(AllHipHop News) Jay-Z credits therapy for helping him learn how to react to difficult situations and people in his life.
The “99 Problems” hitmaker reveals he “grew so much from the experience” and it helped him to better understand how people’s emotions are connected to their experiences and affect the way they function in every aspect of their lives.
“Every emotion is connected and it comes from somewhere,” he tells the New York Times Style Magazine. “Being aware of it in everyday life puts you at such a… you’re at such an advantage.
“You realize that if someone’s racist toward you, it ain’t about you. It’s about their upbringing and what happened to them, and how that led them to this point. You know, most bullies bully. It just happens. Oh, you got bullied as a kid so you trying to bully me (sic). I understand.”
“And once I understand that, instead of reacting to that with anger, I can provide a softer landing and maybe, ‘Aw, man, is you OK?'”
The 47-year-old explains once he realized how much impact someone’s experiences could have on them, he connected that to the rough situations he dealt with growing up in Brooklyn, New York.
“There was a lot of fights in our neighborhood that started with, ‘What you looking at? Why you looking at me? You looking at me?’,” he says. “And then you realize, ‘Oh, you think I see you. You’re in this space where you’re hurting, and you think I see you, so you don’t want me to look at you. And you don’t want me to see you… You don’t want me to see your pain. So you put on this shell of this tough person that’s really willing to fight me and possibly kill me ’cause I looked at you…’ Knowing that and understanding that changes life completely.”