The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Tim Ross Talks ‘The Missing Peace,’ Being Sexually Assaulted, Healing, Faith Vs. Fear + More

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

Today On The Breakfast Club, Tim Ross Talks ‘The Missing Peace,’ Being Sexually Assaulted, Healing, Faith Vs. Fear. Listen For More!  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Law & Lawson is here as well. We got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed. Brother Tim Ross. He has a new book that's out right now. the missing peace. Good morning. Not just the missing peace. I love the subtitle. How to be held together when you're falling apart. I think that's a great conversation to have during this mental health away in this month. Absolutely, man. Absolutely. I'm so grateful to be here with y'all. Thank you so much. How are you feeling, first and foremost? I feel good, man. Yeah, I'm good.

Do you feel peace this morning? Much peace. Yeah, I'm chilling. What's the biggest lie people believe about having peace that's actually keeping them stuff? the biggest lie about having peace that's actually keeping them stuck. Probably that money is going to get you peace or marriage is going to get you peace or the right zip code is going to get you peace

or promotion is going to get you peace or a platform is going to get you peace. All of those are temporary. It'll give you a good dopamine hit and make you feel secure but it's not going to last. Peace has to be something that is cultivated

and settled in from the inside out, not from the outside end. When you talk about holding yourself together, right? Is it okay to fall apart, though? Oh, for sure. Is it okay to let things get to your lowest? And I always say when you get that low, just sitting it for a little bit.

Absolutely. Yeah, so there's a misconception that if you have peace, that means you have the absence of turbulence. You have the absence of struggle. I contend that you can have peace and be angry. You can have peace and be sad. You can have peace and be at the lowest state of grief.

I lost my father two years ago. Sorry. Thank you. I appreciate it. And that was my hero. Charles Edward Ross was like my hero hero. And so I was grieving, but still peaceful. I missed him.

His absence was, it was, looming at the time. But I wasn't in despair because I had peace on the inside. I was watching preach on Sunday at Seeds of Greatness. And you talked about the book of Philippian and how those letters were written from prison. So it's like in the midst of the chaos. Yeah, yeah. What has been something for you that has felt like, you know, that prison, but like you've had to reteach yourself how to find that piece to write those letters in the midst of it. Yeah. So when I've had a lot of loss in my life. So I've, I've had a lot of loss in my life. So I've, I've had a lot of people die that I've loved. My brother Miles was killed in a car accident

September 17th of 2004. That was probably the deepest, darkest despair. That's why I had to give to old girl. Shanti Daz. Yeah, Shanty Daz. Yeah, silence to shame because I've been at that point. The four months that I was depressed after Miles's death was like the darkest season I had ever been in. You was young, you had to be early 20s then? Yeah, yeah. I was, I was late 20s actually. I was about, I was 29. He would have turned 28 in November. So I had my dad's revolver.

And I was like, I can't, I don't want to go on. It's not that I didn't believe I can go on. I didn't want to without him. We were 17 months apart. That's like my best friend. And after I came out of that, I was like, oh, I almost believed a lie and did something permanent based on a feeling that was temporary. And when you can navigate out of that, you realize, okay, I can't go back to that again.

Yeah. I was just going to ask like, but emotion doesn't stop, right? So in real time, you still are getting to that place where your emotion is clouding, what's actually happening? Yeah. What's the talk through then where you're not getting back to that place of like letting it all kind of take everything away? Yeah. So I think the talk through has to be, first of all, you can't talk by yourself. you can't talk in a silo

something that I write about in the book you have to break the silence whatever you can't put into words is going to choke you silence isn't golden after all silence is not golden after all so one of the synthesis

that I've come out of this in the 28 years that I've been in therapy is whatever doesn't come up and out of your mouth through words will come up and out of your body through actions and what you can't actually speak out you will act out that's why I talk so much man You think that's the reason?

I think so. I got to say it. Yeah, no, I'm the same way. I've always been that way as I was a little. I got to say it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I don't like talking behind people back. Like, I got to say it to the person.

Yeah, for sure. Yes. I, um, so I got sexually abused when I was eight. Me too. Did you? Yeah. At eight years old? Wow, bro.

Yeah, so it was an older teenage boy that lived across the street. It wasn't a boy, though. It was an older woman. Understood. It doesn't matter. It doesn't. I don't know. Yeah.

That was one of them things you should have. You just wanted to go on record. You should have not smoked that one. I mean. But he saw he was so because of the clear had already bonded. He had a bond with you the way. He was really. He was like, oh, yeah.

He put you back in the silo real quick. But I had the other gender. You're right. I wanted to be. And she was older. I hate this guy. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Because he was a bond at first. No, no, no. That was mine. I just wanted to make the record clear. That's all. I had nothing to do it. But for who? But for who did you make the record clear for it?

that's going to clip it. That's all. Okay. That's all. That's all. That's all. So you're going to leave me out here. We both had some ambiguity until you wanted to go your own way.

Dooli noted my God. He didn't say, he was saying, he was like, no, that wasn't my case. Tim added the gender to it. I didn't think the gender matter either way. He added the gender to it. You know what? Because it's a part of my whole story. Got you got you.

All right. And it is something that, um, so many men go through that I don't want to leave it out to identify with the men who will never speak up on this and it's killing them. Okay, so that happened to me at eight, but I didn't share it with my parents until I was 19. Why not? Do you know at the time, in my mind, envy, I knew my dad would have killed him and my brother would have buried the body.

Wow. Wow, that's rude. And I was eight. So I look at eight-year-olds, and I'd be like, how was I thinking that at eight? But I was so afraid of blowing up my life. And I was projecting the actions of adults. And so I was actually protecting my abuser and protecting my family at the same time. Was your dad mad at you when you finally told him?

No. Really? No. Actually, so here's a story. My mom actually caught me watching porn. at 19, 2 o'clock in the morning. And being the woman that she is, she went straight to her room,

hit her knees and started praying. So I'm embarrassed, and this is 90s porn dog. Like, this is VHS in a VCR porn, right? This ain't flip up on the screen. You know what I'm saying? You can just swipe right on me. Yeah, yeah, you're like, oh, I'm looking at my app. You got to run pause and stop.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, right? So I go on my mom's room, and I tell her, I said, hey mom I don't want you to think I'm nasty I don't want you to think I'm a pervert but I got abused when I was eight so the eight year old was in a 19 year old body and finally got to tell mommy where it hurt the

the profound thing about that moment is my mom contained me held space for me, woke my younger brother up who was abused by the same dude and then my dad who was working at the post office at night he had to come home so in this one night what should have been like hella embarrassing and like full of shame.

Feel healing. Sounds healing. Dude, I woke up the next morning and I felt like a 2,000 pound slab of concrete came off my chest. He said your brother too? My brother got abused by the same. Both of your brother, did y'all know? Did y'all ever talk about it?

So I found out, I found out he got abused by bro when I was 15. He went to jail on an unrelated charge. So when he came out, we were going to kill him. And like, we ain't assassins. You know what I'm saying? And this is like teenagers like, let's just kill the nigga that, you know, did us dirty. Because I think I was more hurt when I found it happened to him than it happened to me. So like we just got the Ginsu knives out the drawer.

And they had like a welcome home party for them. And we were like, come out into the street. And I've said this once before and I had some dudes think that I was like out of my mind. But I couldn't start sticking them until like. I knew he knew why he was getting stuck. You know what I mean? Like I had to look him in the eye, like, you know what you did, right? And I couldn't see it in his eyes.

Now, whether it was real there or not, I wouldn't be sitting with you all right now because I'd been doing time and probably would have never left LA. You want to want him to know why this is happening? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? If I just start carving you up

and you just like, I don't understand. You know what I mean? Like, I had enough decency to be like, you need to know what you're doing. But I didn't just do it all, I'm sure. Oh, no, I do. You know how it stopped? My older brother found him with the next door neighbor.

Oh, wow. And my fears at eight were confirmed because my older brother almost killed him. So I'm like, if this is where you reacting over the neighbor, you wouldn't be here right now if you knew it happened to me. So that level of silence with a whole neighborhood of boys, when I came out of that at 19, I was like, I'm not. never going to have a secret again as long as I live. Let me ask you a question. I always say that the black community, we do ourselves no favor by keeping secrets. Not at all.

Especially, especially black family. Absolutely. And a lot of stuff that we call generational curses are really generational secrets. Could have been broken. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Let me ask you a question. And this is not to dive too deep in it, but I always like to hear these stories so other

parents could see what's going on. I got a younger son. Yeah. So what happened? What was it? Was he a lot older? Was he an older man, inviting you to his house? Was he your same age?

Like, what happened? These are the things, you know, because when my son says, I want to go on a play date, I'm always like, nah, I haven't come here. You know what? My daughter says, I want to go something. Nah, I haven't come here. But I'm just always nervous. So what was it without, you know, I don't want to be too.

No, no, I'm open about all this kind of stuff, Envy. So first of all, the dad you are is who Charles Edward Ross was. Everything was at our house. WrestleMania was at our house. Everybody had to spend a night at our house. We didn't get to go nowhere, right? but a predator is a predator for a reason, right? A predator prays once you let your guard down.

Right, so this is a neighbor from across the street. I'm eight, he got to be 17 or so. And he had a fine girlfriend, right? And this is one of those things when you're a little boy. There's nothing sexualized at eight years old, but you look at his girlfriend and she's really pretty, and you're like, oh, that's a pretty girl. And then so this stuff starts happening to

And you're like, why are you over here with me? Like, I don't know what boys and girls do, but I don't think this should be happening Where's she at? Like, you know what I mean? So it was, it's, when you're sexualized at a young age, there's nothing but confusion. You can relate to that.

Like the confusion of like, this part of me is awakened, but I'm still playing with He-Man. You know what I mean? I'm still playing with G.I. Joe. And it's a part of you that knows. knows it's wrong, but it feels good. Right, right, right, right.

And then, again, the layers of, because people are always like, well, I wouldn't have let it happen to me. Well, you think you wouldn't let it happen to you. We all have this benefit of hindsight on the outside, looking from the outside end, but from the inside out, I understand why so many victims of sexual abuse,

so many victims who have been abused through coercion and manipulation, why it takes them so long to tell their story because people don't believe them. And then when they do share that story, it's why did you wait so long? And I'd be on the other side, like, if you don't shut the faith up,

you know what I'm saying? Because, like, it was 11 years for me. And it took getting caught to, got caught watching porn. Porn was never the root of my issue was the fruit. I was using it to numb the pain of my trauma. So, like, if that would have never happened and then I couldn't put it into words,

I wouldn't be as free as I am now and this book would not have been written. Did it ever make you question your sexuality anyway? Never, bro. Because, and there's levels to this. I've been in therapy, for the 30 years, I've been a believer in Jesus. I've been in therapy for 28.

So I'm so great for that mental health in the mental health space now is what it is. But I was doing it before. It was in vogue at all, right? because I just wanted to get to the bottom of some things. I never questioned my sexuality, and that's because my parents had such a dope marriage that I just wanted what my dad had.

I wanted what my dad had with my mom. And so there was never a question in my sexuality where I was like, do I like guys or do I like girls? To your point, when my dad found out, my dad was crushed. we had already moved 70 miles away from that neighborhood. So it wasn't like, bro could make a beeline across the street and handle business. He was just devastated as my mom was, right?

And they're questioning like, what do we do wrong? What happened? How do we miss this? How we didn't see? Yeah, yeah. And I had to continue to reassure them, a predator is a predator for a reason. That's like asking yourself, how did I get mauled by a lion? Well, you didn't try.

They're predators. Right. So, but our family bonded and got closer from that. And it just allowed us to heal. What happened to do? You know, I have no idea. I don't know if he's dead or alive. You never wanted to, years later, say, you know what, let me process this and... Here's the thing about him.

Get arrested or... No, no. Here's a thing about... That would have been dope. And I'm not blaming you. I'm just asking what was your mind for him. That would have been dope. I think that would have happened with the last person that got abused

before my brother found him because that particular person, his grandfather was retired law enforcement. So I don't know exactly if something happened with that. I've actually reconnected with that dude years later on Facebook. And he was actually like moved to tears that I was sharing the story, which also is part of his story. But one thing that I found out, Envy, is that you don't actually need to see your abuser face justice for you to heal. Like, you don't need something to happen to them for you to find closure, for you to heal to move on.

And a lot of people think if I get an apology from this person, if this person is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, then I will feel justified. but you actually suspend your healing waiting for something to happen to them when you can be doing this work yourself. Now, I wasn't necessarily thinking about your healing. Yeah. Other people he made him abused. Oh, for sure.

If he was abusing so many different people, it was like stopping that. Like, we always said these stories and be like, if that one person would have said something, maybe it would have stopped 20 other people from getting hurt. Right, for sure, for sure. That's why always think about that. Yeah, yeah.

So I hope that the last person that had happened to, the fact that their grandfather was in law enforcement, I hope that led to it. that but I wasn't around for that. Got you know Tim a lot of people perform peace instead of living it right? How do you know when you're

when you're I guess faking your healing? I think you can spot the fakers when they retell their story but they actually start reliving it. Like there's so many people that

like we live in a space right now we're like everybody wants to be vulnerable, right? Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel,

help an acapella band with their between songs banter. The worst singer in the group. The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The yard birds, right?

That's the name. The Harvard Yardt. They're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle-aged. One erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions,

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Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam Jek. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick you here.

unpack what went down and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 was big to me not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack all day, but just so you all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Then you're finishing that sentence.

Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for Blank. Black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everybody wants to, you know what, I can share and I'm transparent, but then they start talking about it and then in the middle of talking about it, they're actually reliving it. And it's like, I don't think you're talking about a wound that's healed. I think you're actually still bleeding from this wound. And you're in ICU and you should probably

turn off the mic. Right? We're not actually swapping stories right now and I'm sharing stuff. If I was breaking down like, man, Emmy, I'm glad you brought that up, dog. My body is starting to tell all of y'all, he ain't over this.

Yeah. He's trying to talk about it, but he ain't actually over this. And our bodies, when our words don't match our bodies' experience, our bodies tell. That's right.

your skin to break out your hair to fall out your teeth to fall out you'll start getting ulcers you'll you'll break out in the rat like your body is like stop capping your body wants you to tell the truth and when you do tell the truth your nervous system regulates this is why lie detectors are even though they can't be 100% unless you're a psychopath a lie detector can detect a liar because the mouth and the body must live in harmony and when it's not the body starts giving even micro signals that this person is lying. When I hear you talk about that, it makes me wonder, like, is peace ever really a destination? Or is it something that, like, it's like you gradually get to parts of peace?

I don't know if I'm making sense, right? You're making sense. You think someone's at peace. And then it's like, no, they're probably not. But they feel like they are because they felt better about it than they did the day before, the month before. That's good. So how do you know what the destination of peace is? Yeah, so I'm glad you said that because it brought up a picture.

So let's just say you bought 100 acres of land, okay? And you put your house on one acre of it, right? And you're like, oh, this is good, right? I cultivated this. I built a house on this. I got a little garden out here. But you got 99 other acres. It's just undeveloped.

At some point, you need to expand to two. All the land is yours, but now it all has to be cultivated. And that takes work. and so peace is something that you already have and you can already partake of but the development of it could be a lifelong journey and peace is also a destination that you you're kind of in and out of.

Yeah, I like how you talk about in the book about how to keep your emotions regulated. A lot of people don't know how to do that. Right, for sure. I have learned this, especially coming from the environment I came out of in Engelw. would um uh there there there there there is a discipline you you have to choose peace right like i've seen y'all in here with some people that you know you've had to choose peace it's not

you're not just choosing to keep your job you're not just choosing you know what i'm saying not to go viral for popping off you're choosing peace because you know the alternative is what right you talked about the donkey of the day dude like why did you Over a tip? Over a tip? This is how you want to crash out. You had to run them over with a car because you didn't get a tip.

Right? So peace is a choice and I choose not to trade in my eternal piece for a temporary version that's going to bring me back to a dysregulated state anyway. How do you regulate your emotions while still honoring you?

Because you still got to feel your feels as you therapy says, right? Yeah, but our feelings, Charlemagne, our feelings are nothing more than informants. They're little snitches. they just come to tell us what's going on right now. They come to give us information, but we still get to choose what we do with that information, right?

I just celebrated my 27th wedding anniversary with Juliet. Thank you. We got married May 1st. I still see other attractive women, right? My attraction is not a sin. That's not a boundary to cross. My wife ain't going to be mad because I think another girl's pretty. My reaction to that attraction can get me in trouble.

I have a choice in that. What if you get bricked up? That's biological. If I get bricked up? Well, yeah, that is biological. Yeah. Okay, so my penis got hard. What?

And what? And what? So they ain't got nothing to do with you with. No, that's just biology. Yeah, yeah. Right? You can be stimulated by something if you flicking channels. You know what I'm saying?

True, true. True. I mean, gis got hard looking at animal kingdoms sometimes. You know what I'm saying? I don't know. I didn't say me. Oh, I was that. I generalized.

That's something. You're like, yeah. You're right. I've gotten hard. Once again, Tim, you're on your own. Well, they're on their own. They're on their own. I didn't say I did.

So all I'm saying is biology says that attraction is not a sin, right? Our reactions to our attraction can be that sin. So in anything, if I'm feeling anger, Bible says you can be angry but not sin. right so you can our emotions come to inform us of what we're feeling but we still have a choice if we're going to trade our peace for an emotion that could take us out of the will of god that's so good i keep hearing this message over and over again and i think i need to hear it okay and the reason that's so good is because whenever like i you know you have an emotional outburst whatever whatever it may be whether it's happiness whether it's anger whatever it is i always just sit with it afterwards

and be like, okay, what was that? What was the root cause of why I reacted? Yeah, for sure. And you'd be surprised, like, what some of the root causes are. Like, sometimes anger can be loved. Oh, absolutely. You can love somebody so much that you angry about it, right? Right, depending on what they do to you.

And again, the feeling comes to give you the information, but what you do with that information is going to dictate if you keep your peace or not. But I'm curious what you're feeling. Why you keep hearing it over and over again? Because when Pastor Sarah was at church, She's the greatness. She talked about anger and women in grief, but separately. And she talked about it's okay to be angry.

And a lot of times as women, you try not to be or if you are, you're so angry that you don't think through the anger. But if you think through it, you sit and you figure out like why you're angry, you take accountability in the anger and then you repoint it and you focus it. It's powerful because a woman on a mission is a woman on the mission, you know what I mean? Especially a black woman. And then you're talking about the emotional. And she talked about managing your emotion. and you're talking about basically like an emotional discipline of sorts.

That's right. And when you said tip, I'm thinking about like in news, you get tips and it just leads you somewhere. But that's not what you hang on to. It might be right. It might be wrong. Yeah. And I think one of the things that I'm realizing in real time as I'm learning to take

accountability is that sometimes my emotion leads my final end-all be of my thought. And I'm so deep into the thought that like none of that clarity happens. Yeah. So this is the second time that I've heard it like very clearly of like, here's what, here's the plan. You got to listen. For sure. Moving forward,

it ain't going to happen. Yeah. I was watching Godfather 3 on the way here. I just had to watch that trilogy because I had just finished the Sopranos. So I was like, I got to go back to the OG. So I'm watching Godfather 3. Michael Colione is dealing with a person that they ultimately need to get rid of. But it was profound what he said.

He was like, yo, you're allowing your anger to dictate what you're going to do to this person. instead of understanding this person's nature. This is their nature. This is who they are. They are not going to change. And if I allow my emotions to be dictated by their nature, I am a slave to them every time I'm in their circumference. Every time I get in their presence, you're going to own me because,

oh, Charlemagne is like this. And every time Charlemagne get like this, then I get like that. And you control me, dog. Anytime I come into your environment, you control. me. I'm not going to let that happen. I come in with peace. My piece is internal. The chaos is external. I have to choose to trade my internal peace for the external chaos. And you got to slow your body down. It doesn't mean my heart race. My heartbeat doesn't go up. My blood pressure don't go up. I can feel my ears burning. But on the inside, I'm like, I'm not giving up that peace for y'all. Y'all can have all of that storm. It ain't coming in here. What about what about being able to? do that in certain situations but not being able to do it in other situations like if you've masterpiece over here on the left but on the right it's just not like there's no one central

peace mask like abort we have the ability to leave right when jesus would be crowned king he slipped away when he would be stoned before he would be crucified he slipped away he didn't stay in every situation some situations he stood there and was like i can take all of this other situations he was like yeah nah fam i'm not you know what i'm saying so we have the ability to leave these these mma fighters um when you're talking to them and they're talking about their training or whatever they're like okay well what if you go to a bar and some dude's drunk and he wants to fight you he was like i just back up but what if he keeps advances you i just keep backing up but what if he pushes up on you i leave the restaurant why i'm gonna lose if i engage i'm gonna

I'm going to kill him. And I'm going to go to jail. I fight for a living. His liquid courage got him in my face. But I'm trained. So this man is going to be in critical condition or he's going to be dead. So I have to make the choice to remove myself from the situation. I think a lot of people who talk about keeping their peace also stay in situations where their peace is compromised. Every situation is not going to be conducive to your peace being maintained. So you've got to move yourself out of the situation. And it takes humility to do that. How much of people's lack of peace is trauma and how much is just avoidance of truth? Oh, in 2026? I can't get percentages to it because I don't want to dismiss anybody's trauma. And somebody's trauma can be kind of bawled up in them not being willing to hear the truth. But, Charlemagne, bro, we live in a time right now that if you tell somebody to the truth. truth.

Because mental health has turned into three minute TikTok sound bites, you tell somebody the truth and they're just going to throw what they heard as they scroll through TikTok. You're a narcissist. You just gaslit me. I'm triggered.

And you're like, you don't even know what these terms mean. I just told you your breath stink. And you need a tongue scraper. That's just the truth. That white film on your tongue is not coming off because you brush your teeth. You need an instrument that just scrapes your tongue, dog. There's a film based on the fish and the cereal you had last night.

I don't know why you had a piece of fish and then a bowl of cereal. But that doesn't lead to good morning breath, right? But we can't tell nobody that now without it being, you disrupted my piece. I'm just trying to help you out, right? And so truth, truth is objective if it's the truth, right? It's going to be the same every single time. But we have fragilize an entire country to the point that we can't have discourse based on the truth. What's a horizontal confession?

The confession that gets you healed. So as a believer in Jesus, you know, a vertical confession is I confess whatever to the Lord, right? God, I'm going through this, I'm going through that, whatever. Horizontal confession is I'm going to tell Envy something. And I ain't told nobody else. I've told God for five years. I ain't told envy, right?

The moment I tell you, I get healed in a way that I don't get healed with God. And I know that's going to mess some Christians up, right? Because all I need is Jesus. I'm in my prayer room. All I got to do is pray. Oh, my bad. See, that's the Christians. I don't know.

That might have been Jesus saying. You should have told me first. So we share stuff, right? We pray, we do all this kind of stuff. But then I'm going to share something with envy that I haven't shared. And something's going to happen in my nervous system that I'm not even aware of at the moment. Because healing comes when I'm face to face with another human being. And I'm saying, hey, I'm scared right now, bro.

You know what? my business is experiencing some low points. I might have to lay some employees off. And I'm actually terrified. And I ain't shared it with nobody. I'm scared, dog. That right there, your body's like, we can calm down there. You're not trying to pin that up.

You're not trying to thug through. You're not trying to. And so horizontal confession heals us in a way that vertical confession doesn't. Because vertical confession will get you forgiven. It would get you cleansed. but horizontal convention will get you healed. I like that.

And the reason I like that is because, you know, of course I love God. All praise you do God all the time. But human connection is just as important. It is. Like God put us all here for a reason together. Yeah. We're not supposed to be isolated from one another. We are supposed to have human connections, share those emotions,

share those things where, you know, going through with others. And I don't think that's trauma dumping either. No, it's not. Genesis chapter number two Adonize the one who says It's not good for man to be alone He creates Adam and he says It's not good for man to be alone

The presumption is that means marriage The macro of that is That means relationship There are no lone wolves Long wolves die Right? You look good Right? I'm out here by myself You're going to die by yourself

None of us were supposed to live life alone And so community Common Unity is increasingly incredibly important and true healing only is sustained in community. It is not an isolation. You talk about that a lot in your book when you talk about accountability and accountability not being parole but having people that like keep you accountable. For sure.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I grew up listening to a generation talk about accountability and being from the hood where I'm from, it sounded like parole to me. I'm like, so I got to check in with Charlemagne every Friday and tell him, hey, man, I ain't looked at no booty on Instagram. And, you know, I'm just this checklist, right? Accountability, true accountability is not me checking in with you or you calling me to see, have you done something wrong.

It's me saying, you know what? Every time I'm alone, I slip into maladaptive behavior. that don't suit me well, whether that's drinking too much, whether that's rolling up too many blunts, whether that's snorting some cocaine, looking at booty and masturbating. I want to stop that.

If I want to stop that, then I want to hold myself accountable. I'm calling you when I'm tempted, not after I've done it. Yo, dude, it's a tough night tonight. I'm a caller. You know, you're supposed to be calling her. Y'all broke up like five times.

You know, she ain't got no good for you. That's right. but she called tonight and she sent the pick. All right, dog, then what you're going to do? All right. I'm turning off my phone. I'm going to bed.

I don't know. I'm turning my location services on. Right? Like, if you see my blue dot move from my house, right? Check me. Like, if you, people that want to change do everything they can to change. People that don't want to change,

say they want to change, but lead the environment, the exact same and fall into the same issues over and over and over again. Can I ask you a question about that relationship wise, right? Should your significant other be your accountability partner? And this is what I mean. I'm talking about in particular in regards to affairs of lust, right? Yeah, yeah.

You talk about seeing a woman early and be like, oh, man, she's pretty. Would you tell you, wipe that and be like, yo, she's pretty. No, I don't tell Juliet about every beautiful woman I see. If it turned into something of an attraction that I felt myself like, Michael Jackson smooth criminal leaning over into, right? If I've leaned that much, then I need to tell Juliet, right? If it's somebody I see in the airport, I'm not going to see him again. I saw you in Terminal B, bro.

You know what I'm saying? I meant the smooth criminal league. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If it's within my space, right, the realm that I live in, because, again, attraction is not planned. I don't wake up in the morning like, can't wait to see somebody as fine as Juliet. No, attraction is not planned. It's like getting hit in the head with a brick. Your reaction to your attraction.

That's what's going to be planned, right? So if I see that like, oh, yo, I'm starting to lean for old girl. And she's going to be around a lot? I've got to tell Juliet. Sometimes all you need is the conversation. The conversation snaps you back to reality. Same way you can call your homeboy and your homeboy will take the same thing. That's right.

Sometimes when it's that your significant other, it's the same thing. Whatever's in silence grows. And whatever's been spoken, drinks. I'm telling you, I have talked to too many people that have called me on the phone late at night like, I'm going through this. I don't say nothing for 20 minutes. They just blah bra bra bra bra bra and after they're done they like, my nigga, you're a real one dog. I feel so much better. And I'm like, I didn't say nothing. I just contained them. Right. And some people don't need advice. They just need a safe place to be able to vent. And if we give

them that safety, then they can find the peace that they've really been looking for. One affirmation I always tell myself to keep the peace is that faith and fear can't coexist but my body tells me that's not true. So can you have faith in God

and still feel lost or anxious? For sure. I'm broken. Does that mean something more? No, bro. Faith is not the absence of fear. Faith is the substance of thing, hope for Hebrews 11 says The substance of things hope for

The evidence of things not seen It's not the absence of fear It's the presence of God In the middle of all of that fear Psalm 23 David wrote Yea though I walk through the valley Of the shadow of death

I will fear no evil For thou are with me It's only his presence That anchors me When I feel like My world is falling apart So absence of your presence Notice not a word, not money, your presence will make it possible for me to navigate something that's very, very scary.

My son, my sons were in the house. We moved from a house that was like 2,100 square feet on a zero lot to a house that was three acres, 5,000 square feet. My boys were 7 and 5 when we moved in. House is much bigger. They got a lot more room to run around. And they're running around the house one day. my wife is going my mother-in-law is gone I'm in the house but I'm in the master closet

doing like folding clothes or something my boys are running around the house looking for a parent and can't find nobody right so they are just shook mama daddy they're screaming for anybody they think they're in the house by themselves so they panic why do they panic because they don't sense our presence

so for five minutes they running around screaming to the top of their lungs I just think they're playing. I hear them screaming. I don't know they're looking for anybody's attention. So I finally go in the room. I finally come out of my room and I'm like, Nathan Noah? And they were like,

Daddy! We told me we were in this those five. Oh my God, we told me I was like, y'all know. Just knowing my presence was there, their nervous systems calmed down. So anxiety spikes when we believe we're alone.

And it comes down when we know someone is present. That's great. You know, since I was a little, little boy, whenever I had panic attacks, anxiety attacks, I would say, I love Jehovah God and His Son Jesus Christ. I love Jehovah God and His Son Jesus Christ. I love your whole God and Son Jesus Christ.

Fuck Satan. Fuck Satan. And my mindset used to be, you know, they wanted Joe's wife wanted him to curse God and die. So if I curse Satan, then I probably live. But it really was just reminding myself that God is with you. That's exactly right. Yeah.

Even if you're not in the same room, He's present. That's right. Yeah. You dedicate this book to all the mental health professionals. You said, why do you can, you said, you said, this book is for the mental health professionals, the real ones, the ones who didn't just help me survive my trauma, but gave me the tools to thrive despite it. Y'all do holy work and I'm living proof of it. Why do you consider the world of mental health professionals to be holy work?

Save my life, bro. Dang. Or somebody else's. Like where I came from, I told you about the time I was going to end my life. but there's been some times somebody else's life was going to be ended. And mental health professionals have created

space for me and millions of others to come and sit down and listen to the deepest, darkest parts of our soul. They are patient enough with us, not in one session, not in two sessions, but I'm talking sessions over years,

getting us down to the core of what it is that we're truly wrestling with. It took me, I think, 15 years to get to the core roots of my trauma, which are abandonment issues and anxiety, attachment issues. If it wasn't for their patience, I would snap, bro. People are out here acting out crazy because they can't put their feelings into words. and mental health professionals have paid a significant price

to be able to give us language to our feelings so that we can navigate life's issues and storms and journey. Wow, yeah. Man, I hope you join us this year at this year's Mental Welfth Expo. You know, I do the Mental Welfth Expo? Yeah, I would love to. Every October, I would love to have you there, man. The missing piece, if you want to do anything for somebody

this mental health awareness month, go get them Tim Ross's The Missing Peace, man. That's right. We appreciate you so much for joining us to sharing your story. honest man hopefully that somebody see what you went through and know that they can do it absolutely I appreciate you all the time thank you every time I hear you speak I appreciate you tell me to follow you Tim um upset the talk on

TikTok upset the gram on uh Instagram and on YouTube the basement with Tim all right it's Tim Ross it's the breakfast club good morning and before we go if you don't mind we always end on a prayer can you end this on a prayer for sure absolutely God thank you so much

for this team I thank you Thank you for Envy, Charlemagne, for Lauren, for Jessica. I thank you for the anointing that you have placed on their life. I thank you for the call of God that's on their life. I thank you for the influence that you have given them to Stewart. May it continue to be used to give people a safe place to find peace. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up. The breakfast club. You're all finished or y'all's done. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.

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On The Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors.

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