Men's Work Session - A Man's Missing Keystone, A Father's Self-Indulgence
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All right, good sir. How are you doing today? Enjoying my coffee, contemplating my life, just like every other day. I'm jealous of the coffee situation. As you know, I'm on my couple weeks of no coffee on this detox, this cleanse. And the hardest thing is when my wife makes a latte in the morning. It's like the hardest part of the day. I'm like, oh, I want that. I'm

Although last night we went out for dinner and all I basically had was fish and vegetables. And then she's sitting across from me smashing a burger and rosemary truffle french fries. And I was like, you... She's like, are you going to be mad at me if I do this? I said...

No, but I'm going to basically sit here and salivate over your meal. That's what's going to happen. She eats one French fry at a time, like looking deep into your soul. Totally. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Just like savoring, you know, sexually eating French fries and just like dying on the other side.

Okay, my friend. Well, let's dive in. You were giving me some insight before. Maybe just start from the top. What are you thinking about we can potentially tackle and work on today? Yeah. So, you know, I've always been the high performer and my high performances also cost me at times, but I've seemed to reach like a plateau of my performance.

And really the bottom line that I'm searching for in this is understanding why I'm holding myself back. Because there's a big piece of, let's say, I know I have everything I need, yet I refuse to accept it in some sort of weird way. And if you'd like, I can cruise through kind of my notes here. And so to prepare for this, I wrote down, you know, everything I've put my mind to, I've achieved.

I feel like I have more to experience or that I just need a little more experience to reach where I'm going. For as long as I recall, I have felt that I am one away from greatness, like a monumental shift from greatness or completion, like a keystone is missing the keystone of my life. In my dreams, I am always searching for things. There's always some sort of motion in a missing part or a missing vital piece. There's always an external pressure in the form of people.

I oscillate between being firmly in my own truth to feeling completely lost. Now in these states of truth, my energy is endless. Everything is accessible. It's all right there. It's if I have all the answers and action is effortless. If I don't have the answers, I see the path.

Now, when I'm not in this state, I feel completely lost, confused, and taking action is met with resistance. I distract. I meet discomfort with quick releases of dopamine, snacking, extreme binges of Reddit. And I really get lost and stuck. And so I start doing everything for everyone, and I feel like my world is one step from crashing down.

Okay, so very dualistic, very dualistic experience. Do you have any sense of like timeframe on this? Like, do you have a sense of how long you stay in each of these periods? It seems to be, it's longer in the confused state, usually a couple of weeks. And then I'll, I always call it, oh, I hit my power band and there will be some sort of shift.

And it will just feel like I can conquer the world in those moments. Okay. All right. And anything that triggers the shift from either the power state into the lost state or vice versa? Yes. Specifically, there was an instance, what was this, about five weeks ago?

where I was at a conference and I met a woman and this was, you know, there was instant chemistry and, you know, I'm married. But she basically, what it felt like is she saw only the man in me and, you know, nothing happened, but there was a lot of chemistry. And it was like, oh, this is interesting.

At first it was just, oh, hey, we went out to dinner with a big group because it's a convention. And then I noticed, oh, she's one of our clients. Even more interesting. So we started just talking and hanging around. And I could just tell by the way that she looked at me. It was like, oh, there's a lot of chemistry here. We ended up just hanging out a lot during the conference. And I came back from that and it was like,

holy shit, this world is easy. And so that, that was a pretty, pretty significant piece. Like when I came back from that and I really noticed that. Um, so definitely some sort of, you know, once I get validation of the effort that I'm putting in or of who I am, then it just really just, I guess, takes off. Okay. So was it that you felt like,

As though this woman that you came into contact with saw a part of you that other people don't, or she saw a more true version of you, or speak a little bit more about that. Yeah, the way that I describe this to myself is,

she saw the man in me, like full acknowledgement of the man. And of course, you know, she doesn't know all my history, doesn't know like what family life is with a bunch of kids and all of that. And so it was more of like the way that I described it is it turned on a primal side of myself that seems to be smothered. Okay. By what?

And I would say the expectations of the role that I feel I have to play every single day. Okay. For your family? Yeah. All right. Say a little bit more about this project.

primal side and where you feel connection to it in your life where you struggle to when do you struggle to access it when do you feel like you have connection to it so i feel like i have access to it mainly when i when i accomplish things like when there's some sort of task that i'm fully behind and committed to and then if that task is gone and things are kind of more

I don't even know how to describe it. Like this, this happened again last week when it was a very specific task that got put in front of me. And this was again for another work thing. And I don't know, it's like I saw a path and it was like, okay, go. And I just lock in and everything comes together. You know, this, this happened to be with our biggest partner,

as well as our CEO and afterward everyone's like, "That was fucking amazing. You crushed it." Like, wow, this is exactly what we need to do. And so it's like, boom, in that moment again, I end the day and it's, "Oh, everything's easy. I can do anything." And then when I don't have it, it really has to do with like, what I'm working on isn't clear or I don't necessarily have, I don't know if it's the validation

or if it's that I don't know the purpose of that word. That's where things start to get fuzzy when I try to think about it. Okay, that's all right. Tell me a little bit about family system growing up, your role in the family system, relationship to mom, relationship to dad. Give me some insight on that. Yeah, so my parents split when I was super young, two or three. My father had an affair

And once they split, my mom started her family and then my dad started his family. In that family system, I never felt like I belonged. I was always waiting to be chosen, waiting to be loved, essentially.

I've gone through quite a bit of this. My mom, when she started her family with my stepfather, their first child at one years old got meningitis and became deaf. I remember going into the hospital church and them telling us. And I remember that house being pretty chaotic from a

I don't know. It's like I lived in the basement and there was always chaos upstairs. And so I would, you know, basically stay hidden in the basement most of the time. I didn't know too much about what was going on up there. It seems like I do remember coming home one day and my mom saying, you're moving to Idaho with your dad.

And I heard the fight. And so then I moved to Idaho. This was like third grade at this point. But before that, I had weekend warrior dad. Dad played a lot of baseball. And so on the weekends that we would go on these trips. And then, yeah, most of my life back then was just, I see it as playing basketball.

having fun, but definitely my parents were out of touch with my mom being basically at full capacity. I did learn that their initial four or five years, maybe even longer of marriage was pretty rough. And then moving to Idaho, moving in with my dad, he was super stoked. I remember the drive up there. He was just so excited to have a son living with him.

And those were very interesting years because for the next three or four years, I swapped back and forth every year. It was like, oh, Idaho life's great, except now I'm missing something. What I remember was just like my people are in Utah, because it's between Utah and Idaho. And so I think I spent two years in Utah, two years in Idaho. I went back to Utah. I went back to Idaho. And then

For eighth or ninth grade, I was like, no, I'm just staying in Utah. Say what's happening. Take a breath in as you talk about some of this stuff and just say what's happening internally. Say the same kind of, where do I belong? Who's am I? Where do I fit in? Take a breath into that and let that do something to you. Tell yourself just be affected by...

That energy in the body and this lifelong question that lives inside of you. And just say what it was like to have to go back and forth between Idaho and Utah. It was confusing. Say what was confusing about it. I didn't know where to land. I didn't know what the destination was. I think it's a little deeper than that. It's like I didn't want to be pulled apart. Yeah, I wanted to feel whole.

So just breathe into that. Notice and then notice what's happening inside of you as you talk about some of this stuff. Because there's a pretty big split inside of you and inside of your life. Tingles, a little bit of heaviness. So just let all that happen. Tingles, heaviness. I feel myself trying to compose. Okay. How come? Because I don't want to fall apart. Take a breath in and just say why you don't want to fall apart. If I fall apart, if I fall apart,

I won't be able to be everywhere. - How do I be in both places? So take a deep breath into that. Another breath and tune back into that heaviness and the tingling that you were experiencing before. And just say what that's about. What's the heaviness and the tingling about? - Wanting to be loved, wanting to feel like I've fucking had a spot in these families. - So let yourself connect to the place inside of you that's longed to just belong.

and have all of you present. And again, really let yourself be affected by that place inside of you that has longed to just be fully, fully present in your relationships and your family, to have all of you in one place and make a statement from there. A bunch of turmoil. Say it again. I feel turmoil. It's okay. There's a bit of anger. I wanted to tell my parents to

Get their fucking shit together. Fucking look at their boy. Look at what the fuck you guys are doing. Good, so let yourself feel that. And then say it again to them. What do you want to say on his behalf? Don't fucking make me choose. Don't fucking make me choose between you. Nice deep breath into the belly. Keep breathing into your belly. Tell them what it was like to have to choose between them and to feel split between them. I don't know where to go. Every time I landed somewhere, home was at the other place.

Can't fucking be in two places at once. Fucking making me choose. And deep breath in. For a moment, I just want to create a bit of a scene for you. Is that okay? So just visualize that boy and on one side is mom holding one hand and on dad is the other side holding the other hand and they're both pulling him in different directions. And you're just going to witness that.

So you're just observing it and let it impact you, what you're seeing. Just seeing him turn his head left and right, trying to figure out what the fuck's going on. What happens inside of you as you observe that, as you see that. Legs are trembling a little bit. Gut is tight. My heart is cracked. Deep breath in the belly. Keep breathing into the belly and just keep letting everything come up. Just let everything sort of rise.

Just make a statement from your heart, from that cracked heart. You guys should have fucking just stayed together. Why'd you have to think with your dick, dad? Reason. Chose that over your fucking son. Mm-hmm. Deep breath into the belly. What would it actually sound like? For me to tell my dad that? Mm-hmm. Dad, I fucking love you, but chose fucking pussy over your son. I know you're a fucking kid. I know you're fucking 20 years old.

I know you were fucking scared of having a family, but you fucking walked out on me, dude. Fucking left me alone, man. Keep going. Keep letting it come. You left your only fucking son alone. Fucking do that to me. Just fucking left me stranded, man. Just wanted you to fucking show me shit. The hardest part is I always fucking felt you. You're always right there. And yet not. And far away. Yeah. It's hard to fucking love you so much.

I still feel that so hard to love you so much and and what have you fucking everywhere but with me have you choose everything but me deep breath in and just let I don't know how much privacy you have but let some of the anger out either in a sound or just in a fuck you for like fuck you for leaving me fuck you for just let some of that this is where it gets hard fuck you man

Fuck you for what? Fuck you for? Fuck you for having me and then just fucking walking away. Breathe in. Say what's happening inside. Heat and expansion. Mm-hmm. I feel large right now. Say it again. I feel large. Good. I feel this big. The anger feels big? Not the anger. I feel big. I feel much more. I don't know, larger. Mm-hmm.

So breathe in, connect to that primal energy, that bigness, that ability to stand up and speak truth to him without having to protect him. Again, just speak from this place. Say what you need to say to him. What you did to that boy was... Abandoned him. Fucking made life into this world and you were irresponsible with it. You created just to destroy. What you made me question was... What you made me question was my place in this world.

as if i even belonged in this world breathe in tell them what that's been like i'm lonely man it's been hard in every relationship i have to think that they're just gonna find something better their life is way more important than mine breathe in good job and just reply to that last piece that his life was more important than yours he made it all about you

Even when we did fucking hang out, it was what you wanted to do. I never gave a shit about what I wanted to do. I think the hardest part is I fucking see it in myself. I see it in the way I fucking show up in my family. I've done better. I didn't fucking walk out. I still feel that. I still feel that. There's a part of you that's similar to him. Say what part of you is like him? Well, I desire. I mean, I fucking get it. Having someone want to fuck you.

Feels fucking great, dude. Big fucking deal. Get over it. Deep breath, deep breath in the belly. Say what's happening inside. Some big energy shifting in the chest and in your face and your belly. I'm just feel like, no, I mean, I've outgrown him years ago. The hard part is, is now it's just how much he looks up to me. Half of me wants to be like, yeah, man, I get it. I don't know. It's so hard to,

To love somebody so deeply and then on the XL, there's no hate but the anger. Stay with the anger. Just stay with it. Have you ever told him in real life how angry you've been with him? Never angry. Just disappointed. You told him that you were disappointed in him? It was more of a came here.

and basically told him, well, I got curious and didn't like, what was the fucking household like back then? Tried to get some understanding, learned a lot about his childhood. Things make a lot more sense, but I did tell him that he walked away and it's hard because he's got very deflective. He receives it, but it's, it's, it turns into talking to like a child, you know? Well, that's not really receiving it. So breathe in.

And just breathe in and out through your mouth a little bit. There's a lot of energy that you're trying to contain right now and trying to hold in and hold back. You don't have to be this put together, responsible person in this moment. You can go back to that after if you want, but you don't have to do that right now. What do you think will happen if you actually let out the anger that you've been carrying towards him? For it.

I just don't know. It's scary to think about fills just like that power, more subtle way that word that I might not be able to keep my grip on it. So take a breath, keep breathing in and out through the mouth. And I just want you to let it build. And it's not about controlling this. It's about directing it. And it's about directing it to the person that it's genuinely aimed at, targeted towards. You really fucked up my whole view of men, man.

Just let it build for a moment. Do you have something in front of you you can grab? Can you grab a desk? I want you to squeeze something with your hands. Let yourself be a little physical. Feel your feet on the floor and just let some of that tension start to build in the body. You can feel this volcano that's been building inside of you as we've been talking. More and more energy just pooling right below the collarbone, wanting to come out. Good. Yeah. Keep breathing like that.

And when you're ready, I want you to let loose in a way that is unapologetic and unrestricted. Fuck you for. Let yourself mean and express what you're experiencing. Fuck you, man. Fuck you for leaving me. A little bit more. You got it. A little bit more. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you for leaving me. Fuck you for just walking out, man. I needed you.

I needed you more than you fucking know. You fucking just left? What a fucking dick. Oh, fuck you, man. Breathe in. Good. Let some of it out in a sound. Just let some sound out. Good. Another one. Yeah. The way you treated me was...

What you treated me like was a fucking piece of trash, man. And what that did to me was... What that did to me was fucking just leave me. Leave me so fucking confused. Always looking. Always fucking searching. Could never fucking find you. Fuck you! Keep going. Whatever you need to say. Let out whatever you need to say. Just rant for 30 seconds towards me. Oh, I try. I fucking try, but the...

the the household that is a wall away with my fucking children just come pouring in and i'm just like oh fuck good okay well take a breath you just did a great job you just did a great job say what's happening inside of you knowing that the family's there they're safe they're okay what was that like for you to communicate and express in that way i mean it's revitalizing

but it feels that there is a constriction has been expanded. So there's like a deeper sense of fullness and completion, wholeness. A lot of energy wrapped up in that. Yeah, there's a lot of energy wrapped up in that anger. There's a lot of vitality, a lot of your life force in this truth that you've protected your father from, that you've held back from him. So there's a little bit more of a full-blooded...

experience, you know, and I think there's a time and place for us to do that. And it sounds like right now, maybe isn't the time and place to go full blast, but come back to the visual. So just before you come out, I want to just do one more piece with you. Come back to that boy that has mom pulling him from one arm and dad pulling him from the other arm and really drop into the father inside of you. You've got three wonderful kids. You know how to be a father.

You're a great dad. Sure, you make mistakes, but I know that you're a great father. Just let yourself feel into the father in you that's also, and I have some insider trading here, also wanted a son. And just see that boy being tugged in both directions, confused, lost, alone, not feeling like he belongs, split. And just say what you'd like to do. You can either make a statement to him or your parents,

But from the father in you, make a statement and take an action. You guys don't need to worry about him anymore. You guys got your own fucking shit. Get out of here. I love you, but get the fuck out of here. What do you want to say to him? You don't have to search anymore, man. You don't have to think about where you belong. You don't have to keep trying to land somewhere. It's all wet every single time. Yeah, you're coming with me. Got you. Whatever happens, whatever comes up, you're in my hands, man.

Take a breath in. Get you everything you need to know. Nice deep breath. I'm just going to give you one thing. If it feels like it fits, you tell him, okay, I'm not going to leave you like he did. I'll never fucking abandon you. I'm fucking better than that. You deserve more than that. Never going anywhere. I'll always be right here. Yeah. Let yourself really feel all that. Be affected by what you're saying and let it in.

I'm just going to make a statement to you and you notice how it lands. Okay. My guess is that part of this deep desire that you've had to have a son is actually a very deep unconscious desire from your inner child for you to connect with him and parent him. You have a boy inside of you that needs a good father. Take a deep breath. Anything that boy wants to say back to you? The reason I see him during snowball. Hit me in the face.

Let me be tackling him. Nice. So take that in. Just let that sink into the body. You and him connected. See him and him poking fun at mom. Say it again. A little louder. I see me and him just fucking with mom. Fun ways. Good. So just let all that settle in the body, in the chest, feel your feet on the floor. And just remember the space that you're in.

So the chair that you're sitting on, the desk in front of you, the room that you're in, just start to remember and reconnect to the space and environment that you're in. And maintaining that connection with that younger self, just slowly, your own pace, start to make your way back in. Good stuff. I'm going to go get some coffee to piss you off.

If I don't hear a fuck you, Connor, once a week, I'm not doing my job right. So I'll take that as a metaphorical middle finger. I drink my coffee in front of you and you can't have any. Really good work, buddy. Really good work. You know, there's a couple of things that stand out to me and maybe we'll just end off with that. Do you have any questions or comments for me before I share? No, I just want to

Thank you. It's always very, it fills my heart to be led by another man from time to time. And so I just want to say thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Truly appreciate it. So thank you. You're welcome. So-

Part of what you were going through and part of what's been happening inside of you is this split that I was talking about, right? That there's a part of you in your dreams that's been yearning for wholeness. And I'm going to give you a couple of things that I'd like for you to look into, okay? And this is a little bit more like Jungian psychology, depth psychology, right?

But there's two things. Number one, I want you to study and start to understand what the prima materia is. Prima materia, P-R-I-M-A, prima, and then materia, M-A-T-E-R-I-A. So in alchemy, in Jungian psychology, sometimes the missing piece, we can feel like there's a missing piece that we can't seem to grasp. And sometimes it shows up and then it's gone and it shows up and then it's gone.

And it's not that it's gone, it's that it's in our unconscious, right? It's just hidden from view in a way. And so I want you to start to look into the Prima Materia because it can be elusive. It can feel like this unformed essence that we have to discover through a certain process. But psychologically, it's pointing us towards this disowned or unowned or disconnected part of ourselves. Right.

And your life, what you're describing in this primal side feels smothered, this split back and forth, always needing more experience. The keystone is missing. Dreams always have a missing piece. All of that is really just indicative of this split that you experienced growing up and this internal quest for a sense of wholeness.

So premium materials, number one. And the second is the Kingfisher wound. I want you to do some studying around the Kingfisher wound because my gut says that that's really what you're touching on here is this sense of what you experienced as a boy has been repeating itself inside of you.

Kind of like you have a connection to your own power and potency and it's there and it's in your conscious mind. And then it gets waterboarded into the unconscious, right? It disappears from you, right? So there's this sense of there's a wholeness. I'm connected. I feel grounded and safe. I'm, you know, I belong. And then boom, that's all gone, right? And it disappears and vanishes for a while. And that's very much indicative of what you experienced growing up. So it makes sense that it would happen inside of you.

So there is a quest for a sense of wholeness. And part of that quest is about revealing some of that material that's been hidden in the shadow. And that's part of the work that we did today was taking some of the anger that's been hidden in the shadow and placing it where it actually belongs, which is right now what was happening is a bit of retroflexion. It's like, instead of bringing that out to dad,

And instead of bringing it out to where it actually belongs, it would go towards you. And you'd start to judge yourself. I'm lost again. Here I am, you know, fucking on Reddit and wasting my goddamn time. And I could have spent blah, blah, blah. And so all of that anger gets self-directed instead of going to where it actually should be placed.

So as you start to bring some of this material that's in the shadow out into conscious expression, whether it's through this type of work or real conversations, what you'll notice is that you'll start to have a more balanced experience internally.

Because it won't be hidden in the unconscious. It hasn't actually gone anywhere. It's not anywhere outside of you. It's just that it disappears from your view. Does that make sense? Totally. And that's exactly what it feels like. Yeah. Because I can sense it. Yeah. But it's ethereal. Yes. So...

Work with those two pieces first. If you have any questions, you know where to find me. But thank you so much for joining me. Appreciate you diving in. Any final thoughts or comments? No, man. Thank you so much again. Got it. Thank you. Everyone out there. Thank you so much for tuning in. Don't forget to man it forward and share this with somebody that you think could use hearing it. Until next time, Connor Beeden signing off.

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