There are few things as awkward as watching the man behind “Where My Dogs At” whimper. That’s what we saw Wednesday night on Couple’s Therapy, the Vh1 reality show everybody’s talking about. Truthfully, when I saw DMX heading toward tears, I wanted to change the channel. It’s my innate reaction when I see men showing that level of emotion. That’s the way a lot of us react. After all, men are supposed to be strong, cool, calm and collected. We’re not supposed to be overly emotional unless we’ve suffered a significant loss like a parent, child, sibling or even a job. We’re trained this way, often times subconsciously. And when we see a man approaching the breaking point, we jokingly say stuff like, “that man needs a hug.” That’s what we saw last night with DMX, and it couldn’t be closer to the truth.
But what we saw from Earl speaks to bigger issues that continue to plague the people around us — particularly men. DMX broke down when talking about how is mother never told him she loved him, and he never had the opportunity to just call her “mommy.” And once he couldn’t fight back the emotion that he’s clearly been subduing for years with his vices, you saw the cracks in his shell. And once he realized his vulnerability was seeping through, he tried to pull himself together with some self-encouragement:
“So what? She didn’t say she loved me, so what? I’m here, I’m healthy, I got kids, I got a good career.”
The progress for him was realizing the impact that his childhood had on his development. The regression — albeit a natural response – was him quickly trying to put the fragments back together and move on to the next topic. From the scenario that played out on the show, there are a few key takeaways. Today I want to share with you just three.