Charlamagne – How to Handle Anxiety & Panic Attacks | Now With Natalie | Season 2

the views information or opinions expressed during the filming of this show are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of hillsong channel or hillsong church [Music] why do we see ourselves the way we do culture often dictates that our worth path and identity are determined by our race our gender the things we've done and the things that have been done to us projections of the lives of others and the state of our world saturate our news feeds making it difficult to distinguish the real from the highlight reel i'm natalie manuel lee and in this series i'll be digging beneath the surface to uncover what it really means to be bold transparent and confront our shame and this season i'll be speaking with people at the top of their industry from the realms of music radio politics television and philosophy to find out how they navigate shame and translate their hardships into opportunities to refine themselves instead of define themselves so how do we rise above challenges to truly operate in our purpose and identity everybody has a past and we're all on the way to somewhere what lies in between is our progression i'm dissecting the idea of growth over our years of positive or negative circumstances and choices we either move forward and grow or we shrink back in shame what causes us to grow from setbacks what response will send us on an upward trajectory as opposed to a downward spiral in a culture where we cancel people and label some failings unredeemable is it still worth being transparent with the worst parts of ourselves and where does the responsibility for our growth lie with ourselves others or a higher power in this episode i headed to the iheart radio studios in new york city to meet with influential and controversial figure charlemagne the god best known as a co-host of the hugely successful radio show the breakfast club charlemagne has also appeared on tv and in films has written two new york times bestsellers and has conducted some of the most profound interviews of our time i've watched his personal growth from a distance and wanted to get greater insight into his process i'm expecting for this one he's such a complex individual which is a good thing you know he has a lot of opinions and charlemagne is a very confident human being but i don't think that he just got there overnight i think that there's been a lot of things that has happened in his life to get to where he's been today with his confidence and who he is and his confidence in god and i'm interested to see how he's gotten here [Music] no ma'am you grew up as lenara mckelvey now you're charlemagne what's the difference between the two honestly at this point in my life being 41 years old i tend to lean more into lennard as i get older and i'm a father and i'm a husband i have to dig into lennard more you know because charlemagne was kind of a character that i created to kind of like i don't know maybe distract myself from the things that lennard had been through that lenard never dealt with when did you create charlemagne i was in high school i just got kicked out of my second high school i don't know if you've ever you don't seem like the type to everybody's fault i was close don't judge okay you know so i got kicked out of berkeley but they sent me to strafford high school and so i got kicked out of stratford well really i got arrested they came and arrested me from that school so that was the last time i ever had been in day school so i started going to night school and when i was in night school um i saw in a history book that charlemagne was french for charles the great because when i used to sell crack i used to always tell the crackheads my name was charles and charlie because i'm from a small town so if i said my real name they'd be like oh that's larry's son oh that's julie's son so you were disguising yourself yes yes yes yes and i was like charlemagne let me start calling myself so i was in high school yes was i high school do you feel like you were born with this confidence nah i definitely wasn't born with it when you start hanging out with other kids like kids are cruel like we're all cruel to each other you know what i mean that's when you start having insecurities because you're trying to fit in right but for me a lot of that just started with you know hanging getting with the wrong crowd being around people that i didn't have no business being around and really being around them because it was more survival than anything like when i was in sixth grade i was in advanced classes right i was i had the fanny pack in the glasses you know and the kids that were in my class were mostly white it was like three black kids in those advanced classes when i was going to berkeley middle school and then my cousins who were the thugs who turned out to be the hood dudes who ended up going to jail and their lives didn't really pan out the way i maybe maybe they would have wanted to they would have won bullying me so it came a point where i was just like man you can't beat them join them because they were scaring off all my little white friends my little wife was like i don't be around you you get bullied every day and then like when they broke my glasses that one time i stopped wearing them and i was just like i'm just gonna roll with y'all because it's safer you understand what i'm saying so it's just like that's where the lack of confidence and the insecurity comes from and you know doing things because you just want to fit in that's when you make all of those mistakes and that's when you you know have those poor choices and that that that's what ultimately cost you we all have things from our past that bring us shame and that don't reflect our true or best self but the nature of life is that we develop so what role do those experiences and choices play in our present we allow our setbacks our mistakes our failures to define us yes your setbacks have they defined you i don't think so because i won't allow them to um i've definitely used them as fuel i've definitely used them as you know teachable moments more so not just for myself but more so for other people you know because i always say smart people learn from their own mistakes why people learn from the mistakes of others because setbacks happen early and setbacks happen often but i'm supposed to be tripping out the fact that i feel that they've great i'm like you know you got to keep it moving and i feel nice great too but i kept it moving and ended up graduating in night school so-called good so-called bad so-called ugly i just i treated like the pig right even though i don't eat pork but you know i'm from the south so when it comes to the pig they use every part of the pig like there's no part of the pig these chitlins are the things that that's disposable oh really yes i mean you can make anything taste good when you from down south and you're not hot sauce that's what i'm saying that put that seasoning on it yeah lowries they're lowry's absolutely so you're saying that your setbacks haven't ever made you feel less than who you are honestly i just believe everything is part of a long process i've just learned to just accept things for what they are you know people make choices you know some choices i made made certain things happen other choices i made made these set of things happen so when you got bullied as a child that has never affected you today no that definitely does because that's dealing with the inner child in you so there's certain ways you react to things right now because it brings back that trauma from childhood access all your favorite preaching worship and shows on demand this is incredible ill song channel now subscribe today it seems that it's possible to hold both your own brokenness and the confidence to use your setbacks as setups charlemagne has come a long way from the troubles of his youth i was intrigued to understand more about what was behind his growth [Music] how has faith played a role in your career today that's that's that's it i'm not here without faith like i didn't go to college i don't have a particular skill set i don't think i have a particular talent and i've always felt that connection to a higher power i remember laying in my room you know feeling like yo something is in here with me and not being afraid and i always used to say it was the michael jackson post on my wall but it wasn't michael jackson what was it it was god what did it feel like it feels like you're not alone it feels like no matter what comes your way you'll be protected that's why i believe in divine misdirection because you can be going down what you think is a good path but that's not god's path for you there's been plenty of times i've i've had things taken away from me and i can't believe i'm like yo all right that was that didn't that didn't happen you go to pitch this show and that didn't happen you're like ah it wasn't for you at that time that's hard no not really especially when you have been in situations where things have went things have gotten taken away are things didn't go at all you're pitching pitching pitching but they didn't go at all but eventually that one thing does end up somewhere and you're like well this makes perfect sense so you're telling me when you get that no it doesn't affect you no watch your nose affect you the only thing that should affect you is yes and by the way when you do get that no don't look at his rejection look at it as god's protection if you really truly believe that god knows what's best for you when you get that no don't trip off it like okay well why did they say no well they thought this this and that oh okay well i can apply that to making this better oh you might just brush it off altogether and be like i don't care what they talking about that's what they talking about you know what i'm saying so i don't trip off those all i know is i need one yes to to to accomplish whatever it is i want to accomplish than those it just knows when did you get there though i come from a place of rejection i grew up on a dirt road in most going to south carolina so everything was gravy you know the only time i ever felt i guess that sense of like something was was done and over with and i didn't know what to do that was the first time i ever got fired from radio i really was like i don't know what to do because all i know is monk's corner all i know is charleston my mindset wasn't i can go do radio somewhere else you know you go do radio in columbia hour and a half away you know you can go do radio and you know my mind was my mindset was not there i was still living at home with my mom so in my mind that was it for me but no that's not what god had planned for me what god had planned for me was one of my mentors telling me no you can go do radio other places like look let's go look online it's all type of job openings online you're never really stuck in one spot you just got to figure out what else is going on like sometimes it's good to take those step back those those steps back and like really pay attention to the whole landscape of what you're dealing with i don't think i would have did that if i hadn't gotten fired so that no was essentially a setup not a setback yeah the world of radio is notorious for being a playing field where any topic is fair game and i imagine it would be easy to fall into the trap of using your platform to shame people how can one express their perspective authentically without undermining the dignity of others i'm not here to chastise you i just want to have a conversation okay donkey today for monday march 16th goes to all you fools who was in the club this weekend now what part of social distance don't y'all understand i get that people believe in conspiracy theories i get that people don't believe the government is telling us everything but what i don't get is people just throwing caution to the wind it's not worth it why do we think we are so exempt from things happening around us okay i believe in god but we have to take care of ourselves it's precautions for a reason now when the government does a national shutdown don't y'all go screaming martial law all i'm saying is you have to know when god is telling you to be still okay we are in a forced slowdown right now all right why are you not taking heed it's really just that simple okay this is the time to to meditate and and focus and just prepare for what's to come [Music] you're huge on moral honesty we all know that you're very honest with people do you ever feel like you crossed the line of shaming people yeah but that's one of those things where you don't realize it until you've done it right until you did it and then if a person tells me that i crossed the line or if a person tells me that i went too far i can't tell me wrong you know that's that's the way they feel about it i can't i can't say man no i didn't the only thing i could say is that wasn't my intention it wasn't done with malicious intent what do you do now to prevent it you can't you can't listen i've gone through the whole shock jock thing you know saying saying saying wild you know inappropriate stuff because i thought that's what people wanted and i ran with that for a while and that's that wasn't that wasn't a good part of of me because i wasn't truly being myself right you know and if i'm not truly being my true authentic self then i'm wasting my time and everybody else's time you say this you can't deal with anything until you reveal it to the world is that why you choose to be so transparent yeah honestly before me being transparent was just what i did because i didn't have anything else you know i don't have a particular thing that i'm super well versed in i'm just living life i got my experiences so you know me sharing my experiences what i know separates me from everybody else because you know everybody's going through different things like we may have gone through similar things things that you can relate to but my experience on this planet has been my very own unique experience nobody else has a story like i do just like nobody else has a story like yo so that's what separates us thanks for watching get your now with natalie statement hoodie personally designed by natalie at hillsongchannel.com limited quantities available the idea that the ups and downs of our story are what help shape our identity and propel us and our purpose is an encouraging one moving on from our shame can mean yes leaving it behind but also leveraging it for our growth if transparency is one of the key tools to progressing how do we navigate the current trend of cancer culture were you ever apprehensive to tell you know the world about your infidelity when you got bullied it's some things that you might not be so proud of yeah no i'm more apprehensive now and the only reason i'm more apprehensive now is because of this cancer culture you know like you don't know what's going to offend people you don't know what you're going to say that's going to rub somebody the wrong way like but will that stop you though nah it don't stop me but i'm just being honest like you know you ask me apprehensive like yeah sometimes you do think like okay should i share this should i give them this 10 years ago 15 years ago you would have no problem putting it all out there you know but now you're like you know but i still got to be me you have to feel your feels yeah that's one thing we don't like to do because ever since we've been taught as kids why don't we like to feel the feel because we've been talking talk to me hakuna matata don't worry be happy yeah you know smile power positive thinking like you're never supposed to feel anything other than happiness anything other than happiness means that you're being a pessimist or you're being negative or you're you're being you know evil you're putting out bad energy like no you're allowed to feel sad you're allowed to be angry you're allowed to be disappointed you're allowed to have guilt you're allowed to have shame you're allowed to have frustration what is wrong with feeling that that's how you work through it allow yourself to feel it that's the problem you know what the problem is not figure out a solution but what if you stay too long in that feeling well that's what i always that's why i always say it's okay to not be okay right but it's not okay to stay not okay especially when there's so much other tools and resources to be okay you can stay in one place too long so if you stay in a a positive place for a long time and you work towards that then positive things will happen but if you stay in a negative place for too long then guess what you're gonna do you're gonna work towards staying in that negative place you gonna sit there on the couch eating your potato chips watching television just being depressed being mad at yourself being upset at yourself instead of actually figuring out a way to be the change that that you need in your life social media can give you all the negative reinforcement you want all the negatives it's like a gift and a curse right you know i used to get on social media and say thank you god for blessing me with another daily life and like clockwork there was always somebody saying to me i was praying you died this morning i don't check my twitter comments anymore because we're in these verbally abusive relationships with our smartphones you got to ask yourself why right do you believe the protect your ear gates and your eye gates a hundred percent because that's wha all of those are the gateways to your brain they're the gateways to your heart like we talk about feeling your feelings you got to guard your feelings in order to guard your feelings you got to guard what you see and you got to god what you hear and you got to go out with your speaker as well you know power at the time power the tongue you know the tongue is a double-edged sword you can either speak life you can speak love or you can speak deaf you can speak hate [Music] even with the tools to guard our hearts and minds i find there are areas in each of us where vulnerability is difficult some things are better left protected in our relationships with those who know and love us but where possible sharing our darkest moments more broadly can create opportunities for growth that go way beyond our personal journey what's one thing the world doesn't know about you at this point i really don't know i put too much out there you know um i don't know i think i shared my biggest secret and my biggest secret was dealing with anxiety dealing with depression that was my biggest thing that i just had to finally like let go and and and share with the world because why were you holding it in i don't know if i knew how to have a conversation you know you you have conversations with other people about their depression and their anxiety but i don't think i started really having the language until i started going to therapy you know and i realized that when i was writing my second book shook one because i was like well i'm gonna keep a journal of everything that's going on with me in therapy and i had been keeping the journal so i'm gonna share this journal now in the form of a book but i realized my therapist wasn't telling me these things in order for me to be able to diagnose others she was telling me these things to give me a better understanding of what it is what it is i was going through and it made it easy for me to explain to others why do you think so many people don't want to talk about it i think when you grow up in a certain environment you think the paranoia you think the anxiety is all part of just the life that you live that's honestly how i felt like i could think about my father right my father used to literally say he would keep a knife and a gun by his bed cause the devil would be coming to get him in his sleep now my daddy dealt with substance abuse issues this time last year my dad told me for the first time he tried to kill himself 30 plus years ago the reason he didn't was because of my older sister and me because those were the kids he had at the time and he said that he went to therapy 23 times a week and he was on 10 to 12 different medications throughout his life but he never told nobody that i remember going to my mom saying mom you know dad was dealing with this thinking she was like i just thought he was playing crazy to get a check so as his son gets older and starts dealing with his own issues yeah he don't know what to do nobody ever gave me the tools nobody ever gave me the resources nobody ever told me what this was what that was i didn't get diagnosed with anxiety anxiety until 2010 but i'm having panic attacks my whole life but until i sat down with the doctor i was trying to explain to him my symptoms you know he's like son you had a panic attack you suffer from anxiety i'm like anxiety so it was not even something normal to you i've gone to the hospital at least four to five times in my life for panic attacks thinking i was having a heart attack but now you know i can bring myself back to center i know what to do i have the tools now i can go do my breathing exercises you know i know how to ground myself to bring myself back to center we can leave some things behind completely while other things are processed to be managed internal battles can sometimes be the hardest ones and though what we say to ourselves is perhaps most important it can be all too easy for our internal dialogue to become negative how do we grow towards a greater maturity and freedom while wrestling those internal tensions [Music] td jake says something that was so profound i know you respect him as well he was saying that we're more so tormented by the guilt and the shame that comes with the mistake as opposed to us making the mistake what do you think about that i think that makes a lot of sense because i think a lot of times when you make the mistake the mistake is being made out of a place of ignorance right and they say when you know better you do better right so the guilt and the shame will come from after you make the mistake you've received the consequences of that mistake i have yet to receive the consequences of that mistake but now you realize why what you did was wrong like i don't think guilt and shame are necessarily bad things i think guilt and shame are like alarms inside of you to let you know like you know what don't ever make that mistake again what you did was wrong you should have that kind of barometer inside of you that makes you feel guilty or shameful like the conviction right yeah yeah it should make you feel like yo i did something wrong i did something i had no business doing i don't even want to make that mistake again you should feel that guilt and that shame what do you do when you feel guilt and shame i treat guilt and shame like i treat any other emotion you know because you can't go back and change the past right the only thing you can do is recognize your present and move forward with your future you know and moving forward with your future you just you use that as a learning tool you lose that use out of the learning experience to say okay i know what to do now if that situation never arises again or if i see somebody else in that situation i went through that so you don't have to go through that so i can give you the game on how not to make that same mistake that i made and your book shook one you posed a question i've evolved from that selfish destructive young man but does that absolve me of the damage i've done ultimately where do you believe your redemption comes from man i think your redemption comes from your actions right meaning your actions moving forward like i said you can't change the past you know i'm saying you can't change anything that you know you may have done that it might have you know caused somebody some harm so it's like you'd be a fool not to think about the impact that you've had on people's lives in a negative a negative way so i just think redemption comes from just constantly paying it forward you know never forgetting what the things that you did that may have caused some harm but you got to constantly move it forward do you think that you can redeem yourself or god redeems us it's got to be god right but the best apology is change behavior so when you ask for forgiveness like you can't continue to do the same things i don't know why we think god is some punk you know it's just like if uh if somebody comes in your house and they pee on your carpet you're gonna be so hot at this person right and you're not gonna let this person back in your house at all probably you probably you're not gonna give them another chance at all god gives us another chance right but that doesn't mean you keep coming and peeing on the carpet we know that he's a redemptive god i'm not even going to play with god and not change me first you know i'm saying faith without works is there so i can have faith that god is going to redeem me but i truly have to do the work in becoming a better human being the greatest compliment i get nowadays is charlemagne i see your growth and i've always believed in transformation so if i can be a testament to that for somebody else lessons how how can we start the evolution in our self well the thing about growth and evolution is it's going to happen regardless but you just have to be willing to embrace it and be willing to embrace that change right because you're going to grow you're not going to be 1 years old forever you're gonna get the five or if you know god god willing you're gonna get to ten you don't get to 35 40 45 50. and muhammad ali said a man who thinks the same at 50 as he did at 20 wasted 30 years of his life because you're going to grow regardless but you have to make the choice on whether or not you you you evolve physically you're going to grow but what about mentally what about spiritually what about emotionally that's all on you so yes you do have to go out there and you know do the work to be a better person yes you should be picking up these self-help books and you should be talking to elders in your community and they can give you the game on life because really none of this stuff has really changed like there's no idea original nothing new understand you can go have conversations with people and learn how to grow you got to make a conscious decision and conscious effort to go do that the process of growth can be paradoxical it takes both the recognition that we cannot fully redeem ourselves through our own efforts and the willingness to do everything within our power to become the best version of ourselves the direction of growth is determined by our beliefs our character and by our end goal and so i wonder what charlemagne sees as his [Music] he said this does it matter how you start it matters how you finish how do you plan to finish your career i don't know and the reason i say i don't know is because i didn't plan to be here at this moment right now all i all i can continue to do is grow evolve and go where i think god is taking me and that's not even a professional thing that's more of a personal thing like you know i'm working on getting to a place of healing i'm working on getting to a place of wholeness and i hope through that healing i can help to heal others because you know they always say hurt people hurt people yeah i've been through that phase in my life right so hill people heal people so that's why you see me out here encouraging brothers to go to therapy that's why you see me out here being a big advocate of mental health you know that's why you see me out here you know just encouraging you know brothers to practice practice mindfulness when you ask me you know what's next for me or where i want to be i just want to truly be my best self yeah that's good having overcome and achieved so much do you feel like you've arrived arrived i'm happy arsenio hall recently said something about me that i found very very freeing because i've always had a dream of wanting to have my own late night talk show but arsenio said the arsenio hall of this era is charlemagne and he explained why he why he felt that way you know and i was like wow this is somebody who i've always looked up to and i've always you know talked about him howard stern petey green john rivers like those are the people who i like look at and i'm like wow like i i feel their energy like they really inspire me yeah so to hear him say that was very freeing for me and the reason it was very friendly because sometimes we don't appreciate where we are because we're so focused on what where we think we should be right so when i actually sit back and i say to myself times have changed you have social media you have youtube the way people receive this content is different so what i'm trying to be or striving to be i may just already be do you feel worthy of the platform you have today tyler perry told me one time it doesn't matter if you feel worthy god says you're worthy well maybe it was bishop td jakes that told me that either way i know bishop t jx and tyler perry in a real way that makes me feel good about myself but all i'm saying they both said that yeah i think they both said that but that either way it's true it don't matter if you think you're worthy god you know says you're worthy and i truly believe that i don't think that god um i don't think he calls the qualified i think he qualifies the call [Music] and clearly i'm called to do something that's way bigger than me that's way greater than me so you feel like you're worthy because you know that god feels like you're worthy yeah but i'm just getting to that place i'm talking about in the last couple years i'm just getting to that [Music] place it's interesting to see like how he had his sense of confidence at such a young age i loved asking him about the worthy thing right because sometimes we do don't feel like we are worthy and i think you know the way that he served it up was such a profound answer for a lot of people especially myself that to me right there is again it's an implication of the greatest way to serve somebody is to tell your story i say it time and time again but i think you know someone like charlemagne being able to be so open and vulnerable about his struggles with mental illness and the anxiety and the panic attacks and it to me it frees up a lot of people i feel like everybody that we've talked to is like hello we all need therapy and i loved his answer of like yeah we feel like even in the black community we we keep it secret or we keep it sacred to ourselves because maybe we don't know how to articulate it or it's what we've learned it's it's essentially learned behavior is to keep some of those things end but i think where we're at now as a generation as a as a culture as a society right now i feel like it the norm is therapy the norm is counseling and it's like thank god [Music] in the next episode i spend time with new metal icon brian head welch we unpack his journey of single parenthood addiction and spirituality brian and his daughter janaya share their tumultuous journey as we explore what freedom has looked like in their lives [Applause] if you've been affected by the subject matter in this episode please contact a qualified healthcare professional in your area or go to hillsongchannel.com help shame will tell you you are what you've done i've discovered on this journey that shame has robbed a lot of people knowing who they really are during that time did you engage in the backlash i just resorted to creating so many distractions in my life that i didn't deal with what was happening we're in these verbally abusive relationships with our smartphones you got to ask yourself why right there was always somebody saying to me i was praying you died this morning it was kind of like a frat party the fans the girls in front of thousands of people but i was a shell inside one way to marginalize black people was to convince them that what they're saying isn't true that we've had it just the same can we have these conversations and it is unifying i think it is uncovering the darkness of what this country has been to so many why do you think that people don't want to confront their past everybody wants to feel good i will take this to make me feel good it's killing us when i was just at rock bottom so rock bottom that i was suicidal i had to just acknowledge some of the things that i've done some of the things that i thought were the hardest things to ever go through those were the things that solidified in me try me and try god there is so much hope and encouragement given when you're transparent with your story people they don't want to see the perfect story you've got to refuse to allow yourself to be defined by your mistakes you can't do anything to change the past but you can change your perspective of the past the beauty is is we're discovering how to dismantle shame robbing us of our full potential you

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Keywords: hillsong, hillsong channel, hillsong church, hillsong worship, hillsong united, hillsong young and free, now with natalie, natalie manuel lee, charlamagne tha god, charlamagne interview 2020, the breakfast club, charlamagne tha god interview, charlamagne tha god funny moments, charlamagne tha god bully, charlamagne tha god anxiety, charlamagne tha god childhood, christian talk show, charlamagne christian, how to handle panic attacks

Id: 3XNcjUSZ0ig

Length: 33min 29sec (2009 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 08 2020