TRANSCRIPT
Conversation with Sonny
Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Giselle. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world.
Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking with Sonny Von Cleveland, who is a nationally recognized motivational speaker, author of Hey White Boy, conversations of Redemption, and a leading Voice for Trauma survivors. After overcoming 18 years in prison, in a childhood marked by severe abuse, Sonny now dedicates his life to helping others heal, find purpose, and rise above their past.
Please join me in welcoming Sonny. Hi, Sonny.
Sonny: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I so greatly appreciate you and thank you for such a wonderful, warm introduction.
Gissele: Thank you. Thank you so much for being on the show. I’m super excited to talk to you. I was wondering if you could tell our listeners a little bit about what led you [00:01:00] to the point where you ended up in solitary confinement.
Sonny: Sure. That was, a domino effect, I suppose, from being in the position that I was in in my life. This was 2008, so I had already had about nine years in prison, goes to 10. it’s just a very angry young man lost in a world of gang banging, self-absorption, you know, self-centeredness.
I had. Just previously found out that my oldest son’s mother started to have an affair with my brother and that they, she was pregnant by him, and that they were going to be taking my son and I wouldn’t be seeing him anymore. And he was gonna raise him as his own. And I really, really worshiped my brother, right?
growing up. It was just he and I in a single mother household. And he was always kind of my protector. And when that happened, I, I don’t [00:02:00] know, it wasn’t about her, it wasn’t about the fact that they were having an affair. it was the betrayal from the one person that meant the most to me, the only family member that I had left.
you know, there’s a million women in the world. It’s actually 5 billion or so. You know, and he chose that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had to do that. Yeah. And that, you know, like what that, what that does to the kid, to my son. Like the fact that you made my son believe he was, his father until, you know, he was 12 years old.
And it just, it was a conglomerate of all of those things. And then somebody had stolen everything outta my cell at one point while I was at work in the chow hall. I worked in the kitchen, and, I just took my anger out on him. And so it was unfair for him. those circumstances led me to being put into solitary confinement, which ultimately changed my life.
So, in a sense, I’m kind of grateful that my brother did that while it cost me, my son, it gave me the opportunity [00:03:00] to. Be who I am today. It turned completely, turned my life around. Going to segregation at that time. Right? Yeah.
Gissele: Yeah. And my understanding of your story is that you had also been betrayed by other family members, so that must have been particularly difficult in terms of your childhood experiences.
Sonny: It’s a thing. Yeah. You know, my first victimizer was my uncle. growing up losing my whole family because when I had talked about my molestation and my mother had had called the police and turned him in, he was sent to prison for 15 years and, and my whole family fell apart. So, to betrayal from a family member, I would always wanted, family, right?
the first, you know, 7, 8, 9, 10 years of my life, we had that family structure, right? There was grandma’s house, there was cousins, there was aunts, there was uncles, there was a family. And then after that it was just gone. And, and to feel like that was my fault was very heavy. [00:04:00] Like, took the blame for that because it was my fault, right?
Because I opened my mouth and said something. And so having my brother left, you know, my mom was a very emotionally abusive individual and was very unpleasant mentally and emotionally. ’cause, you know, she was a drug addict he was my brother. He was what I clung to, even though I, I lost him when I was 11.
He was 12. He was taken away and put into the juvenile detention system. And I, I had nobody, I didn’t have a family. I was alone. And so family was very important to me, like trying to clinging on to the vestiges of a family structure and to, you know, when I finally got reconnected with him, you know, I was 21, he was 23, and it was like I finally have a family and it might just be one person.
It might just be my brother, but I’ve got family. And just for that, it just, ah, it [00:05:00] just, it cut deep, right?
Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. He is, you know, like family supposed to be there for you, right? You think that those are the people that are supposed be there. I
Sonny: think we, we put that on us as a societal norm, right? Like, we look at that, knowing what I know now, we look back at that and we, we think that blood makes us family, but it doesn’t.
Right. People say, well, you can’t choose your family, eh, technically you can. Right? Yeah. The, the family that I have now, I’m not related to any of them. Right? Yeah. And I have a beautiful family except my sons. Mm-hmm. but you know, you know what I mean? The family that I have now, I do, I have the greatest friends and they are my family.
I’m in Cleveland right now at a friend’s house. Mm-hmm. my friends Wayne and Nicole opened their home to me, and they are family, right? Yeah. And, my great friends Anthony and, and Julie and Waylon, and, and these people, they’re family, right? And so you can choose your family, right?
Gissele: It’s the, the what they call the chosen [00:06:00] family, right?
Yeah, that’s right. I think one of the toughest things about disclosure. Is the fact that often victims are made to believe it’s their fault that things fall apart always. Whereas the perpetrators are very good at shirking responsibility and not accepting it, not putting it where it belongs. And so I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for you to disclose.
And one of the things I’ve seen, I, I used to work in the child protection system and my mother experienced terrible childhood abuse, neglect. And one of the things I saw in the child welfare system was how kids’ behavior was the language. And so in the school system, in the child welfare system, when they started to act, there was very little curiosity.
Like how, you know, in [00:07:00] your, in your biography, like how does a 7-year-old start to get criminally involved? Like, what’s going on for that child? That is
Sonny: 100%. And they, and they don’t ask a question, do you? I, my son is now seven. My youngest son.
Gissele: Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny: I had dinner with him the other night and I can’t help but look at him and be like, that just doesn’t make sense to me.
I was locked up for both of my, my oldest sons. I was locked up for their 12 years of their life. And I look at my youngest son who’s now seven, and I look at that like, I would lose the plot if you put handcuffs on my kid. Right.
Yeah. I don’t care what he does. Right. Yeah. I mean, it’d be different if he, you know, shot up a school or something like that. I mean, clearly there’s something, there’s something dislodged there, but. If this kid broke into something and you put cuffs on my kid and you treat him like a criminal and you bring ’em in and you try to charge him with a felony, I’m gonna go just ape monkey bananas, right?
Like, [00:08:00] like, are you kidding me? Yeah. How do you charge a 7-year-old with a felony? But I know in my small town, which, I’m very thankful that I’m going back there ’cause I’m going to the Secretary of of State to dig up these records, right? Because they exist. it’s very difficult to find, it’s very difficult to dig up, you know, something that’s 40 years old, 30 years old, 37 years old.
But they exist. So when I got. The second time it was, that’s how I kind of recollected the date was because it, it was used as an offense variable to, to come up my, my timeline, the guideline for my time, and it was the 19 88 64 B Circuit Court in Montcalm County, Michigan with Edward Skinner was the judge and I, and it’s a felony.
It’s breaking and entering with intent to commit larceny and how do you charge a 7-year-old with intent to commit larceny. But the criminal capacity [00:09:00] doesn’t exist at seven years old, right? There’s no intent and the fact that the judge was okay with it. That the, that everybody from the top down was okay with charging this 7-year-old.
And my brother, my brother was nine. Right. Charging a 9-year-old with these, with a felony, like it didn’t make sense. And what, you know, it opened up a can of worms because when I seen all the men that were abusing me went away. And so naturally in my young mind, I developed my own safety net and can just continue to get into trouble because, you know, getting probation from the courts, that’s just a word, right?
Like, that isn’t, that does not actually a thing. It doesn’t, there’s no physical thing there. You know, get a little whooping and it’s over, but I’m safe, I’m protected for the time being. Right? Yeah. And so it just started a downward spiral in my life that continued, you know, all the way up till many, many moons later.
Gissele: Yeah. And if [00:10:00] at any of those points somebody had gotten curious, instead of judging if anybody said, you know, what’s going on for you? I think outcomes could have been different. Or maybe not. I don’t, I don’t know. I just know that the systems we created seem to lack that compassion. the wanting to understand why
Sonny: the war on drugs started under Reagan.
Right. And Clinton continued that mass incarceration. Right. And they saw the monetary value in treating the institution of corrections like a business. And it’s, it’s human cattle farming. And that’s what it is, right? If we look at the structure of the American institutional system, uh, of corrections. it’s human cattle farming.
It’s a business. And businesses have to have customers in order to stay alive, right? And in this instance, the customer is the inmate. If they don’t have an inmate, they don’t have bunks filled. If [00:11:00] they don’t have bunks filled, they lose funding capability, can’t keep the facility open. The warden doesn’t have a job all the way down to the nursing staff, and the maintenance crews don’t have a job.
And so the facility closes and everybody loses their jobs. So instead of doing that, do job security And so they keep these people in prison We have 5% of the global population in the United States, and we have 25% of the institution incarcerated population.
That number is just astronomical. It makes no sense, and so. What they did is they started to allow these kids to be prosecuted as adults because not, there wasn’t enough, right? They had whole, a whole bunch of facilities that needed more beds filled, they need more customers. So let’s start charging kids as adults and start putting them in prisons.
And that’s what they did. And so you have things like whack and hut in Baldwin, Michigan, the privatized youth [00:12:00] facilities, right? there should never be a private prison. That the, just the concept of it itself is ludicrous. Right? It makes no, if you can build a private prison, why don’t you build a private college?
Right? Yeah. Build an institution of learning and rehabilitation rather than, you know, corrections and, and punishment. ’cause that’s what they do, right? They, they hide behind the initiative of rehabilitation. But they don’t actually execute that, right? Mm-hmm. They put the programs in place inside of the institutions, which are available for inmates.
Inmates can go and take these classes and these programs, and they can have a dramatic effect on your mindset and in your life. But you’re dealing with men and women that are not in the mindset of wanting to seek that change because they’re so stuck in this cycle
most of them are not going to proactively go seek out [00:13:00] a program that’s gonna change their life. Right. They get Stuck in Their ways. Right. They then they’re lost in that
Gissele: where has an individual lost their humanity? That they can rationalize it in their head that it’s okay to put a child in jail.
it doesn’t compute for me. I’m having a hard time processing, like where it’s,
Sonny: it’s a lack of compassion, right? Yeah. At the end of the, I don’t understand. Yeah.
Gissele: I’ve had so many conversations about greed and greed is just a fear of lack, right? Like, somebody once asked me hundred percent, how, how much money does someone need?
500 billion? And that’s not enough. The truth of matter is they’re trying to throw money at something that money’s never gonna fill that hole. And so it’s never gonna be enough. 500 million a gajillion dollars because they’re trying to fill a, I don’t, that doesn’t think, think
Sonny: ever needs to be a billionaire, right?
[00:14:00] Like there’s no need for a billionaire.
Gissele: I know people that have met like millionaires, billionaires, and they’re unhappy. Like so many of them are so unhappy. It’s ’cause you’re trying to throw something that’s not gonna fill the hole.
so I, I wanted to go back to solitary confinement. What was that like?
Sonny: Solitary. It was, was very lonely.
Yeah. Over the course of my incarceration, I, I probably spent a good four years or so in solitary confinement.
I was constantly in and out of there for fighting for assaults, for gambling, for, you know, tattoos. guess it’s a matter of perspective, right? Like I found solitary to be a zenful space of escape, right? Where, where I can go and. In this room by myself. I don’t have to be on alert.
In prison, you’re on alert 24 hours a [00:15:00] day. You’re always watching your back. You are always scanning your surroundings, waiting for something to pop off, right? it’s just a very hostile environment. And solitary gives you a bit of a reprieve where you can go sit in solitary confinement and I’m by myself.
I don’t have to worry. No one can get to me. I can’t get to nobody. I can’t do anything. So I just read and I can meditate, I can be quiet, I can focus on my thoughts, and I can build my internal mental strength. And it either builds you or it breaks you. Right? And so, yeah. You know, it’s, it’s four very small walls that you’re stuck in, and pacing was a really big ritual for me.
Like, I spent probably the better half of my day pacing and talking to myself back and forth, and, the things that I’m reading, the books that I’m reading or the work that I’m doing, I just, I’m talking about it constantly. To [00:16:00] myself, I must have looked like a nut job. When you, when you walk by, sometimes I’m, sometimes I’m crying, sometimes I’m mad and I’m angry and I’m arguing with myself about things.
And I must have looked like a, like a nut job, right? Because, and, singing and this wonderful acoustics in there, and you just, I began to learn how to find beauty in negative spaces, right? Like, how, how do you see your circumstances? Is it this dark, gloomy place, or is it an opportunity to grow, to learn, to try to do something?
And, and that’s a matter of perspective. I found the things that I liked, like the acoustics in the room were phenomenal. So let me sing and I’ll sing and I can hone in my tonal range. And you just find things that you know that you can fill your time with instead of allowing things to dominate your mind.
Right?
Gissele: I just wanna go back to something you had said, which is, you know, in prison you’re constantly on guard. [00:17:00] Prison system cannot be designed for prisoners to overcome and then all of a sudden become loving and compassionate people. Because if you’re constantly on guard, you’re on survival, you’re, you’re not focusing on understanding the impact of your behavior.
You are just trying to still survive. So it’s a model that doesn’t, it doesn’t work. and like you said, it’s obviously not meant to work. Yeah.
Sonny: Yeah. Not, not in the, the United States. And there are several other countries that have this type of prison structure, but there are some that are, that do it.
Right.
Gissele: Right.
Sonny: Like if you look at Finland and maybe Denmark, maybe, some of the European countries that have these men drive themselves to prison every day?
Gissele: Oh, Okay. They, they,
Sonny: they get released in the morning, right? They get released in the morning to go to work, and they come back and, you know, they check in.
They have [00:18:00] to, you know, turn in their stuff. You have to go back to your dormitory. You have to cook your own meals, right? You have to have a very family styled structured dinner because you all chip in and you cook, and you go to these classes, and you go to these programs where they cultivate this rehabilitative atmosphere where you learn things about yourself.
You learn kindness, you learn compassion, and you learn empathy. And you’re, and instead of being out in a world where you know, you’re allowed to just run free and you are going to, out of just a habitual propensity, do things that you are currently doing, which is why people are, you know, stay in a criminal mindset.
Gissele: Yeah.
Sonny: Here you’re in a structure where it’s, it’s, let’s show you the proper way to live that. Here’s how you change that mindset. Here’s how you develop new habits. Here’s how you have you cultivate these emotional elevations and become a better human being and live life from a lens of love and kindness [00:19:00] instead of anger and, and pain and, and it’s so successful, right?
Their recidivism rates are just nothing. It’s so down and, and there’s no such thing as a 60 year sentence. And they just don’t do that. Even for some of the most heinous crimes you might do 20 years, 15, 20 years, but then you have the opportunity to. Show that you have done the deep work on yourself and rehabilitated yourself, and you can earn some of that time back.
But when you have a system like we have here, again, it goes back to the cattle farming business model. They don’t want to let them out. They need to keep them in there so that they can continue to get that government funding, which goes some of it into their pockets, right? Mm. it’s job security for the people that are running the institutions.
They don’t wanna let them out. Yeah. It’s, it’s a problem they don’t want to fix and they can’t admit that. But there it is. It’s the same thing as saving children of pouring resources into organizations like [00:20:00] Operation Light Shine, or. Or the Underground Railroad or you know, the National Child Protection Task Force Fund.
These organizations, they don’t want to do that. They’d rather for throw $40 billion a year to the counter drug fight and only give 250 million a year to, saving kids. Well, that doesn’t make sense now, does it? Right. Like, if we don’t save these children and find them where they are and turn their lives around and work and focus on prevention, they become the problem you’re spending $40 billion on.
Gissele: Exactly. Exactly.
Sonny: they just don’t, they just want, they want the problem. Mm-hmm. And, and even if it sounds conspiracy theory, they don’t want to cure cancer. Why would you cure cancer? Right. That doesn’t make sense. If we, if cure cancer, we have to, we have to close down the cancer clinics. we don’t need the billions of dollars a year that cancer patients generate for the doctors, for the clinics, for the government.[00:21:00]
Right. Why would they cure it?
Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. See, yeah. That’s, that’s really challenging the United, United
Sonny: States as an entity is born and bred and raised on the self. Right. It it, yeah. The individuals, which is one of the reasons why I love. You know, countries like Canada, like Europe, you know, the smallest unit is, is the family.
The smallest unit is the household, it’s the community. Mm-hmm. There’s really not a concept of me. One of the things that I loved most about, like the country of Fiji, right? They, they don’t have a concept of me. It’s us. What can we do as a community to live better lives, to help each other, to survive?
The, the American mindset is, what can I do for myself? How do I get more for me? How do I get a bigger house? How do I get a better car? How do I get a bigger bank account? I don’t care what that person’s going through. That’s not my problem. I gotta focus on me.
Gissele: Yeah.
Sonny: [00:22:00] Yeah. And that’s, and it’s a, it’s a ubiquitous mindset throughout the entire nation.
Yeah. And we’re raised on that.
Gissele: Yeah. And it’s, it’s interesting because there’s such a, an amount of separation and then we wonder why people feel so lonely. So alone and so disconnected, and, the whole self-made man is a myth, right? there’s no self-made man because all those other people help them in their business.
But that’s just like, it’s sort of like a delusion I wanna go to, so you’re in solitary confinement. How did you find your mentor that helped you sort of change your lens or perspective?
Sonny: Well, he found me, right?
Gissele: Oh, how so? Can you share a little bit? Yeah.
Sonny: So I mean, when, when we got taken in there, there’s.
There’s a long hallway. There’s four of them in these units. There’s one upstairs, one downstairs, one upstairs, one downstairs, four long units or hallways, and on either side of that hallway are cells, and they’re kind of staggered. There’s one [00:23:00] here, there’s two, there’s one, there’s two, there’s two, there’s, there’s one, there’s two, right?
Like they’re staggered. And so they have, I believe 25 cells on each hallway, right? So you have room one, room two, room three, room four, room five, and it goes all the way down. And then it turns around, it comes all the way up to 25. And I was in two 12, which is the very last cell, on the left. And he was in two 13, which is the very last cell on the right.
And we’re at the very end of the hallway and you can’t see anything. We’re, we’re staggered away from, from two 11 and two 14 are down here. And there’s, there’s water closets that are in between for plumbing. So you’re just separated. It’s just the two of us. And then I, when I got put in the cell, you know, I’m washing my face off to get the blood and pepper spray outta my face.
And I hear him call over, Hey, white boy come talk to me? You know? And I, I cussed him out. Like, I wasn’t in a position that I wanted to talk to anybody. I [00:24:00] don’t wanna talk to you. And, and he just persisted every day. Hey, white boy, hey white boy. I finally broke down, what, what do you want?
And, that’s where he changed my life, right? He, his first question he ever asked me was, why are you so angry? You know? And at first I was just really defensive. And then, you know, I thought about it and I dumped my whole life to this man. I was like, you know, what do I have to lose by telling this guy why I’m so angry?
Right? I’ve been a victim my whole life and it’s time here. Let me just tell him and. I anticipated an empathetic, sympathetic response. Like, oh, you poor guy, man. That’s no wonder you’re so angry.
Gissele: Yeah. You know,
Sonny: the list I gave him of why I’m angry. It was very, very superficial, and it, he’d said that sentence to me that, no, that’s why you’re mad and mad is a surface emotion.
Right? It’s temporary. It doesn’t last. There’s a difference between [00:25:00] being angry and being mad, right? Mad is, is you just stub your toe on, on something. You don’t spend your entire life hating people that build stairs. You don’t hate nail companies that keep stairs together.
You don’t hate the railing companies that build the railways on the stairs, right? You’re not, you don’t hate stairs. Yes. That’s mad. You’re mad ’cause you stubbed your toe, right? Mm-hmm. And it goes away. It’s temporary, it leaves.
Gissele: Mm-hmm.
Sonny: The things that are eating your soul, you’re angry about this anger.
It’s much deeper. It cuts down to your soul. And you’re a very angry young man. And so. That had a profound impact on me. I, I how I can’t answer this. Well, I can’t answer this question. And, you know, and he sent me the book, mans Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, which began the metamorphosis of changing my life.
Right. It’s, to this day, I hold it as one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. And now I’m actually working with a [00:26:00] psychologist out of Florida who teaches Logotherapy and, you know, the Viktor Frankl teachings from these, these books. And I’m like, I, that’s full circle. That has come full circle in my life.
That Viktor Frank has started, and now Viktor Frankl is going to elevate what I know of this game. Mm-hmm. Because I’m not educated and I’m not an educated person. I have A-G-E-D-I didn’t, I have never taken a college course or a college program ever. I’ve, I just read a lot and, and experienced. A lot. that’s the beauty of self-reflection.
And when you spend that time introspectively processing your emotion and the trauma that you’ve been through, it gives you a level of, I dare say, enlightenment. And it gives you perspective and it allows you to see things from a different lens. and I think, you know, I get a lot of people that I work with are like, wow, you’re highly educated, but I’m not, it, it’s [00:27:00] experiential, right?
Mm-hmm. These are things that I’ve walked through in my life that have given me this perspective and this, this clarity on how this thing works. And, and so we see the people that have all the degrees, and I’m not saying that they don’t help, but you haven’t been there, you haven’t walked the walk. Mm-hmm.
And so. Some of them have, I’m not saying they all haven’t, but I think there’s just something highly relatable about people that have been through trauma that are, put them in a position to help other people that have been through trauma. Does that make sense?
Gissele: Uh, absolutely. As a person who is what, quote, unquote, highly educated.
I’ve had to unlearn a lot of the things I’ve learned, number one. Number two, the path that you had walked on, like from the experience to even be willing to contemplate. How do we love other people to have compassion? That’s a path that not [00:28:00] a lot of people have walked. Or are willing to walk. It takes extraordinary courage and strength and the willingness to go inward.
’cause many people want their lives to be solved. Solve my problems. Yeah. I will give my authority to you. Government or, or person or leader or guru or whatever. So the path you’ve walked makes you uniquely Qualified to do that work because it’s so few and far between.
an education can only give you the theoretical. Right, but it ultimately it’s the walking the path that really is the essence of everything. And so it’s extraordinary
Sonny: and that’s what I tell a lot of the people that I work with. I do a lot of this tour that I’m on, this new show that I’ve started, that I’m shooting right now.
This is a 22 city show, and I mean, I’m going all around the country and I’ve, I’m finding when you create a space for people, when you are that qualified [00:29:00] person, yeah, you create a space that people want to come to and they just want to dump, right? And, and of course you do because this stuff has been deteriorating your soul, right?
It’s like eating at you and you want to say it so bad. This is why we find we have so many problems in our neck and our shoulders because those internal wounds, that internal damage is trying to come through here. This is your pipeline to healing and it’s trying to come out and it gets here and it gets blocked.
And it gets stuffed down and you don’t talk about it. So this has to have somewhere to go. And if it doesn’t come out, it’s gonna stay in and it’s gonna turn into problems. The body’s gonna keep the score, it’s gonna turn into back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain. It’s gonna turn into arthritis, it’s gonna turn into cancer, it’s gonna turn into diabetes.
It’s, it’s going to break your body down because the body was not designed to hold that toxicity. Yeah. It’s trying to push it out. And this is your mechanism to get it out. And so when I [00:30:00] create that space, that’s the one thing that they’re saying is I just feel so comfortable. And I, I had a three and a half hour session with a lady yesterday that I met three days ago, and she’s like, I just feel so emotionally safe and comfortable, and I don’t know why I don’t I don’t know you.
And she tells me things. She’s never told anybody else about her life, her husband, her parents, her family. Her therapist, she goes to a therapist and she’s never told her therapist.
Gissele: Yeah.
Sonny: And, and it’s because of that relatability, knowing that I’ve been through that, I don’t have a degree in anything except survival.
Right.
Gissele: And actually that’s a pretty good degree. ’cause if you think about all of the adversity that you have faced to be able to get to the other side of it, it’s like you’re a beacon for other people. So that they’re like, look, people have experienced some horrible things. There’s a lot of trauma in the [00:31:00] world was, and it’s sort of like the amount of trauma that you are able to overcome and get to the other side and say, I am willing to love, I’m willing to have compassion.
I’m willing to get curious is extraordinary. ’cause again, there’s nothing in a book you can’t like read about that. It’s the walking through the path. And I think it gives people hope that they can walk through a path as challenging as yours and get to the other side. And get to the other side. You absolutely can.
Yeah.
Sonny: Yeah. Absolutely. That’s, that’s the primary thing that I’m teaching people, right? Like, I don’t have any superpowers. I don’t have any magical gifts that nobody else has. I don’t, I, I survived, right? And I chose, yeah. To use this, I chose to stop letting it all sit here and just say it be, and, [00:32:00] you know, it’s, it’s the no f given concept, right?
Which is, it’s a bit brash, but at the end of the day, when you learn to stop giving an f what anybody thinks, it’s freedom. If you don’t believe my story, awesome. Don’t watch it. Mm-hmm. Go somewhere. I don’t care if you don’t believe me. Yeah. I’m, if you think it’s exaggerated, I don’t care. On the same token, if you think it’s great and all that, I don’t care either take it.
Yeah. Enjoy it. If my life can be a template, can be a lesson for somebody to heal, it’s so worth it. And I’m not, at the end of the day, it’s very selfish. Right. Like, I don’t, I’m not doing this so that you can be healed. I’d be doing it because the more I do it, the more I heal. Right? Yeah. And I, I feel whole and healed in, in my mind, [00:33:00] but I still cry.
Right? I still have emotion. Yeah. I still find things out. You know, 10 days ago I found out my, that my mother actually trafficked me my whole life. Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I could, am I gonna allow that to debilitate me? Am I gonna allow, gonna allow that to, to I’m gonna curl up and suck my thumb and be like, uh, my mother, I was trafficked as a child.
I, well, what does that do to me now? I’m not trafficked. Now, that gives me more power, is what it does. It, it puts me in a position where I can now talk to the trafficking victims that I work with and say, I get that. I, wow, I get that. And look, it doesn’t have to destroy you, right? Yeah. And as much as people don’t like to hear it, that’s a choice.
Right? None of us choose to be a victim. Every single one of us choose to remain victims. Yeah. That’s our choice, right? Mm-hmm. What happens to us is not easy. It’s not easy to talk about. It’s not easy to say, but fear is your [00:34:00] number one regressor if you learn to stand up, if speak. Anyway. That’s where your freedom is.
On the other side of that pain is greatness. Every single time stand up and just speak. I don’t care who hears it, I don’t care who believes it, I don’t care who doesn’t believe it. I’m gonna say it anyway. I’m gonna keep saying it until it doesn’t hurt anymore. And that is healing.
Gissele: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
Absolutely. What’s your mentor story? Because he was also in the prison system and he was able to sort of find that compassion, love himself, like,
Sonny: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know much like we didn’t go through his life. We had some casual conversations where we just sat and talked about sports and football in the world and life and religion and, um, but.
He was kind of a pretty private guy. he was in prison for murder. He’d been in prison since 1983 I think it was, or [00:35:00] 84. And he is doing natural life. ’cause that’s a thing in the United States. They give you natural life, which, you know that then you just become a nonstop debit card for the government.
Yeah. And so he is doing just natural life and he’s very ingratiated into his faith, mm-hmm. Into the particular sect of faith that he’s a part of. which is why we weren’t, we couldn’t be friends. And it was never about friendship. It was never about religion. It was just. A space in time where I have this certain knowledge that I’ve gained over my 30 years in prison.
And I’m gonna dump it on you because I see that you’re a very angry young man, and if it helps you, maybe you go help the world. And that’s a bit of a legacy for me, even if I never see it and I, and I never know it, here’s some way that I can give back to the world in my own way. And it’s something that I strive to do by honoring the memory and the lessons that he taught me.
Like [00:36:00] I don’t think that he deliberately sat out to teach me a lesson or become my mentor. I think he just saw somebody in a position that needed that guidance and decided to give it. Right. I didn’t use his real name in the book because I’m not, gonna put that man in a position to.
To be found out and they, they mean it wouldn’t end well for him, right? They’re gonna be like, why did you help that white boy? Did you see what you did for that kid’s life? Like, and, you know, something bad could happen to him, so I wouldn’t put him in that position. Right?
Gissele: Yeah.
Sonny: and again, for sure, a lot of people are like, well, we wanna find him, blah, blah, blah.
No, I’m not gonna let that happen because you don’t care about his life. You want the story. And when you do that, you’ll then put that man on display and somebody could harm that dude for what he’s done. Yeah. I will protect that dude until I’m, and I don’t care if you don’t believe me, I don’t care.
Gissele: Mm.
Yeah.
Sonny: You’re not gonna find him. I’m not gonna let you know who [00:37:00] he is. Right. Yeah. So good luck with that. Right. I’m not doing it for your belief. I’m doing it for my own mental health and processing to get it out. And if by that process it helps people, awesome.
I’m all about it. I’m here for it. Right? Mm-hmm.
Gissele: Mm-hmm. Mm. Can we talk a little bit about forgiveness?
Sonny: Of course. It’s my favorite subject.
Gissele: That’s good. ’cause based on your extraordinary story, it can feel hard to forgive. Have you found that place of forgiveness for yourself and for the people that harmed you?
Sonny: Of course. And it started with forgiving myself first. Right? I think forgiveness is the absolute secret sauce to everything in the world, right? It’s just, it’s the secret to regaining love, compassion, empathy, and it, it starts with forgiving [00:38:00] yourself, realizing that I’m a human being. I don’t have a rule book on how to navigate life, and it’s all of its complexities.
I don’t, I, nobody does. Nobody gets a guidebook. What we get are parents, and parents had the same thing we did. They didn’t get a guidebook either. They got parents. And all of those parents take the experiences that they have had in life and determine, in their opinion, what is the best way to navigate through life.
And then they give that opinion to their children. And they call it tradition, or they call it morality, or they call it, you know. This is how the world works. And somebody at some point wrote it down in a book and said it was divinely inspired and now we have God. And so we now get all of our rules from God that was put in a book by somebody who had an opinion about how life should be lived.
[00:39:00] And so that’s how these traditions become a thing. Mm-hmm. And when you realize that, when you reverse engineer that process and realize that religion as a whole, and I, and I don’t mean to bag on religion, but all religions and faiths are the opinions of human beings that thought this was the best way to live life.
And there’s no actual factual evidence that that was divinely inspired. We think that it was divinely inspired because that’s what the person wrote in the book and said it was divinely inspired. And so we’re like, oh yeah, it must have been, nobody has a guidebook on how to do this. It’s experiential.
And so based on that philosophy. You are going to make mistakes, right? You’re going to do things that are going to hurt yourself. They’re gonna hurt other people. And you’re going to learn from those, yeah,
Gissele: those
Sonny: processes, right? You’re going to, sometimes they’re gonna hurt, sometimes they’re gonna be happy, sometimes they’re gonna feel good.
And you’re gonna put those down in the [00:40:00] memory bank as, yeah, let’s keep doing that. ’cause I like that. Let’s don’t do that ’cause I don’t like that. And here’s a new experience. I’m gonna try that. And sometimes those, the ramifications of those experiential moments are pain and it hurts somebody, right? Or it hurts yourself.
And recognizing that I’m a fallible human that doesn’t have all the answers, even when I’m just a little kid. Even now to this day, we’re not done screwing up. Right? We still got a whole lot of life to live. I’m still gonna make mistakes. Yeah. For knowing that. I can let that go. Let me forgive myself because you didn’t have a guidebook and, and on top of it, let’s throw a whole bunch of trauma in there.
Yeah. You know, you did the best you could with what you had. And when I see that for myself, it puts me in a position where I’m able to then look at the my victimizers and say, ah, they didn’t have a book either, did [00:41:00] they? Yeah. Right. Something happened to them somewhere in their life that put them on a trajectory of abuse and victimization.
Right. And that’s the path that they chose to walk, to reconcile the experience that they’re having in their life. And they don’t know how to deal with it. And it’s not a justification for pedophilia or abuse or victimizing people, but it puts me in a position where I can just have that much empathy for them.
And that opens up a world of, of magical forgiveness because I can forgive that part. I can see that you are once a little child that had your worldview broken because you started off in love. All of us do. Every one of us, you look at a baby, it’s just love. It’s all it exudes is happiness and belly [00:42:00] laughs and it’s a baby.
And at some point it’s broken. Even Hitler was a baby at one point, right?
Gissele: Yeah.
Sonny: And, and when you look at that, you’re able to humanize the monster. You’re able to, to look at that and say, you know what? What you did is reprehensible. It’s inexcusable. It’s unjustifiable, but I forgive you. I forgive you, not because it gives you a pass, but it releases me.
It lets me get out from the cloud of victimization and hurt and pain that I’ve been stuck under by your actions. And I can breathe. I don’t have you in my, wall anymore of people that did me wrong. I’m gonna keep you here. And this is a visual reminder of the pain and trauma that I’ve been through.
I can now take that picture down, throw it out, and when I look up, I just see a beautiful mural on my wall of happiness and, and let it go. Right? and so that’s my take on forgiveness.
Gissele: Yeah. I also find it unhooks you from [00:43:00] that, from the relationship, right? in order for you to have a perpetrator, you have to have a victim, right?
Like, you can’t have one without the other. And so it sort of unhooks you from the story. It’s like, I don’t need this to define me anymore. 100%. The other thing as well as, as I was listening to you, you talked about the importance of community understanding why people abuse, and I think about this a lot.
Like why do people do the things that they do? You know, why would you wanna hurt a child? Why do you need to do that? And it makes me think about the more we understand why people behave a certain way, the more that we can then address it. What I mean is if you are being raised by parents that are not able to, because they don’t have the book or the information to know how to navigate and they’re just navigating from their trauma.
If we can incorporate into [00:44:00] this life different points where people get curious, why is a 7-year-old. Like acting out aggressively and as a community coming together, wrapping around that 7-year-old help that 7-year-old maybe even help the parents maybe together or separately. Maybe they can’t live together in that moment, but maybe help that parent so that they can stop the trauma and help stop hurting someone else and help that 7-year-old.
we have to change, we have to care about other children as our children, we have to care about other people as brothers and sisters. And I think that’s goes back to again, your point of individuality. That’s sort of been conditioned Out of us.
Sonny: Yeah. Yeah.
100%. Um,
Gissele: so what might help us get back to that connection, get back to that so that then we can stop this cycle? ’cause if we stop caring about one [00:45:00] another, we’re only gonna end up in a world where we are negatively impacted because we’re interconnected.
Sonny: You know, I, I mean, if I’m being honest, I don’t know that I, I mean, it sounds so nihilistic, but I don’t know that there is a comeback.
I, I don’t, I think self-destruction is imminent. Right? Like it’s,
Gissele: do you?
Sonny: Because it’s gonna take a global mindset. It’s gonna take one powerful leader, it’s gonna start with a person. Some someone’s voice has to be elevated enough where everyone hears it and says.
Yeah, no, I guess that’s the answer. The problem is greed, right? greed is such a dominant force in the world that we live in. Most people that that grow up are, again, they’re seeking this [00:46:00] materialistic level of advancement and they won’t, especially in the United States, are working to hit that level.
And once they hit that level, it changes them fundamentally, they don’t care about anybody else anymore. Right? I made my first million. Now I want 500 of ’em. Mm-hmm. Instead of getting to this million dollar threshold, which it’s not just the individual’s fault, right. We also live in a government that perpetually increases the cost of living so that a million dollars doesn’t even do anything anymore.
Like it, it doesn’t even buy you a an apartment where I live. Mm-hmm.
Gissele: Yeah. Right? Yeah.
Sonny: But once they get to a position of wealth, it, they don’t automatically fall into a mindset of, great, let me help everybody else around me get here. They just go into a, I need more phase. Right. Where like, oh, I got wealthy.
Let me get mega wealthy. And [00:47:00] then when they get mega wealthy, now let me get ultra wealthy. And they get ultra wealthy and they’re like, Ooh, maybe I can crack the top 50. And then they get lost in this, this competitive. Building of wealth and they lose or if they ever had their compassion for humanity to try to, to build that.
And so the only person that’s really gonna start raising their voice to help that change are people like you and I. Right? Mm-hmm. That we’re not wealthy. Mm-hmm. And then all the wealthy people look at that and they be like, oh, of course you want everybody to change and be nicer because you don’t have anything.
You poor, poor person. And so as more
Gissele: wealthy Yeah, I’ll say we’re wealthy and, and, and it’s something that is way more meaningful. Yeah.
Sonny: I’m rich. I’m so rich. Yeah. I always say I am wealthy af and broke as hell. Right? Like, I don’t have monetary thing. I mean, and I do. I mean, I’m not, I’m not [00:48:00] by any means I’m not living in poverty, but I’m not wealthy.
But I am so wealthy, right? Like, I have beautiful friends, beautiful families. I got a dog that I worship. I have the love of my life in my life, and I couldn’t ask for a better life, right? I’m so happy with it, which, and this is the mindset that’s needed to make the change that we’re talking about.
One, you get wealthy, you then want to help heal the world, which is what I do. I’m on a mission now. I said, what do I do now? You know, I own several businesses. My wife and we’re entrepreneurs. We have, you know, several streams of income in multiple businesses. And what do I do now? I want to heal.
I want to help people heal. You know what? Let, I’m gonna get in my car and just drive around the country and go have conversations with people to heal, help ’em heal. That’s what you do. That’s the mindset it’s gonna take to reverse the problem that’s been created, right? when [00:49:00] people hit a, a level of financial freedom.
Go show the world how you got there. Go help people. Right. Just go out there and give, give it away. The more you give it away, the more they’re gonna buy it anyway. Right? Yeah. And go. And I’ve come to find that in just the 15, 16 days that I’ve been on this tour so far already, here comes the blessings, right?
The universe is providing, I don’t want, I didn’t have to spend $2,000 for a hotel. I get to stay in a massively beautiful home in such a beautiful part of this country. Like,
Gissele: yeah,
Sonny: for free, like the universe provides when you live in your purpose, like when you, you live for something better. And that’s the mentality it’s going to take to change this ridiculously self-centered world that we’re living in.
Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s interesting that you mentioned that because, I saw this TED talk, which is like how to start a movement. And so they were talking about, have you seen it? [00:50:00] It’s like this. I don’t think so. This, this one guy dancing at a festival, right? Like it’s a single guy dancing at a festival.
And they said, you know, leaders tend to be just lone nuts until somebody follows them. And then there was another guy who starts following that guy and then everyone else starts following that guy. And then before you know it, everyone’s dancing at the festival. And what this TEDx speaker was trying to to show is that leaders are nobody except for their followers, right?
People follow the followers. They don’t follow the leaders, right? Facts. And so when you think about people’s money made those people billionaires, 10 million people followed Hitler. So I think when people start realizing that they have more power, they’re giving away their power, they’re making these people.
And the power that enabled these people to be billionaires is the same power that Will would make them broke. Yeah, it’s [00:51:00] they withdrawal of that. And I think when people start realizing that they are the ones with the power and I think that’s where you are showing them. If you could overcome such adversity, like all of the things you have faced, and still find compassion and love for humanity.
Ooh. I think people that that have, yeah. Like a daily adversities can get to that point, Sonny. Right.
Sonny: I think, I think people started to realize the philosophy that you’re talking about and then the effects of the national mentality kick in and that’s where cancel culture came from. Right. So,
Gissele: well I have kind of an interesting perspective on cancel culture.
Well,
Sonny: so cancel culture. Yeah. They determined that we have the power. People are only famous [00:52:00] because we follow them. They’re only famous because we support them. And Yeah. And people only have that celebrity status because of us. And we can take that away just as much as we can build it if we band together united under the same cause.
And then you saw this wave of cancel culture. Sweep through and destroy lives. Yeah. Destroy top legendary celebrities. You’ve gotten historical cartoon characters and figures removed from the pages of history. Mm-hmm. They saw, they began to see their power. And that’s the point when they, when they, when people realize that this power exists.
Gissele: Mm-hmm.
Sonny: That’s just the beginning. Right. That’s, the self-centered mindset that we’re raised with takes over. And then if they would’ve done cancel culture from the point of, instead of eradicating them from the books of history, let’s shower them with love and [00:53:00] show them what what they did wrong and help them heal.
You would’ve healed the world. You, that cancel culture movement could have become the world peace that everybody’s been talking about since the dawning of time. Yeah. If you had it, you were that close.
Gissele: Yeah. But, but I still think we can do it. I’ll tell you why. Yeah.
Sonny: People are just in, I think the reason why was drama,
Gissele: right?
So I think the reason why cancel culture sort of evolved the way that it did is because people can’t emotionally regulate enough to hear opposing discourse. I see it in my students. so I’m a professor at a university and I’m supposed to teach them critical thinking, like critical appraisal, critical thinking.
Okay, sure, sure. So my students, by the time they get to me, they’ve been so conditioned in the education system to passively accept information. [00:54:00] They’re not taught both sides of the equation. They’re not taught well, this, this was a war, this was their perspective, this was their perspective. And so they’ve taught that there is just one way and, and they don’t have the emotional girth.
Like they don’t have the ability to hold space for their difficult feelings enough to engage in difficult conversations. So there’s an immediate rejection. There’s an immediate like parachute pole because as soon as they start to feel uncomfortable, ’cause think about it as like as children. I was not thought that my emotions were all welcome and that I was okay to have difficult feelings.
I was only supposed to express happiness. I was only supposed to express quietness. I was not supposed to even have a voice. And so I learned that my emotions and especially difficult emotions were not welcome. My parents didn’t have the emotional girth to hold [00:55:00] space for me, and so I needed to change so that they could feel okay.
but one of the things I’ve learned about in, in finding compassion for myself in holding space for those difficult feelings, I can listen to the perspective of other extreme people not be sunk by it and actually engage in conversation. So I think that the cancel culture has to do with like what you’re talking about, which is like that individuality and the inability.
To hold those difficult emotions enough to be able to stay in dialogue. And I think that’s where sort of you’ve gained mastery because going through that other side, it’s nothing but difficult emotions. All of the things you live through thi through solitary confinement. Like that’s, you’ve gained mastery in difficult promotions.
they
Sonny: say that it’s 10,000 hours to master something, right?
Gissele: Yeah.
And it was way more than [00:56:00] 10,000 hours of just wallowing in my own trauma to figure it out.
Sonny: So yeah. I’ve kind of mastered
Gissele: Yeah.
Sonny: Emotional regulation, right?
I didn’t, I couldn’t leave. I didn’t have a choice. So I went through the depression, I went through the suicidal ideations. I went through the screaming and crying and feeling sorry for myself to the hateful all in a box.
And there’s nowhere to go. And so when the demons can’t escape, you gotta face them. And I love saying nobody ever goes to rock bottom twice. Right. There’s, if rock bottom has become a catchphrase and a click phrase that people use.
Gissele: Mm-hmm. You’ve
Sonny: never been there twice. Right. When you go to rock bottom, you either kill yourself or change your life.
And that feeling of where you were. Will compel you. You’re never, I’m never going to feel that again. Ever. Yeah. So my [00:57:00] whole life and worldview is different now.
Gissele: Yeah.
Sonny: That’s what rock bottom does to you. So if you are someone that’s still in a phase where it’s like, oh, I was just at rock bottom, I’m trying to figure it out.
You weren’t a rock bottom, my man. ’cause it’s a very clear and decisive line there. I’m either going to end it or change it. And unfortunately we see more than 500,000 men a year that just choose to end it.
Gissele: Yeah.
Sonny: Right. And if we can change that number, that’s one dude a minute. You and I have been on this call for an hour and three minutes now.
That is how many men that is, that 63 men have killed themselves since we started this conversation. Yeah. It’s horrible, right? Yeah. And, it’s because they don’t feel safe to just speak. And I’m telling you that you don’t have to feel safe, right? Just speak, put your camera down, set your phone on, and just dump it to the world and [00:58:00] say, you know what?
I’m not talking to humans. I’m talking to this camera. Yeah. And just dump it out and just hit that button, right. Face that fear. Do it anyway. Just don’t give up. Who’s gonna see it? And just do it. And it’s the most liberating thing you’ll ever do in your life. Right? And the best part is that somebody’s gonna send you a message and say.
Wow. That was inspiring. Thank you. Mm-hmm. I want to do that too. And then they’re gonna go do it and you start this butterfly effect of healing.
Gissele: Yeah.
Sonny: Right. And yeah. Somebody’s gonna come in and be like, oh, which guy was your favorite? Oh, you must be gay. That’s why that happened. Oh, you’re lying. That didn’t happen.
Oh, you’re exaggerated. No one arrests a 7-year-old. I don’t care. Yeah. ’cause I can show you one message from one person that came in and said I was gonna kill myself. And I saw your video.
Gissele: Yeah.
Sonny: And that message dominates every other comment that any of you could ever put out there that it [00:59:00] makes, that’s negative or that tries to affect me or hurt me.
Gissele: Yeah. I did wanna share this with you. So I’m working on a documentary of people that I had interviewed that had chosen to like, love their enemy and, you know what I mean? Like, people that have not only Yeah. Like forgiven, but also said, you know, I’m gonna help you.
Sure. That is tends to be the reaction, even from their closest people. It’s either gurus like, oh, you must be so special and extraordinary. Which is why I love what you said earlier. They’re like, you’re like, I don’t have any special sauce. I just want you to do, do this for yourself. Yeah. And the other one is that you’re a liar.
There’s no way you forgave this person. There’s no way that you did this. There’s no way that, because I think people can’t cope with the truth. I think it’s so hard for some people to believe because then they have to make a choice. Then they’re responsible. Then they have to say, I am choosing.
Right. And [01:00:00] I think that’s what your life so beautifully illustrates. You’ve spoken about choice several times. I had to choose to change my lens. I couldn’t change the circumstances, but I could change how I reacted.
Sonny: it’s the primary teaching principle that I use.
Right? Like, everything is literally a choice. You’re living the life that you want. I don’t wanna live here. I don’t wanna do this. Well, where would you want I, I had that session with that same woman. Where do you want to live? I wanna live on the ocean. But where do you live? I live here with my husband and my kids.
Well, that’s what you want. Do you wanna live here in a miserable existence with your husband and your kids in a life that you don’t want? ’cause you feel subjugated. That’s what you want. I don’t want that. Then why are you doing it?
Gissele: I know.
Sonny: Well, because I, I, I don’t have anything. So what happens if you leave?
What? Oh, I’d be broke. people would be mad at me. Everybody would hate me. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what would you have [01:01:00] the ocean? Right? That’s what you want. And you, yeah. So it’s not a fact that you can’t do it. It’s a fact that you want to please everybody else and, and not please yourself.
And so you have the life that you want, right? Yeah. If you really wanted the ocean, your ass would be at the ocean.
Gissele: Right? Exactly. Yeah. Right? Yeah.
Sonny: So you, you clearly don’t want the ocean that much. You’re just captivated by the fear of somebody else’s opinion. It’s not you. It’s somebody else’s opinion.
Right. Your husband’s opinion, your kid’s opinion, your mom’s opinion. If I could tell you how many people in this world are being held captive to their past because their mother’s alive, you’d be like, oh, I can’t tell my story. My mom, if she heard that, it would kill her. Well, where was your mom when that was happening?[01:02:00]
Right? Yeah. So you care more about protecting your mom’s reaction to your truth and your trauma than she did about helping you prevent that trauma or work through that trauma. Mm.
Gissele: Live the life
Sonny: you want, identify what you want and stop caring what anybody else wants.
Gissele: Do you?
Sonny: Yeah. Because you doing that is going to be the most inspirational thing for anybody that watches you.
Gissele: Yeah. Right? Yeah. Well,
Sonny: if you’re a very miserable person, that’s what people see and that’s what people watch. No matter how much you’re like, I’m a good person. I volunteer here, I do this, I do that, but oh my life. Oh, I wish I had this, I wish I had this. I, you’re just literally showing people, here’s somebody that’s unhappy with what they have and wishes they had something else.
And then you’re just teaching anybody that’s actually watching you and inspired by you to live small. And when you finally take that leap and you go out and you do it, yes, all these people might be angry, [01:03:00] some people aren’t gonna like it because you’re holding up a mirror to what they’re afraid to do.
What, when you do go do it, the other people are gonna be like, oh my God, she did it. Go live the life of your dreams. You are worth it.
Gissele: Beautiful. I was thinking about as you were speaking, I think there is a fear of authenticity, right? Because the majority of people are living the lives they think they should live. I should want that house, or I should want this marriage, or I should want that. And so when authentic people come out and say, just be authentically yourself, they’re like, well, how should I do that?
They get comfortable
Sonny: living vicariously thanks to the internet. So they’re like, oh, I don’t have to go do it. I’ll just watch Sonny do it. Oh, he’s so lucky. Oh, he is so lucky. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. What a lucky man. You’re so blessed. You’re so lucky. Oh. Yeah. You know how much I had [01:04:00] to go through to get this.
Yeah. Yeah. Lucky. Come on. Yeah. Come on. I, I think I got a lottery ticket over here for you.
Gissele: Thank you for mentioning that because it takes an extraordinary amount of courage to live authentically, to face your demons, to face your story and still be willing to love and have compassion in the end.
And so I think people don’t understand just how courageous, which is why the majority of people don’t do it because it’s so uncomfortable. Yeah.
Sonny: It’s just the first step, right? Yeah. ’cause once you dip your toe in that water, it’s the most liberating thing in the world, right? Like, I cannot go back. Right?
Yeah. You wanna talk about high Chasing a high. Like there’s no drug on earth that has ever, I’ve dabbled in a few, there’s no drug on [01:05:00] earth that’s ever given me the feeling that I have every day when I just wake up and I get smacked by the world in the face and breathe in that fresh air.
Like, ah, the gratitude for having a nose to smell, having a, the ability to feel that wind on my face, having feet that allow me to walk outside. I have, uh, it, it brings me to tears. Like I’m so grateful because. I, I have it. There’s some people that don’t have arms, they don’t have legs, they don’t have feet.
They, they can’t smell. they don’t get to partake in the beautiful existence. That’s called life. And it’s so sad for those of us that do have it, and you just neglect it. ’cause you’re so worried about the car you drive or the house you live in, or the clothes you’re wearing. What the next person next door is gonna think of you.
Even though that person doesn’t partake in your life, that person’s not in your bed. That person’s not in your [01:06:00] house. They don’t eat at your table. They don’t even know your name. And you’re more worried about what they think about you. Yeah. Than going outside and enjoying that fresh breath of, of air and wind.
And I’m captivated by the beauty of the existence of the world. Right. Like and
Gissele: mm-hmm.
Sonny: I’m so grateful for it. Every day I just wake up in gratitude. I spend my day in gratitude. That’s the secret key, right? That’s it’s,
Gissele: yeah.
Sonny: Yeah. And it sucks because I think it’s experiential, right?
Like I had to go through everything that I went through in my life to be able to be in the position that I am, and I’m doing my best to try to give that perspective to people so you don’t have to
Gissele: Yeah.
Sonny: Like you, you, and you really don’t. You’re probably going to, because that’s the human nature, is to learn things through experience.
But somebody somewhere might listen and be like, oh no, I don’t actually have [01:07:00] to go through all that. I can stop suffering and actually just go live that. And yeah, there you go. My guy. If I could just give that to one person, awesome.
Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sonny: Most of us are very stubborn and we’re just gonna have to learn through loss, right?
Gissele: Yeah. Fair enough. So, um, final two. what’s your definition of love?
Sonny: Oof. That’s the first time I’ve been asked that. I think my definition of love is
how I make someone leave an interaction with me.
Gissele: Hmm.
Sonny: Like, what kind of memory do they take away? I, I want everybody that ever has an interaction with me to walk away feeling better or feeling. Hopeful. Mm-hmm. Or feeling inspired knowing that they’re seen and that they matter.
I, and I think love is providing that for people. I think love is [01:08:00] showing people they exist. It’s like seeing you, right? Mm-hmm. Like mm-hmm.
Gissele: I
Sonny: don’t care if you’re wearing a $5,000 suit or if you’re wearing a $5 pair of shoes and you’re piss poor homeless on the street. I see you, right? Yeah. Like, your life is worth,
Gissele: yeah.
Sonny: Your life is worthy, right? You’re worth,
Gissele: mm-hmm.
Sonny: Existing. You’re the only version of you that is on this planet, and you deserve to be here, right? Like you didn’t ask for your drama, you didn’t ask for your pain, and this beautiful thing that we live in, this one experience that we get, you deserve to partake in it.
Gissele: Yeah. Oh,
Sonny: right.
Gissele: Good response. And I think that’s,
Sonny: I think that’s love, right? Mm-hmm.
Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Ooh. Um, so where can people find [01:09:00] you? What are your links? Where can they find your book? Please share anything that you wanna promote,
Sonny: including your, you can just Google, Sonny, Yvonne Cleveland. Oh, that’s the best way to get to it, right?
Look, we don’t, okay. We done got the tears right. And I love the tears. Right? The tears let you know that you’re alive. Yeah, that’s love, right? Yeah. That’s love, like, yeah. Feeling compassion, feeling for people. Yeah. But yeah, just best way is to, I have a link tree, like on my Instagram or if you go to https://sonnyvoncleveland.com, you can find information there.
Just, just hop on Google and Sonny von Cleveland, you’re gonna find it.
Gissele: Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. And thank you everyone for joining us for another episode of Love and Compassion with Gissele. Bye.
Sonny: Thank you so much. Thank you.