Breaking the Boy Code - Uncertain Feelings

00:00:00.000 And yeah, well, I tried to explain it to him.

00:00:03.500 And, you know, every time I did, they would just get mad.

00:00:08.920 And they said things like I was, what's that word?

00:00:18.740 They said I was like a traitor.

00:00:24.160 Because I was hanging out with, I guess you would call it the enemy.

00:00:30.680 So they didn't like that. They threatened to hurt me.

00:00:52.320 Okay, I'm going to get us started with an introduction.

00:00:58.080 Okay, go.

00:01:00.000 This is episode three in a four-part series telling the story of Lewis's transformation from

00:01:06.300 being, how should I say? I thought you wrote it down again.

00:01:15.140 Well, I'm being a little creative. So it's telling the story of Lewis's transformation from

00:01:20.320 being one of the bad guys, really. I guess we could put it like that. Being part of the problem

00:01:26.280 to becoming a really remarkable ally and leader for change in his school.

00:01:34.100 So if you haven't listened to the first two episodes,

00:01:37.320 I recommend that you go back and listen to those first.

00:01:40.080 And if you have and you want your memory jogged,

00:01:42.100 the first two episodes cover how Lewis's arrival into a new group of friends

00:01:46.220 made a difference to how he was feeling about school,

00:01:50.160 how he was feeling about his relationships.

00:01:53.320 But as he started to spend more time with them,

00:01:55.860 he sort of started to realize that maybe he didn't fit as well as he thought he did, that they were a little more aggressive, a little more violent, or at least willing to tolerate violence than he was.

00:02:11.480 And so at some point he started to draw a line for himself and say, I'm not going, I'm not going to stick with this group.

00:02:17.860 and and so and that's where the episode two finishes this with lewis saying instead of

00:02:25.220 being friends with them i'm gonna become friends with the victim of this friend group's bullying

00:02:30.460 i'm gonna be friends with matthew instead i think that's it i did i ended up pretty much winging it

00:02:41.060 was that okay yeah i think you did a good job thanks okay happy to reconnect um how

00:02:49.280 what how is your day going so far oh my day was going pretty good i rode the bus today

00:02:57.380 and well when i got on the bus there was this lady that got on 0.66

00:03:02.180 and as soon as she got on the bus driver said you know that's the most ugliest baby i've ever 0.71

00:03:10.460 seen in my life what the lady got really upset and she started crying and she went back and she

00:03:18.900 sat next to this guy and the guy was like what's wrong and she said um the bus driver upset me

00:03:31.320 yeah for real well um why don't you go tell the bus driver off here i'll hold your monkey 0.57

00:03:40.340 so was it a baby or a monkey

00:03:49.060 it was a monkey or it was a baby but it wasn't it wasn't i have a feeling that

00:03:57.840 i have a feeling that didn't actually happen no it didn't happen it was just a joke

00:04:04.100 not bad not bad you actually um thought it happened for a little bit well you said

00:04:13.320 the bus driver said that's the ugliest baby I've ever seen and I was like what

00:04:17.680 why would a bus driver say that to somebody so

00:04:21.640 that that made me feel worried but I was happy in the end that it wasn't a true story

00:04:28.840 yeah that would have been a bad bus driver

00:04:34.340 yeah i'm i'm glad you agree with that how else is your day going

00:04:43.240 oh not bad can we start by delving in uh a bit deeper into the feeling of like what was going

00:04:54.440 on your heart when you started to wrestle with with these with with the idea of um

00:05:02.320 yeah i guess abandoning your friend group in favor of aligning yourself with with this guy matthew

00:05:09.680 well i think it we talked about it in the last episode um after he tried to kill himself

00:05:22.440 um i started talking to you

00:05:25.860 i really like wanted to hang out with my old friends but at the same time they

00:05:36.600 they just took it too far and they kept picking on the kid matthew

00:05:42.880 so

00:05:45.380 i didn't want to be their friend anymore

00:05:51.300 and i wanted to kind of try to talk to matthew a little bit more and get to know him because i

00:06:00.520 i went to school with him for a while but i never really got to know him eventually

00:06:10.400 um we decided that we were going to hang out and when we did hang out

00:06:17.820 we hung out a couple times and then his friend was with us and we were watching this movie

00:06:25.140 and there is this guy that was on the movie that was he was wearing makeup so 0.96

00:06:34.360 I just said like out loud you know that guy's gay and his friend punched me again so I got 0.94

00:06:42.620 punched in the face twice so that didn't work out too well because being punched in the face is not

00:06:51.660 a great feeling so after that we talked a little bit more and and I got to know him a little bit

00:07:06.860 more then and I realized that he he was pretty hard to talk to I'm not gonna lie but eventually

00:07:20.320 we found it a little bit easier so we started talking and bingo

00:07:30.960 so if we rewind back before you made that connection with Matthew let's let's like go

00:07:39.740 back and forth and brainstorm some of the feelings does that sound okay yeah that sounds okay okay

00:07:47.140 do you want to start or do you want me to start I want you to start

00:07:51.140 okay I guess I'll say empathy empathy or sympathy I guess thinking about

00:08:00.700 how hurt matthew was and kind of like imagining

00:08:04.620 um that it wasn't fair for him to experience that level of pain

00:08:10.660 yeah it wasn't fair

00:08:15.380 i never should have went as far as i did you know as far as him getting hurt i should have never even

00:08:27.740 you know started picking on him in the first place because i knew it was wrong but

00:08:36.680 i made a mistake and i did apologize to him

00:08:43.880 so it took him a while to forgive me but i think he forgave me and we still talk now

00:08:57.740 Okay. Yeah. Another, do you want me to do another feeling or do you want to go?

00:09:05.300 You can do another feeling.

00:09:08.660 Okay. Um, uh, guilt, which is kind of what you were just sort of saying,

00:09:15.100 feeling bad about what you did, feeling like you made a mistake and you wish you hadn't done it.

00:09:20.680 Yeah, I was feeling guilty.

00:09:22.580 i mean because i've been through that before because

00:09:31.380 kind of because of my race and because of my size so i've had people who bullied me before

00:09:41.960 so i should know better than doing that to someone else but

00:09:52.580 I guess I thought if I didn't do it, then my friends wouldn't like me.

00:09:59.840 And that was really important to me at the time.

00:10:06.880 Yeah, why was it important to have friends that liked you?

00:10:12.540 Because when I was at the new school, I had no one.

00:10:17.140 i did not talk to any single person except for my teacher which i asked her a lot of questions

00:10:25.140 and i think that was kind of annoying for her but i mean as far as like the other kids go

00:10:31.900 i didn't talk to anyone

00:10:33.460 so i really wanted um friends my age to talk to and hang out with

00:10:43.360 so my foster home and stuff wasn't as sucky as what it was

00:10:51.460 okay let's brainstorm some more of the feelings that kept you from doing something

00:10:59.360 to begin with what about helplessness what was the question again in terms of the feelings that

00:11:07.380 were motivating you to change there was guilt empathy and sort of determination the feelings

00:11:13.920 that were sort of keeping you the way you were you were just talking about the feeling of

00:11:19.300 wanting friends so kind of wanting to avoid loneliness and I just said what about helplessness

00:11:27.140 yeah I felt helpless because like I said I was smaller than them I skipped a grade so

00:11:36.400 i was younger than them too and i felt like you know if i tried to step in and tell them that it

00:11:45.240 wasn't a good idea then they would just kind of laugh me off and they wouldn't take me seriously

00:11:52.380 so i was helpless to try to stop it

00:11:58.740 yeah which we i remember talking about the fact that that wasn't like a hypothetical

00:12:05.700 call? Oh, I don't think they'll

00:12:07.740 listen to me. You had kind of witnessed firsthand

00:12:09.640 even when you tried to stop them, it didn't

00:12:11.620 work.

00:12:13.580 Yeah, they just ended up calling me 1.00

00:12:15.720 a pussy. 1.00

00:12:17.400 Yeah. 1.00

00:12:21.420 What about fear? Was fear holding you back?

00:12:25.520 Yeah, fear...

00:12:27.720 You know, I was afraid

00:12:30.020 before I even tried

00:12:31.700 to stand up to them.

00:12:33.580 Back when we were just

00:12:35.700 goofing off. I was afraid that if I did say something, then they wouldn't want to hang out

00:12:43.120 with me anymore. Were you afraid that they would do anything worse than just not hang out with you?

00:12:52.640 I was afraid that they would start doing the same things to me.

00:12:58.780 and that was a big thing

00:13:01.640 when I was

00:13:02.700 trying to be friends

00:13:04.360 with Matthew

00:13:04.920 I wanted to be his friend

00:13:08.120 but

00:13:09.120 I was afraid

00:13:10.260 that they would start

00:13:11.540 pigging on me

00:13:13.340 and they would try to hurt me

00:13:14.520 like they did him

00:13:15.860 okay

00:13:21.820 any other feelings

00:13:22.580 come to mind?

00:13:25.380 no

00:13:25.820 no

00:13:28.780 Okay, so on one side we have empathy, compassion, guilt, and determination.

00:13:38.620 On the other side we have loneliness, pressure, helplessness, and fear.

00:13:44.680 So how does one side end up outbalancing the other?

00:13:50.640 How do you go from being stuck to being determined that you're going to do something?

00:13:58.780 And well, I mean, after I figured out that he wasn't that bad and he wasn't that hard to talk to, I knew that it would be possible, you know, to hang out with them instead, him and his friend.

00:14:15.980 And, you know, I just did not want to hurt anyone anymore.

00:14:25.000 That was a big factor.

00:14:28.620 Because, yeah, it was fun to hang out with the other guys, but it seemed like almost every time I hung up with them, someone would get hurt or I would get in trouble.

00:14:39.700 so it was a sense of sort of saying to yourself like i'm done with this yeah i was done

00:14:50.160 except you weren't done just like that like it was a little bit harder than that so

00:14:59.260 tell me a little bit more about the like the back and forth that happened

00:15:05.360 well yeah i like i guess i wanted to be done but at the same time

00:15:15.260 you know i missed my other friends so i would go and i would hang out with them sometimes

00:15:27.200 but

00:15:29.480 I told myself I wasn't

00:15:33.480 going to do

00:15:34.140 what I did before

00:15:36.620 and I guess it was

00:15:41.220 kind of a mistake to hang out

00:15:43.260 with them

00:15:43.680 because sometimes it would happen again

00:15:46.860 and I would just kind of be there

00:15:49.020 but

00:15:51.500 one of my friends

00:15:56.360 you know one of my old friends was going through something really hard

00:16:01.920 and I wanted to be there for him so I continued to talk to him

00:16:09.120 and you know I would hang out with him and stuff when he was by himself

00:16:15.660 and I still talk to him now I'm just I don't hurt anyone and I live far away from him now

00:16:27.240 So it's mainly just texting or playing games online.

00:16:35.460 So there's a couple of them with whom you were sort of able to keep a bit of a connection,

00:16:39.700 but not continue to get stuck in the pattern of what you'd previously been doing?

00:16:48.340 Yeah, it was just the one person. I don't talk to any of the other guys anymore.

00:16:54.700 okay so tell me a bit about what you lost like what did you yeah I guess I kind of want to honor

00:17:02.940 what those guys represented to you in the first episode so what did you kind of leave behind when

00:17:08.500 you made that that like journey towards the kind of person you wanted to be what did you lose

00:17:15.460 well I had a lot of friends I mean I had a lot of guys that I hung out with

00:17:24.700 and we would have a lot of fun I mean we would joke so much and we would like laugh so hard

00:17:33.480 you know we were like I was drinking um some juice one time and they made me laugh so hard

00:17:45.880 I spit it like all over my friend's house you know in the skateboarding

00:17:51.220 and everything like that i miss that i just don't miss the violence and everything that

00:18:00.300 i had when i hung out with them and you know

00:18:05.420 even after i started being friends with matthew and his friend it was easy to talk to his friend

00:18:17.740 and it took him a long time to actually want to hang out with me because he was really protective

00:18:24.300 of his friend so you know after I started hanging out with them

00:18:32.120 it wasn't the same because it was hard to talk to Matthew and it was mainly online

00:18:42.020 that I was able to talk to him

00:18:45.480 so when

00:18:47.040 I didn't have anybody to hang out with

00:18:51.680 in person.

00:19:00.640 And I felt kind of alone again.

00:19:04.420 so that's a lot to give up and to feel alone again that's like a pretty heavy burden I guess

00:19:15.440 or like that's a pretty heavy cost to your decision and I mean we talked about you kind

00:19:21.220 of like slipping up and hanging out and that kind of thing but by and large you didn't go back

00:19:25.880 so I guess it kind of begs the question what did you gain what did I gain yeah like what

00:19:33.980 did you get out of that decision that kept you committed to sticking with it even when you felt

00:19:39.780 lonely and even when you missed that that like level of kind of like unfettered joy that you had

00:19:48.440 with that group of friends what was it that you had gotten out of your decision that had just

00:19:55.660 kept you committed to it well i didn't feel so guilty anymore i felt better about myself

00:20:06.660 and i figured out that i didn't need to be with those friends because i could make more friends

00:20:16.680 and with the friends i have now then i don't have to worry about anyone getting hurt

00:20:25.660 Is that a good answer?

00:20:29.560 Yeah.

00:20:30.580 I mean, I still kind of struggle to see like your answer about your answer about what you

00:20:37.140 lost seems like a bigger, it seems kind of bigger than what you gained.

00:20:41.860 So how come feeling good about yourself and not hurting people?

00:20:47.020 Like how come that is worth so much more than those friends?

00:20:51.660 well i'm not really alone anymore because i have friends but yeah it's better to feel

00:21:03.420 good about yourself than constantly feeling bad and feeling guilty

00:21:09.500 and it kind of sounds like there's just something in you that's

00:21:15.980 really gotten aversion towards hurting people like that's something that's just really important to

00:21:20.920 Yeah, well, I had a rough past, and I've had people hurt me before, and I didn't want to do that to someone else.

00:21:34.660 I didn't want them to feel like I felt.

00:21:39.580 I remember talking to you about that, you know, when we were kind of hanging out.

00:21:47.700 and i remember telling you that you know what happened and what would happen next time

00:21:56.280 and i didn't i didn't want it to happen again

00:22:00.700 so i remember going over those feelings with you when we were talking

00:22:05.420 yeah what else do you remember about talking about it with me

00:22:10.900 i thought you would hate me i mean because

00:22:17.100 i hurt your friend but you really helped me i mean you didn't tell me what to do like most

00:22:29.060 people would do but you told me you know some of what my options were and you were the one that

00:22:38.100 helped me leave that friend group because i remember telling you that i wanted to

00:22:43.760 and you kind of helped me out of that

00:22:46.560 yeah I remember you saying that too

00:22:51.380 and I was kind of aware that was a really big decision

00:22:56.240 so what do you mean I helped you to do that

00:22:58.480 because I wasn't there

00:23:00.380 and I wasn't at school

00:23:02.660 I wasn't on the street with you

00:23:03.780 so what do you mean I helped you do that

00:23:06.260 just by talking

00:23:08.980 I mean you told me some of the things that

00:23:13.280 Matthew was going through

00:23:14.900 and you

00:23:17.620 didn't get pissed off at me

00:23:20.280 you didn't 1.00

00:23:22.320 tell me to fuck off 1.00

00:23:24.060 you were just there for me 1.00

00:23:26.620 and

00:23:30.000 that helped me

00:23:33.920 you know make some really important

00:23:35.840 decisions

00:23:36.540 about where I was at

00:23:39.360 and

00:23:41.000 what I should do

00:23:42.600 can I tell you something that just kind of occurred to me yeah I think that for you to

00:23:59.120 decide that you wanted to try to be better you actually had to believe that you could

00:24:03.800 does that make sense yeah that's probably what you helped me with I mean helping me believe that

00:24:12.020 I could be better. Yeah, that's kind of what I was just thinking that like, maybe part of

00:24:18.980 maybe one of the most significant things that I did was just simply

00:24:24.900 kind of like you said, like not judge you and reflect back towards you like the best parts of

00:24:36.020 yourself so that you ended up kind of seeing the possibility for yourself to be you know as good as

00:24:43.540 I imagined you being yeah exactly and then the other thing kind of with that is that that's kind

00:24:53.380 of like the opposite of what a lot of schools do definitely a lot of the youth justice system

00:25:01.640 does like a lot of the status quo in terms of when people are, when, especially when

00:25:08.580 boys and especially boys of color are misbehaving is, um, well, it's kind of like what you said

00:25:14.080 in the last episode, like you're suspended, you know, or you're getting this consequence 0.95

00:25:18.400 in this sentence sometimes that really kind of just boxes you into this one perception

00:25:24.640 of yourself rather than um i don't know like the the patience and the openness to say

00:25:35.680 i see where you're at but i also see where you could go if you were and how you could be better

00:25:44.620 I guess yeah I mean you didn't like when you go to someone else they would try to punish you

00:25:55.700 or like other adults would be like well I'm gonna just tell your foster parents what was happening

00:26:02.260 but you took the time to talk to me

00:26:09.120 and that meant a lot

00:26:10.900 it wasn't about like punishment or anything like that it was just you really tried to understand

00:26:23.340 how I was feeling and you talked about my feelings which was kind of strange because

00:26:30.280 I've never really talked like that with anyone before I'm not the kind of guy that likes to

00:26:37.680 talk about feelings and stuff like that but i felt like i could with you yeah

00:26:44.180 anything else coming to mind for the story

00:26:50.600 so i went to a new school

00:26:55.080 and i started noticing that there was another kid there that was kind of getting made fun of

00:27:03.760 and it made me feel bad because of what happened it was kind of like deja vu

00:27:10.240 so i wanted to do something to help my name is jonathan my name is lewis and you're listening

00:27:19.120 to breaking the boy code what you're witnessing is transformation to put a word on it and that's

00:27:27.460 a powerful thing to see firsthand it's a powerful thing to witness over the past year and um

00:27:33.040 yeah i mean that's a powerful thing for lewis to bring into the rest of his life as he grows

00:27:38.360 into adolescence and you're about to hear about the powerful impact it had in a new chapter of

00:27:44.160 his life transformation is what next gen men is all about next gen men is the organization

00:27:49.820 behind breaking the boy code if you want to help create stories like these

00:27:57.600 You can support us at nextgenmen.ca

00:28:01.000 slash join

00:28:01.760 You can reach me at breakingtheboycode

00:28:04.800 at gmail.com or at boypodcast

00:28:06.920 on social media

00:28:07.800 Okay, Louis

00:28:10.660 it's your conclusion now

00:28:12.600 I love you

00:28:16.320 Are you asking me?

00:28:23.060 I'm asking you if that's what you want me to say

00:28:25.220 No, you can switch it up

00:28:26.360 it's whatever you want

00:28:27.160 okay well let me let's here's something different what do you think

00:28:34.240 would a parent have to do to do what i did for you they would just have to care

00:28:57.160 and you're watching

00:29:00.240 you're listening to breaking the boy

00:29:02.960 code

00:29:03.300 are you gonna keep going

00:29:06.840 no but that was great

00:29:08.500 that was almost as good as me

00:29:10.740 it would be

00:29:13.100 it would have been convincing if your voice

00:29:14.960 was a little deeper

00:29:16.380 wow

00:29:21.600 that was like a preview of what you're gonna sound like

00:29:25.020 when you're 14

00:29:25.680 hey i hope i don't sound like that oh you don't want to have a voice like that

00:29:34.420 no i sounded like a demon monster

00:29:38.440 okay i'm stopping this recording because it's been recording all of this unnecessarily

00:29:46.220 say one more say one more word one more word i knew you were going to do that

Breaking the Boy Code - March 01, 2022

Uncertain Feelings

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