DMX and other men are not built for emotional discussions

Everyone has been in an uproar over DMX's appearance on Iyanla Fix My life. DMX blew up at Iyanla for what he considered a crock of BS and a set up. In his interview with JET Magazine, he says if Iyanla were a man, he would have punched her in the face.

Cold blooded and a bit harsh right? Welp...not to me. I completely understand where he is coming from. Something I have learned over the years is that men are not built to have emotional discussions. Not in the same way that women are, anyway.

If you go at a man the wrong way in a discussion, his self-preservation instincts kick in. Especially when he feels particularly vulnerable. DMX went on this show to deal with his issues. That's it. Not to deal with the issues he's caused someone else or try to mend fences. Check out what he says at the beginning of this video, "Every man wants to at some point be somebody's baby..." paraphrasing...

Men are not raised to be emotional people, typically. They have to deal with their emotions in a different way. DMX has realized he has emotional issues, but knows in order to handle them he has to go back to where he felt the most vulnerable and work forward by working backward.

Men want to feel the love and nurturing that all children feel. However, when you're groomed to become hardened that somewhat shuts down your ability to love in the way most human beings feel is innate.

Everyone knows that DMX was sent to a group home at a young age. He felt abandoned. Those issues torment him. His openness is something I admire. For DMX to be able to fix the pain he's caused with his children and his ex-wife, he had to first fix the pain someone else caused him.

It's a beastly undertaking, and one most people do not understand. They are so quick to tell you to stop sobbing and wallowing. Okay cool...but he isn't sobbing and wallowing, he is trying to heal. That's what Iyanla was supposed to be there for, right?

What happened was nothing of the sort, according to him. DMX felt attacked and manipulated. I did not see the entire show, only snippets. But according to him he was not there to talk to his son or go down the list of his transgressions. (Which are many...). He wanted to get the core of WHY he did the things he did.

He needed the nurturing he felt he's never had. Personally, I feel the only way he can heal the pain he caused is to go back and heal the pain that someone else caused him. Until he does, none of his relationships will work. However, because he is a man...he operates under a "fix this" mode of thinking. So until that gets fixed, nothing else will get addressed or fixed.

What I have learned over time dealing with the men I love (father, brothers, friends, boos) is that sometimes the approach I take in airing out my issues do nothing but cause more problems. They shut down. They feel attacked. They cannot figure out how to fix it, so they leave it alone.

Whereas women are used to being so self-critical that they can speak to each other in a way that won't completely rip into their status as a woman, men are not so much that way. Men do not want to internalize, so they are quick to not allow negative critiques to penetrate their fences. LOL

You'll get an "Okay...what do you want me to do?" (How do I fix this, because I do not want to talk about it anymore...) Quicker than, "Okay, tell me why you feel this way and how I caused it." (Lets go deep into what I did and let me understand how it led you to feel this way...)

Sometimes you have to step back from how you want to express something, and look at how the other person will receive it.

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