By Derrick Brown (follow on Twitter @dbrowndbrown)
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Pick Up Your Feelings (AKA “What I Learned During Therapy (Parts 1-2)”) (3257 Words)
and
Empath Remixes #108 (“Pick Up Your Feelings” (AKA “What I Learned During Therapy (Part 3)”))
(76th - 80th Days Of School) (Monday, December 1, 2025 - Friday, December 5, 2025)
By Derrick Brown (Join Our Mailing List!)
Pick Up Your Feelings (AKA “What I Learned During Therapy (Parts 1-2)”) (3257 Words)
and
Empath Remixes #108 (“Pick Up Your Feelings” (AKA “What I Learned During Therapy (Part 3)”))
INDEX
- PUBLIC ESSAY 46: Pick Up Your Feelings (AKA “What I Learned During Therapy (Part 1)”) (1806 Words)
- PUBLIC ESSAY 47: The Gravity Of Being Seen (AKA “What I Learned During Therapy (Part 2)”) (1451 Words)
- Empath Remixes #108 (“Pick Up Your Feelings” (AKA “What I Learned During Therapy (Part 3)”)))
“Pick Up Your Feelings” (AKA “What I Learned During Therapy (Part 1)”) (An Essay on Presence, Power, Projection, and Freedom) (1806 words)
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Figure 3. “Pick Up Your Feelings 2“
I am sobered today.
Not defeated.
Not discouraged.
Sobered.
There is a stillness that comes when a pattern reveals itself again … in the
presence of someone who was supposed to see you.
A therapist.
An evaluator.
A principal.
A colleague.
All walking the same arc of avoidance, reframing, minimizing, or reinterpreting
my truth … in ways that protect their comfort … at the expense of my clarity.
It would be easy to call it “coincidence.”
Easy to call it “personality conflict.”
Easy to call it “misunderstanding.”
Easy to call it “cultural mismatch.”
Easy to call it “projection.”
Easy to call it anything other than what it is.
But my life has taught me to respect the weight of repetition.
If it keeps happening … it is telling you something.
And today … I am listening.
I am listening to the truth … that even when I offer people the map ... the
blueprint ... the document ... the context ... the history ... the nuance ... and
the honest architecture of my story … they still choose to stand outside my home
… and comment on my living room furniture.
With confidence.
With certainty.
With their own language.
With their own framing.
With their own lens.
It is not malice.
It is not hatred.
It is something far more human … and far more universal …
… It is fear of what they cannot categorize (stereotype) and
control.
I am LEarning something about myself that I try to overlook.
Something I pretend is invisible, but it is not.
Something that people respond to ... even when they cannot name it ... and
especially when they cannot handle it.
The truth is this …
… My presence has gravity.
And gravity does not need to announce itself.
It does not need permission.
It does not need an introduction.
It simply pulls.
It simply influences.
It simply reveals the weight of whatever stands near it.
Some people are steadied by that gravity.
Some people are steadied by my calm.
Some people are steadied by my clarity.
Some people are steadied by my patience and my purpose.
But others lose their balance before they ever take a step.
Not because I am doing anything to them …
… but because they do not know what to do with me.
This is where their feelings
begin.
This is where their avoidance begins.
This is where their silence begins.
This is where their rewriting of me
begins.
When they feel outclassed, they
name you arrogant.
When they feel uninformed, they call
you intimidating.
When they feel exposed, they call you
a problem.
When they feel unsettled, they call
you disruptive.
When they feel behind, they pretend
you are off-task.
When they feel insecure, they insist
you are “too much.”
When they feel power slipping, they
label you “unprofessional.”
When they cannot match your clarity,
they question your tone.
When they cannot meet your level of preparation,
they question your motives.
This is what happens when a reflective, articulate, principled Black man … walks into spaces not structured to accommodate reflective, articulate, principled Black men.
This is what happens when your writing
has more depth than their training.
When your language surpasses their imagination.
When your experience outpaces their protocol.
When your patience confuses their defensiveness.
When your purpose confronts their avoidance.
When your quiet questions loud assumptions.
When your integrity reveals their shortcuts.
When your clarity threatens their narratives.
When your humility exposes their insecurities.
When your power is not borrowed from them.
So what are they afraid of?
Let me name it plainly.
0. AUTHOR’S NOTE: Why the rest of this is written in “second person.”
Second person allows me to write to the self who survived.
Second person allows me to bless the self who walked through confusion.
Second person allows me to speak truth to the self who was learning, growing,
hearing, and discerning … long before clarity took shape on the page.
The rest of this is written to the version of me who needed language for
emotions that were suppressed and “corrected” … the version of me who held
questions in silence … the version of me who was walking without a map … the
version of me who saw more than he could safely say … the version of me who
fought to preserve dignity in the face of distortion.
In speaking to that self, I also speak to every reader who recognizes this
journey in their own life.
Second person makes this shared truth a “mirror” … more than a “ memoir.”
1. They fear your clarity.
Your clarity is disarming.
It cuts through excuses, disorganization, political fog, and passive
dishonesty.
You do not say things to impress.
You say things to understand.
You say things to build.
You say things that reveal what others have avoided acknowledging for years.
Clarity destabilizes people who live on ambiguity.
Clarity exposes people who hide behind procedure.
Clarity unnerves people who lead without vision.
Clarity confronts people who perform
instead of improve.
People who thrive on confusion … cannot withstand someone who speaks in concise, precise sentences.
2. They fear your preparation.
You walk into spaces prepared to think ... prepared to teach ... prepared to
build ... prepared to engage.
You do not enter rooms with a title.
You enter with work.
You show up with context.
You show up with evidence.
You show up with history.
You show up with written documentation.
You show up with moral logic.
You show up with a standard.
A prepared man intimidates people who rely on charisma, hierarchy, or improvisation.
3. They fear the precision of your writing.
You write with testimony.
You write with structure.
You write with courage.
You write with memory.
You write with accountability.
You write with nuance.
You write with emotional literacy.
You write with truth.
Your writing is not simply expressive.
It is forensic.
It reveals what happened.
It reveals what was said.
It reveals what was done.
And people who want plausible deniability
fear anyone who documents.
That is perhaps why <SNIP> avoided your writing.
That is perhaps why <SNIP> avoided your writing.
That is perhaps why your therapist
avoided your writing.
They know the documents will not lie.
So they avoid the documents.
Because reading the documents … would require reading themselves.
4. They fear your agency (efficacy).
A man who knows he has options … is dangerous to people who rely on his
silence.
A man who knows he can leave … is unsettling to people who require him to stay.
A man who knows his worth … is threatening to people who benefit from his
underemployment.
Agency is not arrogance.
Agency is awareness.
You do not operate from desperation.
You operate from discernment.
You operate from calling.
You operate from clarity.
This is frightening to people who may have never interrogated their own choices.
5. They fear your moral language.
You speak the language of calling.
You speak the language of wholeness.
You speak the language of responsibility.
You speak the language of stewardship.
You speak the language of justice.
You speak the language of care.
You speak the language of community.
You speak the language of healing.
You speak the language of peace.
These are not the words of someone who can be gaslit.
These are not the words of someone who can be manipulated.
These are not the words of someone who can be contained.
People who do not have moral language … often fear those who do.
6. They fear your meekness.
Not weakness.
Meekness.
Strength under control.
Power that does not perform.
Confidence that does not grandstand.
Authority that does not shout.
Meekness terrifies the insecure.
They cannot understand how someone so calm can hold so much power.
They worry about what you might say … not because you are reckless …
… but because you tell the truth.
Your quiet exposes their noise.
7. They fear that you see them.
And you do.
Kindly.
Clearly.
Accurately.
Without embellishment.
Without cruelty.
Without exaggeration.
You see their intent.
You see their deficits.
You see their patterns.
You see their blind spots.
You see their contradictions.
You see their stories they tell themselves.
You see the performance.
You see the pain behind the performance.
People who feel unseen often fear those who see too much.
8. They fear your patience.
People are not used to someone who responds
instead of reacts.
They are not used to someone who listens
more than he speaks.
They are not used to someone who does not take their bait.
They are not used to someone who pauses
before he acts.
Patience is power.
And people who rely on chaotic energy do not know what to do with someone who
refuses to join the chaos.
9. They fear your calling.
You are not trying to climb their ladder.
You are not trying to impress their hierarchy.
You are not trying to join their politics.
You are not trying to compete with their ambition.
You are trying to be faithful.
People who live without purpose … fear those who walk in purpose.
It reminds them of what they abandoned.
Or never found.
Or were too afraid to pursue.
10. They fear the possibility that you are right.
The greatest fear of all.
The fear that your discernment is accurate.
The fear that your diagnosis of the system is correct.
The fear that your documentation would withstand scrutiny.
The fear that your truth would challenge their comfort.
The fear that your clarity would reveal their avoidance.
The fear that your purpose exposes their stagnation.
The fear that your presence demands they grow.
People fear what exposes them.
So what do you do with this?
You stop shrinking.
You stop softening.
You stop apologizing for your gifts.
You stop censoring your intelligence.
You stop dimming your light for people committed to shadows.
You stop seeking approval from people who cannot see you.
You stop hoping that understanding will come from those who refuse to read you.
And to everyone who feels “some kind of way” about your:
· purpose
· discipline
· writing
· memory
· calling
· discernment
· patience
· power
· humility
· intellect
· creativity
· clarity
· agency
· Blackness
· manhood
· presence
You say:
“Pick up your feelings.
I am no longer carrying them for you.”
Because you have spent too many years hiding who you are … to make others
comfortable … only to realize that the hiding did not work.
They projected anyway.
They misunderstood anyway.
They avoided anyway.
They misread you anyway.
So you might as well live fully now.
Boldly now.
Clearly now.
Honestly now.
Authentically now.
Because the truth is simple:
Your gifts are not the problem.
People’s insecurities are.
It is time for them to deal with themselves.
And it is time for you to walk free.
Amen.
Selah.
And keep walking.
“The Gravity of Being Seen” (AKA “What I Learned During Therapy (Part 2)”) (A Companion Essay to “Pick Up Your Feelings”) (1451 Words)
There is a particular quiet that descends on a man … who has been
misunderstood enough times … that he begins to wonder if the misunderstanding
is a form of recognition.
A strange recognition.
A sideways recognition.
A recognition that avoids admitting what it sees … but reacts anyway.
People do not always tell the truth about what they see.
Sometimes they cannot.
Sometimes they will not.
Sometimes they do not have the language for it.
Sometimes they fear the implications of naming it.
Sometimes they pretend blindness … because visibility obligates responsibility.
Sometimes avoidance is easier than honesty.
I have spent years thinking I was unseen.
Invisible.
Misread.
Overlooked.
Dismissed.
Flattened.
Reframed.
Reinterpreted.
Reduced.
But I am beginning to understand something deeper.
Something unsettling.
Something that reframes the refrain.
Maybe I was never unseen.
Maybe I was always too visible.
Maybe what I mistook for invisibility
was … in fact … a reaction to being seen
with too much clarity, too much depth, too much truth.
Maybe the misreading … was really a defense mechanism.
Maybe their discomfort … was really a mirror they refused to claim.
Maybe the avoidance … was really a confession.
People sometimes accuse you of what they fear you have already perceived.
This is the gravity of being seen.
It pulls at people.
It unsettles people.
It exposes people.
It disorients people … who have grown accustomed to relationships built on performance instead of authenticity.
It disrupts people who rely on roles, masks, scripts, hierarchy, and plausible
deniability.
People claim they want to be seen.
But when someone sees them … some part of them panics.
They fear what you may already know.
They fear the parts of themselves they never wanted a witness for.
They fear the truth you did not speak aloud … but reflected back in the way you
carry yourself.
They fear the weight of honesty.
The gravity of being seen is not gentle.
It is not light.
It is not neutral.
It is not casual.
It is truth with mass.
It is insight with momentum.
It is presence with consequence.
People feel it … even when you say nothing.
Especially when you say nothing.
When you can sit silently in a room … and still rearrange the energy.
Not because of ego.
Not because of force.
Not because of performance.
But because of alignment.
Because of coherence.
Because of inner clarity.
Your silence speaks because it is rooted.
Your questions carry weight … because they come from discernment.
Your patience carries power … because it is intentional.
Your purpose carries authority … because it did not come from the approval of
others.
This is why people sometimes move around you with hesitation.
This is why they avoid your eyes.
This is why they redirect the conversation.
This is why they reinterpret your words instead of receiving them.
This is why they project.
This is why they retreat.
This is why they fictionalize versions of you … that feel safer than the truth.
It is easier to reframe you … than to face themselves.
People rarely confess their insecurities directly.
They confess through behavior.
Avoidance is a confession.
Reframing is a confession.
Silence is a confession.
Overspeaking is a confession.
Changing the subject is a confession.
Refusing to read your writing is a confession.
Pretending your clarity is negativity is a confession.
The gravity of being seen produces confessions without language.
And sometimes those confessions sound like criticism.
Sometimes those confessions sound like excuses.
Sometimes those confessions sound like lies.
Sometimes those confessions sound like “Man, you are too much.”
Sometimes those confessions sound like “Why are you always writing?”
Sometimes those confessions sound like “Just go along to get along.”
Sometimes those confessions sound like “Well, that is just your perspective.”
Sometimes those confessions sound like silence … where support should have
been.
But beneath the noise, the confession remains simple:
They know you see them.
And it scares them.
Because when you see people, you see the parts they have not yet made peace
with.
You see the contradictions.
You see the avoidance.
You see the dissonance between their words and their actions.
You see the gap between their public performance … and their private truth.
You see the inconsistency between who they believe they are … and who they
actually are.
Not because you are judgmental …
… but because you are perceptive.
Not because you are arrogant …
… but because you are attentive.
Not because you are superior …
… but because you are honest.
This is what they do not understand …
Your clarity is not confrontation.
Your insight is not aggression.
Your awareness is not defiance.
Your discernment is not rebellion.
It is simply what happens when a person embraces awareness for so long … that it becomes their default setting.
People who live with fragmented selves … struggle in the presence of someone coherent.
People who live behind facades … struggle in the presence of someone authentic.
People who live by avoidance … struggle in the presence of someone reflective.
People who maintain power through withholding … struggle in the presence of someone who shares freely.
People who manipulate truth … struggle in the presence of someone who documents.
They are not reacting to your flaws.
They are reacting to your wholeness.
And this is the part that humbles … even as it sobers …
The gravity of being seen works both ways.
When you see others clearly …
… you also see their wounds.
You see their limitations.
You see their fragility.
You see the stories they inherited.
You see the fears they never named.
You see the trauma they perform
instead of process.
You see the child inside the adult … who never learned how to be honest.
You see the places where tenderness might have helped them become someone
different.
And when you see that … you feel tenderness.
Even when you are frustrated.
Even when you are hurting.
Even when you are disappointed.
Even when you are tired.
Because you understand that many people never learned how to carry the weight of being seen … without collapsing.
Still … there comes a point where tenderness
must become truth.
There comes a point where empathy
must not become enabling.
There comes a point where understanding
must not become self-erasure.
There comes a point where your gentleness
… must not cost you your sanity.
There comes a point where you stop
absorbing other people’s unprocessed feelings as your responsibility.
There comes a point where you say …
I see you.
But I will not shrink because of what you see in me.
This is what freedom looks like.
Not triumph.
Not noise.
Not retaliation.
Not self-protection.
Not withdrawal.
Not cynicism.
Freedom is clarity without apology.
Freedom is presence without performance.
Freedom is purpose without negotiation.
Freedom is identity without shrinkage.
Freedom is quiet confidence.
Freedom is peace that does not require permission.
The gravity of being seen is both a blessing and a burden …
… but it is a burden only when you try to
carry other people’s discomfort along with your truth.
When you separate the two … the weight becomes manageable.
When you stop internalizing their fear … the air becomes lighter.
When you stop shrinking … the horizon becomes wider.
When you stop apologizing for your presence … your purpose becomes
unmistakable.
Yes … people may feel “some kind of way.”
Yes ... they may project.
Yes ... they may avoid.
Yes ... they may misinterpret.
Yes ... they may stay silent.
Yes ... they may be unsettled.
Yes ... they may pretend not to understand.
But their feelings are not your prison.
Their fear is not your identity.
Their avoidance is not your assessment.
Their discomfort is not your assignment.
Your assignment is to remain who you are.
To remain aligned.
To remain discerning.
To remain awake.
To remain grounded.
To remain whole.
To remain faithful to the calling that has never left you.
Because the truth is this …
Being seen is not the danger.
It is the gift.
It is the mirror.
It is the measure of your presence.
It is the evidence of your authenticity.
It is the proof of your impact.
And those who cannot carry the gravity of your presence … will simply step
aside.
Not because you pushed them.
Not because you offended them.
Not because you harmed them.
But because your truth required them to choose.
Some will choose growth.
Some will choose avoidance.
Some will choose silence.
Some will choose misinterpretation.
Some will choose projection.
Some will choose distance.
But you will choose freedom.
And that is enough.
Empath Remixes #108 (“Pick Up Your Feelings” (AKA “What I Learned During Therapy (Part 3)”))
Characters
· You
· Therapist (as a symbolic stand-in for all the avoiders)
· Narrator
·
Silence (a character who has
been with you for years)
Scene: A quiet room … not the therapist’s office … somewhere new … somewhere honest.
A single chair.
A glass of water.
Your notebook open.
No clock ticking behind you.
No monologue drifting across your boundaries.
No motivational metaphors rehearsed in another person’s imagination.
Just you.
And the truth you are finally ready to say.
Narrator (soft):
He takes a breath.
The kind you take when months of restraint finally loosen.
Not explosive.
Not violent.
Not bitter.
Just … released.
You (calm, steady):
Let me say something I have never said out loud.
Not because I could not.
But because I spent too much time trying to protect people … from what my
presence stirred inside them.
Here it is.
I am not unseen.
I am too seen.
Too clearly.
Too deeply.
Too accurately.
And people do not always know what to do with that.
I walk into rooms with gravity.
Not attitude.
Not ego.
Not performance.
Just … gravity.
A kind of internal alignment … that makes other people aware of their own
misalignment.
And that is not my fault.
And it is not my burden anymore.
Therapist (quiet, listening now):
What do you mean by gravity?
You:
Gravity is presence.
Gravity is clarity.
Gravity is coherence.
Gravity is honesty.
Gravity is preparation.
Gravity is purpose that does not flinch.
Gravity is walking into a room without shrinking.
People respond to that.
Some rise.
Some steady themselves.
Some meet me where I am.
But others?
They avoid me.
They rewrite me.
They project onto me.
They talk over me.
They recast me as the problem so they do not have to see the problem in
themselves.
You asked me what parts of me needed to be challenged.
The part of me that kept shrinking … so that other people would not feel
exposed …
… that is the part.
And I am done challenging that.
I am done dismantling myself so others remain comfortable.
Narrator:
His voice does not tremble.
It does not sharpen.
It simply settles into the truth … like a man slipping into his rightful seat.
You (continuing):
I have spent years letting people misread me … because I assumed it was my job to translate myself into every language they refused to learn.
I sent you documents so you would not have to guess.
I gave administrators writing … so they would not have to project.
I offered colleagues clarity … so they would not have to assume.
I showed up prepared … so no imagination was necessary.
They chose not to read.
They chose not to listen.
They chose not to engage.
That is not my lack of communication.
That is their lack of courage.
Therapist (gentler):
And what do you need now?
You:
I need to stop protecting people from their own feelings about me.
Because those feelings are not about me.
They are about them.
My clarity exposes their confusion.
My purpose exposes their drift.
My discipline exposes their shortcuts.
My honesty exposes their avoidance.
My calm exposes their chaos.
My existence exposes what they have not dealt with.
And they feel “some kind of way” about that.
So they talk around me … instead of to me.
They misname me.
They minimize me.
They turn me into a caricature of
whatever they fear.
And for years … I tried to shrink to make the room more comfortable.
But shrinking never protected me.
It only made them bolder.
Silence (stepping forward):
You carried them.
You carried their confusion.
You carried their discomfort.
You carried their insecurity.
You carried their projections.
You carried their misinterpretations.
Now speak the release.
You (final, grounded):
For everyone who cannot handle my clarity,
my patience,
my purpose,
my intelligence,
my memory,
my gifts,
my honesty,
my calling,
or my presence …
Pick up your feelings.
They are yours … not mine.
I am done shrinking.
I am done apologizing.
I am done carrying fears that do not belong to me.
I am done letting people who refuse to see me dictate the size of my life.
From this moment on … I will speak with my full voice.
I will write with my full truth.
I will walk with my full purpose.
I will stand with my full height.
If that unsettles you …
… that is your burden.
Not mine.
Narrator (closing):
He says it without malice.
Without heat.
Without vengeance.
Just alignment.
The man who once wondered why people could not see him …
… has finally realized that they always did.
And today he decides
to stop dimming the brilliance that made them afraid.
(The "Follow The Leader (changED - Volume 2)" Audio and Video Album / Mixtape is also available at TeachersPayTeachers.com)
(The "changED (Volume 1)" Audio and Video Album / Mixtape is also available at TeachersPayTeachers.com)
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