can do it for you." And I think that helped me so much. And another thing that I had to do, which is a part of that responsibility and accountability, was making amends. So people that have followed the 12-step program, for example, will know that making amends is a huge part of it. I didn't follow the 12-step pro- program. I-
- SBSteven Bartlett
What's the 12-step program?
- ABAfrica Brooke
So 12-step is AA, essentially Alcoholics Anonymous. You go through a process, a 12-step process, of accountability essentially. And one of those steps is making amends, reaching out to the people that you've harmed and making amends. And that's what I had to do. And I- I really did that. And there was a lot of shame, there was a lot of guilt. There were a lot of people that didn't want to hear it. But there were a lot of people that were very grateful that even after all of these years, I'm coming to them and acknowledging something that I did or played a part in. And only then could I actually move forward with my sobriety knowing that I am responsible. Yes, I've experienced s- a lot of adversity. But I am the one that gets to decide what now. So fast forward to finding ourselves in a culture where even just conversations around personal responsibility are, have been politicized 'cause I've noticed they're labeled as right wing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. (laughs)
- ABAfrica Brooke
The moment you... Isn't that weird?
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's mad.
- ABAfrica Brooke
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's mad.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Isn't that crazy?
- SBSteven Bartlett
That's crazy.
- ABAfrica Brooke
The moment you say you do realize there is a lot in your life that you can control, you're called a bigot. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
La, la, la, la, la, la, la. No, I fucking... I'm a, I'm a puppet and I'm a victim.
- ABAfrica Brooke
(laughs) And it's-
- SBSteven Bartlett
And there's nothing I can control.
- ABAfrica Brooke
It's...
- SBSteven Bartlett
And it's that political party that did this.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay? So just...
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ABAfrica Brooke
And that, that-
- 54:47 – 1:05:31
Selfawareness
- ABAfrica Brooke
- SBSteven Bartlett
How did you get to this place of self-awareness? Because, you know, (sighs) um, I, I, you know, we all know people who are repeating cycles.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And they have no ... Either they're taking no responsibility for it, or they just don't know that they're doing it.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And sometimes, as friends, and this is, again, we're, this is us looking in on the situation as if we know what's best for them.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So there's an error there. But we loo- we, we see friends, family going through cycles, and they don't know what they're doing and they don't, they don't understand themselves enough-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... to the point where you are today, where you clearly, um, you exhibit a high self-awareness and understanding of yourself, your past, your behavior-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and the causes of it. Um, one of my favorite quotes that I've ever written, which is based on, based on a friend I had, was, um, "You can read as many books as you like, but if you can't read yourself, you'll never truly learn a thing."
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But you can also say, "You can read as many books as you like, but if you can't read yourself, you'll never make progress."
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because you can have the information, but implementing it requires understanding the being in which-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... you're implementing that too. So, how did you become so apparently self-aware?
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm. You know what? I think ... I've always loved to read. I've always loved to read and to, to hear other people's stories and to hear other people's thoughts. So one of the first people that I discovered, um, the eighth time that I got sober was Carl Jung. (smacks lips) So he's an incredible psychotherapist who explores shadow work and, you know, our shadow self, et cetera. And I think through his work and then finding many other teachers, many other mentors along the way, um, just through books mainly, books and self-study, I was able to finally have language for the things that I was experiencing internally. So I think it helped that I did have that foundation of already being quite a self-aware person, but now having language for my behavior. And I think just through different practices, even reading something about why, you know, lying to yourself is a form of self-betrayal, it meant that every time that I was in a situation and I could feel myself about to lie, I would kind of challenge myself to not and to just say something different or to just say what I actually mean. So I think it's been a combination of self-study, um, reading, tuning into the self-awareness I already had, but using it in just a different way, and actually stepping into the arena and practicing. So I think that, that has helped me kind of develop my sense of self over time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What about writing?
- ABAfrica Brooke
And writing. Writing has always helped. But you know what's interesting? I found, especially in those 10 years, I would write in my journal as if someone was going to read it. So I would lie.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What were you lying about in your diary?
- ABAfrica Brooke
Ooh, that's a good question. I was lying about how I really felt about my relationship. So I was writing as if my boyfriend at the time would read it. Um, so I wasn't being completely honest about how unhappy I was. I wasn't being honest about cheating in our relationship when I was drunk. Um, I wasn't being honest about my relationship with alcohol. I wasn't being honest about how I really felt about one particular family member who I really wanted to heal things with. Um, but it felt weird because we, we didn't speak about emotional things in my family. So there was a lot of resistance around mending, mending that relationship, even though I knew exactly what I needed to do. Um-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why do you speak of that in past tense?
- ABAfrica Brooke
Which part?
- SBSteven Bartlett
About that family member, mending it. You speak of it as if it's past tense.
- ABAfrica Brooke
What exactly did I say?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Just, um, you're referring to it as if you haven't mended it.
- ABAfrica Brooke
I haven't.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Right.
- 1:05:31 – 1:21:03
A journey with sex and sexuality
- ABAfrica Brooke
- SBSteven Bartlett
One of the things I've heard you talk about a lot is your, your journey and your evolving relationship with sex and sexuality-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and how that changed from when you were very young-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... through the period when you were drinking a lot-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... um, 'til today. Can you talk to me about that evolution and what you've learned about those topics that might benefit me?
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yes, absolutely. So, I'm going to sort of keep referring to my sobriety and that period of my life, because it was so transformative and it revealed so much to me, so much that I could have never imagined at the time. So something that also happened when I got sober, I think this was about a year into my sobriety, I realized just how much sexual shame I was holding, so much of it. And I initially sort of wanted to fix it, wanted to do something about it. What are some surface-level things that I can do? What can I read? What can I sort of dive into? How can I deal with it from where I am now as a 25-year-old? But I quickly realized that I actually had to trace it back to see where it even comes from. And I realized, just like so many things, it did come from my childhood. Being raised in a Christian home...I learned, again, not directly, more so indirectly, that being a sexual being was not something that was of God. It was not something that was supposed to be a part of who I am. Pleasure was never discussed. Sex was never discussed. Even intimacy, in general. I never saw my parents hold hands. I never saw my parents hold hands. I never saw them kiss. I never saw them hug. I never saw any sort of affection. But I knew that they loved each other. I knew that they cared about each other. But affection and intimacy, I just never saw that, not for a moment. Did you see that growing up?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um... It's a really interesting one because I'd say, I'd say yes and no.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So I say yes, because below the age of maybe eight, maybe I, like, have got memories of that and then above the age of 10, um, no. And I, I call-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... my parents by their first names.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Okay.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I've really struggled with, with intimacy because-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... of the exact same reasons.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Like even the word best friend made me cringe until the age of... It still kind of makes me cringe now.
- ABAfrica Brooke
Me too. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) Yeah. You know what I mean? Like when people-
- ABAfrica Brooke
Me too.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... would say or call me their best friend, this is the part where I go, "Ugh."
- ABAfrica Brooke
Steven, me too.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Like it's just a bit... Even boyfriend would make me like, "Ugh, prison." Like, you know what I mean? So... (laughs)
- ABAfrica Brooke
Me too. That's why when I found the word partner-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABAfrica Brooke
... I was like, "Okay."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. (laughs)
Episode duration: 1:46:40
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