BEST MOMENTS of Ep. 141 with James Harris
Express Yourself Black Man
Kizzle
5.0 • 556 Ratings
🗓️ 13 October 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In XYBM 141, I sit down with James Harris — licensed mental health professional, Army veteran, and founder of Men to Heal. We dive deep into the ongoing journey of healing, the impact of trauma, and how childhood adversity can shape the way we move through the world. James shares powerful stories from his upbringing, his time in the military, and navigating his mother’s early onset dementia — all while breaking down what depression and trauma responses really look like for Black men.
We also talk about therapy: how to find the right therapist and why it’s so important for Black men and veterans to have spaces where they can heal and be understood.
This episode is especially meaningful to me because James was one of the first mental health professionals to support Express Yourself Black Man — back when we had less than 10K followers. So if you support us now, know that he supported us then. Show him some love and follow him — he wants to see you win!
Tune in this episode on all podcast platforms — including YouTube.
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HOW TO FIND A DOPE, BLACK THERAPIST:
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All webinar attendees will have the opportunity to be paired with a Black mental health professional in Safe Haven. We have had 1K+ people sign up for this webinar in the past. Don’t miss out. Slots are limited.
SAFE HAVEN:
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Safe Haven is a holistic healing platform built for Black men by Black men. In Safe Haven, you will be connected with a Black mental health professional, so you can finally heal from the things you find it difficult to talk about AND you will receive support from like-minded Black men that are all on their healing journey, so you don’t have to heal alone.
Join Safe Haven Now: https://www.expressyourselfblackman.com/safe-haven
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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ExpressYourselfBlackMan
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Trauma is real. |
| 0:01.0 | PTSD is real. |
| 0:02.0 | Yeah. |
| 0:03.0 | And reliving those events happen more often than that for a lot of different veterans. |
| 0:08.0 | And it might just feel like they're pushing you aside or you feel displaced or whatever the case is. |
| 0:13.0 | But a lot of them that don't get help, they wind up self-medicating or learning ways to cope within themselves and it wind up being those detrimental ways, |
| 0:21.4 | detrimental ways, |
| 0:22.4 | and they wind up having issues with your family. |
| 0:25.4 | So, you know, the divorce rate is so high, |
| 0:27.8 | tend to lose that job, |
| 0:28.9 | and or just be a minister to society, |
| 0:31.2 | and, you know, just have reckless behavior follow them |
| 0:34.3 | because they don't know how to process |
| 0:35.6 | or don't feel like they have an outlet. |
| 0:37.6 | So I would encourage those family members to, one, exercise patients and understand that it is |
| 0:43.2 | going to be different because your loved one is different. They had an experience that was probably |
| 0:49.5 | one of the most chaotic and fulfilling things to them. I know that's oxymoronic, but like when you in it, you gun hold because, like, this is survival. I got to do what I got to do survive. Yeah. So you're not really thinking about things that are back home. You're thinking about them. You're hoping that everything as well, but you're focused on the now because if I slip up or if I'm too emotional, like, it can be life of death depending on what your job is, you know? |
| 1:14.1 | Right, yeah. you're focused on the noun because if I slip up or if I'm too emotional, like, it can be life |
| 1:11.9 | of death depending on what your job is, you know? So those distractions of home can potentially be |
| 1:17.9 | catastrophic while you're in theater or combat zone, however you want to phrase it. |
| 1:22.7 | Sometimes you got to be like, all right, look, let's save a list, come back to us, or when you |
| 1:26.0 | messed up the day or whatever. Or just continue to have those discussions to understand be like, all right, look, let's save this, come back to us, or we messed up the day or whatever. |
... |
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