The Complexities of Relationships

Relationships are difficult to navigate. Sam Bailey explains his motivation behind this podcast and upcoming book in this pilot episode. Whether you are dating someone or not, you can find a connection with the concepts discussed in this series. If you have a son or daughter who has begun dating, this is for them. The insights are from various sources and methods, including firsthand experience, secondhand accounts, books, music, movies, fiction and non-fiction pieces, general knowledge, and sound old-fashioned wisdom. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Hey everybody, my name is Sam Bailey and I'm so happy that you could join me today for my first ever individual podcast and it's called Once I Knew a Girl. Now somebody's saying, once I knew a girl, what is this and why should I listen? Why should I join? Well, Once I Knew a Girl is a project, part of a project that I'm working on. It's a book that I'm preparing and initially it was going to be Once I Knew a Girl and A Young Man's Guide to Navigating the Complexities of Relationships And so Once I Knew a Girl is a podcast series that kind of introduces the concepts that I'm writing about in my book and hopefully it can open a conversation and it can keep the conversation going. So I'm glad that you joined in today and I'm glad that you will continue to join in. And I hope that you will subscribe. This podcast will be on all major platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify. It will be on Google. It will be on TuneIn. It will be on Pandora. It was just wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Podcast, Amazon Music, Audible, whatever it is, you name it. But I just hope you can join in, and I hope you guys can come into the conversation and be a part of the conversation. Two days ago, I launched a podcast with my partner, and this is particularly in the area of therapeutic works, mental health, and it's called The Gray with Cam and Sam. Yes, I know it's catchy, but even more than being catchy, it's educational, it's informative, it's funny. But it's also designed and aimed at mental health. So if you can, please subscribe to that podcast. Check those out as well. There are already two episodes out on that and just excited about being able to put back into the world and share with you all many of the things that I've gone through and experienced. Today, I just want to give you an overview of what this podcast is going to be and how I came to kind of in an introductory way. How I came to this idea of Once I Knew a Girl. Now, Once I Knew a Girl is written, will be written in such a way where there will be some firsthand knowledge, secondhand reference points where I've heard things that other people spoke of or witnessed it myself. Some of it could be kind of based off fictional ideas I heard and others could be off of fact. But the whole point is to Bring some material that encompasses what it means to have your experiences. Once I knew a girl, I was sitting there in a Starbucks in Mansfield, Texas, listening to John Coltrane, and I began to think about some things. And I was thinking that many of the young men that I know, or many men, period, have no idea of how the women that come into their lives will impact them. So I thought of the book initially to be some sort of rites of passage, but I realized the complexities of women are so well documented that you can find it everywhere. How to be a woman, magazines, retreats, conferences. And so there are many writings, but I thought about for like a young man, like who's going to marry my daughters? Who's going to be that rock or that knight in shining armor for them? And that's a hard thing. You know, as most behavioral psychologists, I tend to think that we are mainly products of our environment. And that's why I chose to go into the mental health field. And in my preparation and therapy, I've learned that that either by experience or through experience or environment, we become who we are. I think we can choose to become better or worse based upon our drive and our motivation. But for the most part, origins have a big role. impact on who we become. So I thought about my dad. He passed three years ago. He was a hardworking, no excuses, family type of guy and family was everything. He taught me to respect my mom, treat my sisters like a lady. I tried to always treat women as treasures to be valued, not objects to be mastered. But with that being said, there's so much that my dad did not teach me, so much I had to learn, so much that I would read about, so much that I would witness. And to be honest, there are times I felt kind of cheated. And to think about it, I came to the realization that you can't teach someone else something that you don't know. And how can you tell if someone has ever, how can you tell somebody else what somebody has never told you? So I think most men can identify with this today that it safe to assume that our fathers and our grandfathers came up in very different times, right? A man was considered good if he went to work, came home, spent a little time with his kids, and then went to church on Sunday. So many old school women never expected much more of their husbands than that, right? Anything beyond that was considered a bonus. So that's okay for the timeframe they're in. But the only problem with that is that just because the women in their lives did not always know that their man could or did not always expect their men to verbalize their issues, that doesn't mean they weren't present. So most of the teaching that's passed down, I believe, from father to son as it relates to relationships was more reactive than proactive. So after it happens, we talk to them. Or we believe that we need to let the other sex learn for themselves or the other person in the relationship, right? So I think this is a grave mistake. So for me, as a father of two beautiful girls... I realize more now than ever how I shape the view of what men are and what they ought to be. So I've already begun to teach them about the qualities you ought to be looking for when choosing a lifelong mate. I believe they watch how I treat my wife, but more importantly, how I treat them. One of the things that also spurred on this idea about Once I Knew a Girl was was one of my all-time favorite songs. I think it was in the early 2000s, won many Grammys, was by an artist named John Mayer. And yeah, it came out in 2004. And at that time, I was not in a place where I could get it practically. I understood it. conceptually, but I couldn't get it practically. So besides the hauntingly exceptional acoustic chords by Mayer and his unique voice, right? It's the lyrics that I've always found myself going back to. And in those lyrics, As a father or as a lover, I've been able to find clarity in consciousness. And the lyrics say, I know a girl. Or he said, I know a girl. I'll have you sing it right. She puts the color inside my world, but she's just like a maze where all of the walls all continually change. And I've done all I can to stand on the steps with my heart in my hand. Now I'm just starting to see that it has nothing to do with me. Then the chorus says, fathers, be good to your daughters. Daughters will love like you do. Girl's become lovers who turn into mothers so mothers be good to your daughters too then he says oh you see that skin it's the same she's been standing in since the day she saw him walking away now she's left cleaning up the mess he made so fathers be good to your daughters daughters will love like you do girls become lovers who turn into mothers so mothers be good to your daughters too I hear you. Don't we all hear him loud and clear? There's a reason she's that way. She's grown older, but maybe she never grew up. Perhaps along the way, she had a distorted view of men. Perhaps she's afraid to fall in love with you because like her father, she thinks that you're going to leave her as well. Well, whatever the case may be, this is an unfortunate narrative that I think many of our women are facing today. So I think the inspiration for this book draws from many whales. I think the insights that will be shared will be from various sources, methods, first-hand experience, like I said, second-hand accounts, books, movies, general knowledge, and then I think just wisdom. In ministry, people ask me, how can I know how certain mindsets and behaviors and situations, how can I know about them? How can you speak about them, talk about them, address them? than when you never have been involved with them personally. But I believe that insight is something, wisdom, understanding, a broader... My spiritual beliefs come from God. But then if you just open your eyes, pay attention, listen, you can learn a lot. I've learned a lot about human nature and human interaction in therapy, but I also learned a lot in ministry. I learned a lot in coaching as a coach. I learned a lot when I was in classroom teaching. I learned a lot as a husband, as a son, as a father. So you take all those experiences, you put it together, and then you create your own understanding based upon what you've been through. So... This is a concept in which I am hoping that young and old alike can relate to. And that's what it's about. Young and old can digest these insights. So maybe you're a parent or a teacher or a coach or you want to have discussions with someone who you are engaged with. It's okay to have standards, right? That's what we're talking about. What are the standards? It's okay to walk away when someone's toxic behavior is poisoning you. These chapters are outlined in such a way where once I knew a girl that was... Now, I know ladies, somebody's saying, once I knew a man, well, this is not what the title is. I'm just speaking from a male point of view or a male's perspective. And that's all really that we know how to do. So it's an objective... objective attempt from a personal perspective, right? So it's okay to understand that. So for instance, one of the chapters is if you've ever met a young lady that seemed too perfect, once I knew a young lady that was too perfect and, or at least that's what she thinks, right? I want to see you in all seasons. I want to see you frustrated. I want to see you after loss. I want to see you when you're mad. I don't want to be with someone who thinks she's better than me or miss goody two shoes, right? It may do it as well. Also, I'm not going to talk about how she can have you believe that she's not like other girls, right? Because that's a big selling point for many, that I'm different from everybody. Hey, how are you different from all the other men that she meets in her life? So, you know, the girl that's a little bit too perfect, or you think she's perfect, she will give you normalcy, right? Then, What you end up with is boredom and resentment. Or what about the young lady who has you head over heels in love with her until you realize that the relationship just consisted of her talking about doing things that mattered more to her than to you. So she loved you, but not as much as she loved herself. So there might come a time in the dating experience when you realize that you're being played or being used. And you realize that the person who tries to play the game sometimes gets played by the game. And I think that's important to recognize as well on the journey. Then we'll talk about the right girl at the wrong time. Sometimes you just meet the right person, but it's the wrong time. And that can be a haunting thing that you're the person that I was looking for, but maybe I met you too early. And sometimes you don't know you met a person too early until time goes on, right? Because time is undefeated, but time's a tricky thing. And in life, we have to continue to live, right? And so we don't see the bigger picture sometimes or see the picture until we look back and reflect because life is meant to be lived forward and understood backwards. So you can have the right girl at the wrong time. And then in this book, I'm going to talk about a woman whose pain is your pleasure. In other words, she's suffering emotionally and going through things. And if you're not wise, if you're not smart, if you're not secure in yourself, you will capitalize or attempt to capitalize in those moments for your pleasure, but that's going to backfire on you, right? Because love is not a bandage to cover a wound. So we're going to address that. Now, a woman who is hiding something, oh man, that's a tough one. Or a man or anyone you want to go into a relationship with that's hiding something, that's tough because you can't trust them. And one of the things that's necessary in beginning a relationship is transparency. You've got to be transparent up front and show them who you are. And there's nothing that can be more frustrating and detrimental to the growth of a relationship than having somebody just continue to peel back these unexpected layers. I'm not talking about growth. We're all going to grow and change along the way. And we've got to continue to move in step with our partners. But to be concealing something... Purposely and knowingly is not a good thing. Infatuation. Wow. Somebody thinks that they're in love with you, but they're just infatuated. That's a tough place to be in. And then you have the one that got away. Many of us have the one who got away. They were right there in our grasp. We had them, we thought. We spent time. We had a one-up on anybody else. And just something happened in life. And they just got away. And you don't know what happened, what went wrong. It was just a conversation. It was over something silly. They should have been the one and they got away. And then there are some people that come into our lives that change their lives because they came in contact with us. And that's a beautiful thing, right? Their lives changed because we changed them, because maybe we were at a place in our lives where we were being the type of person that someone could consider being with. So I think that's important. And then in this book, the first chapter is going to be about Summer. And This was really another inspiration for my book. Now, all my fellas always mess with me and my family because I like chick flicks. You know, I like all kind of movies, but I've always been into the rom-com. You know, You Got Mail, Brown Sugar, Doesn't Matter, Loving Basketball, you know, Harry Met Sally, that type of thing. And I like it. And I like them when they don't end well, when the boy doesn't get the girl or when something falls out. My Best Friend's Wedding, you have to... Keep somebody you love in the friend zone or in brown sugar. When did you fall in love with hip-hop? Sidney, I've always been in love with you. I love these lines, and I probably can tell you a lot of them from many movies. But summer, in 500 Days of Summer, it really... Just gives the picture of a woman that I think so many people can identify with. So for most children, think about this. Metaphorically speaking, summer is the best time of the year. The weather's nice. It's warm. So it allows children to spend a lot of time outside playing with their friends, being active. Right. Like many of you, you got great childhood memories. You know, summer's a time when you feel freed, a time to relax, explore all your wildest dreams. But what I'm writing about is a different kind of summer. So in 2009, I came across this movie entitled 500 Days of Summer. Now, Tom, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, was a greeting card writer. And in this movie, he was a hopeless romantic. And he's completely caught off guard when his girlfriend, Summer, Dashanel, Summer, which is played by Zooey Dashanel, suddenly dumps him, right? And so he reflects on his 500 days with her and their 500 days together. He continues to try to figure out whether love went sour. So Summer embodies the concept of how where you came from can dramatically influence the situation that you're currently dealing with. Summer came out of a broken home. She had issues connecting with people on a different level. So To her, the ideal of authentic, healthy relationships was just a foreign concept that only a few select got to experience in their lives. the probability of you meeting and even dating a summer in your life is high. And so the way you can identify a summer is that she comes into your life by the level of detachment. And she has a detachment from deeper aspects of what it means to be in a relationship. You'll have conversations about matters of the heart. She will pull you away because she doesn't want to have to face the fact that she has issues that will not allow her to fall too hard for anyone, so she's in this push-pull cycle. But the danger of summer is, just like June, right? You know, after coming out of the spring, the rainy season, inconsistencies of the weather, she gives you a sense of change, freedom. and anticipation that warmth is ahead and excitement is ahead, right? But you have no idea. You know, I'm in Texas. Dallas area is heating up. I saw 100 degree temperatures on the news for next week, right? Third degree burns are heading your way. So how do you identify a woman like Summers? Well, out of all the girls in this book, she is among the most difficult to identify. At first, you'll be surprised that someone of her caliber is so easy to talk to. You may even ask yourself, why is she still single? So she's going to begin by making you think that she's blown away by who you are. She'll seem to be interested in all the things about you. She is fascinated by your conversation, your hobbies, even your appearance. So she's going to comment on your looks, but not in an inappropriate way. But what makes you let down your guard with Summer is that she has you believing that you've never met a girl like her. And then you convince yourself of the same thing. So no matter how much of a gentleman you are, How great the conversation is. She has created a philosophy, her own philosophy, about love and relationships that will not allow her to move beyond the surface to the core. So in this movie, 500 Days of Summer, Tom found himself continually baffled because he had imagined, right, as a hopeless romantic just like me and many of you out there listening, that when he met the girl of his dreams, they would connect just like he and Summer had. Everything on the checklist she possessed. Everything that he ever needed in a woman, he believed that Summer exemplified it. So one of the traits that you will find in Summer is that she rarely, if at all, uses label. Every time you ask her about the relationship status, she says things like, I don't believe in labels or I don't want a label to ruin what we have. So don't allow yourself to be fooled by this. She has no interest whatsoever. Or capability to go any further than you're willing to go. She accepts the attention that you give her while at the same time rejecting your invitation into a new dimension of love. So overall, you'll find that Summer's great at putting up external facades to get the attention of people. And that's just an example of the type of things we're going to talk about. That's just an example. And summer is, you know, in the movie, we know that after summer, autumn came. And that's a whole other thing, right? We live, we love, we lose, we continue to fight another day, and we go on. But all of us have summers in our lives, and all of us, every summer, somebody said, we'll have something autumn about it. So... You're on this journey with me now. You've got to subscribe. That's just a glimpse. That's just a preview of some of the things we're going to talk about with Once I Knew a Girl, a guide to navigating the complexities of relationships. I hope to create avenues where we can open up the dialogue and the discussion. I hope you guys can be a part of this. And to all of my friends who are listening, just don't listen and just turn it off. Share it with somebody else. If you are... Someone who loves the idea of love, loves the idea of unity, harmony, relationship, romance. This is the podcast for you. And again, I'm in the works of working on the book. So hopefully we can build up a good support, good audience for that and continue this podcast in many areas. Again, thank you for joining. Please subscribe. And we'll see you next time right here on Once I Knew a Girl.