Men's Work Sessions - Four Stories, Four Strengths, Four Struggles
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All right, team, exciting announcement. If you are a therapist, psychologist, coach, you do men's work, I'm going to be doing a free live demonstration where I teach some of the tools that I use when I work with a man. So this will teach you how to get a man out of his head, into his body, how to work through some resistance when it comes up, how to deal with a man's shadow or his anger, aggression,

defensiveness, all those different pieces. So if you are interested in that, go to mantox.com forward slash demo, D-E-M-O, mantox.com forward slash demo. Sign up. Even if you can't make the call, we will send you the recording and you can tune in because this is going to be one of those experiences where I showcase, I'm going to work live with a man and work through some pretty serious challenges and then teach you some of the tools that I am

using real time. So mantalks.com forward slash demo. See you there.

All right, my friend, how are you doing today? I'm great. How are you, sir? I'm very good. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. I was saying you're my first guinea pig with this new format, so I appreciate you diving in and just going headfirst into the deep end. So thank you for being here. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. So tell me a little bit about, obviously, I read some of the information that you sent over about your life and your history and some of the things that you've been through, of which it sounds like it's been a lot.

I just want to acknowledge that first and foremost. - Thank you. - But what were you hoping to maybe get out of this conversation? Is there a specific question or is there something that you were hoping to get from spending some time together? - You know, I think just talking about some of the experiences I've had and getting your thoughts on how to handle them moving forward and just the perspective around those thoughts might be helpful for me. - Yeah, are you trying to make sense of

how your life experiences have impacted you or are you trying to make sense of what to do with the impact that they've had? Probably, that's a great question and I would say both but probably the first one first would be in that order. First and then the second one. Okay. How they impacted me and then what to do with them. Maybe give a

60 to 90 second Kohl's notes. Do you guys call them Kohl's notes in America? Are they something else? No, but we can pretend we're in Canada for a minute. Yeah, okay. Canada has Kohl's notes. So we'll call them Kohl's notes. You know what I'm talking about. And give me a little bit of a rundown of what's taking place in your life. Yeah, sure. So growing up in a family of five, the youngest of five, being raised by a single mother primarily,

I grew up in a very wealthy town, but we did not have a lot with regard to money. We were just very lucky to have grown up there. Family and I helped each other through everything and my mother being a lead for that. Growing up in that home was also an alcoholic home. My father was there for a while until around my age of around eight or nine. And by that point, my siblings were much older. So I was home for a lot of the tail end of that relationship falling apart and experienced a lot of that as a child.

So what I learned at that time was how to internalize my emotions and how to hold back things and just be quiet. And I didn't want any of that.

backlash coming my way. So I sort of took that and then I went from there into just trying to get attention from my mother in a positive way. And I learned to do that by being good and doing things for other people, which I think was wonderful. And I'll never want to get rid of that. However, I think that morphed into something a little more serious once I started to get older and had no sense of identity.

And then that behavior, I think led me to picking up alcohol myself and abusing that terribly for, from the ages of 17 until 47, I believe I'll be six years sober this year. So.

That's just a nutshell of it. I won't get into the divorce part and all that just yet, but I'll leave it there for now. Okay. Divorce from your wife? Yep. So together for 14 years, married for seven of those. Two stepdaughters who I met when they were three and four years old. And prior to meeting them, I never thought I was going to have children in my life or wanted to based off, I think, my upbringing.

but the moment i met them i was completely in love with them and they changed my life in ways i can't explain and i helped to raise them until they were 16 and 18. marriage came to a horrific end we both drank at the time i had just quit drinking for a year and some of the behaviors that i had tolerated because i just wanted to

I didn't feel like I deserved to have a voice or didn't want to stand up for myself ever. So I just allowed life to go. And my whole focus was just the girls and my dogs in that life. And then when that ended, you know, my ex-wife, she decided that since I finally made that decision for myself, that she was going to find a way to get back at me, which I feel she did when she severed my relationship with my girls. And now it's going on forever.

almost 10 years since I've talked to them. And yeah, you said it, I might open up with this and this certainly will get me every time. Well, just, yeah, take a breath there and just say what's happening inside. So that leaves me not having them in my life. I just feel frozen. I've been able to stop drinking. I've been able to help my siblings with my brother when he was battling his alcoholism and then finally passing away from it.

and be there for them and be a good worker, have a great job, have a great life, have a wonderful fiance and her family, amazing. But with all of that, I just still, I feel stuck inside because that part of me, my girls are not here and I battle that. I'm just going to pause there one more time and then I'm going to take you in a different direction. Okay. Sure. So we won't linger here for too long, but take one more breath.

And just tune in to what's happening inside of you and just say what's happening. As you share all that, which is a lot, again, you just gave me a lot of, it's a lot of pain. So just say what's happening inside of you. Just stay with it for a moment. What's happening inside me is fighting back the emotions that I think I've held back forever. It feels like they want to blow up and I want to let them out.

They will seep out and then I pull them back in, not willingly, it just sort of happens. But I feel a lot of fear inside, a lot of shame. Fear about what? Like if I let myself feel all this? What else that will bring out? Will that weaken me? Will that lead me to a different path? Yeah, not being strong and succumbing to that. And the shame right now is just stronger.

So like I've let my girls down. Even though there's nothing I can do, I've tried to contact them for 10 years. Okay. Say more about letting them down. What do you mean by that? Always being there for them growing up, being at work from home. So I was home a lot. Their mother worked nights at a hospital. So I was

daycare, pickup, aftercare, field trips, homework, dinners, you know, showers, reading, all that stuff all the way through to teenage years, teaching them how to drive and all that and protecting them and trying to teach them how to be good humans basically. And then when I went, when I was gone, someone from

that town had written to me just because I was still friends with them and they told me they feel like the rudder had fallen off the ship when I left and left them on some bad paths. And I know they're on great paths now and I know they're doing well. I've just been, that's been shared with me, but it's still, I feel shame around something I can't control now that I say it out loud, but yeah. I mean, that is the unique thing about shame is that it's usually

passed into us. It's usually given to us and it's oftentimes not ours. We get past shame from mom or dad or circumstances, stories that tell us that we should be able to control the uncontrollable. And one of the things that I think you wrote in the stuff that I had everybody fill out was that you said, these challenges have led me to be afraid of who I truly am.

And that kind of hit me and I was wondering if you could just say a little bit more about that because I think that's kind of at the core of what we're talking about. I feel that this is hard to communicate who I truly am as someone who was out here with a kind soul, a kind heart. Take your time. Let yourself actually feel it. Yeah. If you break down, it's okay. Let yourself genuinely feel it because it's what you're talking about as a part of who you actually are. Yeah.

It's hard to say because I battle myself with it. You know, there's an internal argument with it. I feel I am a really good person and I do a lot of good for others and for myself. But deep down I have a dislike for myself because of the mistakes I've made, some of the bad choices I've made in life and not letting go of that is really hard. I'm going to just make a statement, make a little guess around something and you feel into how true it feels for you. Please. Okay.

you said these challenges have led me to be truly to be afraid of who i truly am and when i hear your story what i hear is that a big part of who you truly are is someone who has a tremendous amount of grief tremendous amount of grief just a lot and i don't get the sense that that's actually ever had a place in the world or in yourself fully never no i mean man if i had gone through what you've gone through i i would

I don't know. I don't even know. I was just talking to my fiance about this and said, you know, she's always supporting and trying to get me to feel these things. I realized I hadn't processed, you know, the death of my father when he was 19, when I was 19, to my mother, who was the head of our household, to burying my brother, my big brother, to the loss of my girls. So. It sounds like they were just the final straw, you know?

and your system kind of shut down, that freeze response is, I mean, that makes a lot of sense, man. When we have that much grief in our life that's unprocessed and sort of unfelt, and it's not that you haven't felt it, it's that it sounds like it's been very, very present, but you haven't really allowed yourself to go into it. That's 100% correct. So that causes us to freeze. That'll cause our system to shut down. And

you know obviously i mean i want to just say the obvious thing which is oh i'm going to say two obvious things first i'm going to say just good job man thank you brother you're here geez yeah geez like you're still standing you're in another relationship

you know I mean kudos to you for continuing to keep your heart as open as you could to continue to try and love and to be to be there I'm sure it's not perfect at times but like good work thank you that's a lot of grief and it's a lot of tragedy and it's a lot of pain I forgot what the other one is now so I'm gonna keep going down this dog again oh yeah there it is there it is

I think the other obvious thing is these calls are quite short. It's 15, 20 minutes. And I don't pretend that these are going to solve all life problems. What do you mean? Yeah, right? 15 minutes for salvation. Why am I here? Yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. I'd say we should be like a joke, like a running joke around it, like 15 minutes for salvation. I'm sure there's somebody out there that's promising that. I'm sure. But what I want to do is try and give you some direction, okay?

Is that all right? Yeah, I would love that.

My really strong encouragement is that you find spaces and places where you can let that grief roll because it's going to be very hard to unfreeze until that happens. You have suggestions around things like that because I've tried a lot. Well, yes, absolutely. There's a great book by Francis Weller called The Wild Edges of Sorrow that might give you some insight.

i would encourage you to come out to a men's weekend that i run i think very quickly we could get into that and i feel very comfortable with working you you know with you on that and there's good people there i also run a longer thing

I feel like I'm self-promoting, but I just, I want, it's okay. Let me back up. I want to help support you. I want to help support you. There's another program called the MSLP that I think might be good for you. But you could also look at Francis Weller. He does phenomenal work. He does grief rituals and grief circles. Oh.

So that could be good. And then the other guy's name, David Kessler, is another man. He does a lot of stuff on grief as well. And so those are just some resources that you can look into. You're going to have to find a space where you're comfortable with... Yeah, let me frame it this way. A lot of men don't let their grief out because they're worried about exactly what you said at the very beginning, which is sort of twofold. One,

Who will I become if I let this out? Am I going to get swallowed by it? Will I ever come out? It's so deep. It's so intense. It's so much. I don't know if I'll ever come out the other side of it. So a lot of men are afraid to go into the depth of their pain and their grief simply because they're like, man, that feels so intense. I don't know if I'd survive that. And I want to tell you that if you're held by the right container and the right people, you absolutely will.

And you will come out more vibrant and more full because of it.

Grief is such an essential part of our existence that we've stripped out the spaces and places from our culture where we would normally go to do what you're saying. The second thing is a lot of men don't let their grief out because of the other part of what you said, which is no one will know how to guide me in that because it's intense. And so I would just say that in your journey,

Whether it's me or somebody else, find somebody that you feel really comfortable with in guiding you in that because what you're talking about is big. Okay. So follow up with me and let me, I'm going to give you a bit of a, an odd, it's not a challenge. It's just more of an invitation to close this off. Okay. In the next 72 hours, there's going to come a moment

I promise you, because of what we just touched on, I could feel it right there. Like if I, if we had an hour, we could have just taken five minutes and gone straight into the grief. Okay. It was just, you were so there and I'm proud of you for doing that. In the next 72 hours, you are going to feel that same pull. It's going to be right here. It's going to come right up again. And I just want you to see if you can let yourself bring some of it out.

not a trickle but like let it out a little bit more it's there right now so I when you went like this I literally felt it right there and bonus points for bonus points for having somebody witness it somebody that you trust maybe it's your fiance I mean hell no I was gonna say I was gonna say you could you can you can record me a video but I just got visions of like you know TikTok and Instagram

you know people that are like crying in front of their cameras and i was like no that's not that's not me that's not good for scott no that's not me at all my friend just park in your car set up your whole contraption yeah no let the yeah no um but grief does need to be witnessed

And I think you have a lot of unwitnessed grief. And I mean, it's amazing that you are even who you are and done what you've done with all of that grief in tow. So it's a real honor to know you, man. Thank you very much. I appreciate your words and everything you just said. It went straight to the core. I know you said you wish you had five minutes more, but I felt that. I think it's just having you acknowledging that is powerful.

well dm me hit like i respond to stuff on instagram or you can email me you can always email the team from my email directly and and then just let me know follow up with me in a couple days let me know how this went that way you're able to to just heed the heed the call and the invitation to the grief and then the alliance as well so i could always ping you in there as well hit me up there all right thank you you got it thank you so much

All right. Welcome to the show. How are you doing, my friend? I'm doing good. Thanks for having me. Good. I won't ask the obvious question that I already did. So with that in mind, maybe tell me a little bit about what you're hoping to get from this conversation. Is there a specific question that you have or something that you're trying to work on and get into? I'm trying to work on more internal validation versus external validation, trying to connect more with people rather than impress and seeking that kind of validation from them and

and the wrong words or the wrong terms. - Okay, so would you say that you seek validation in the wrong ways? - Yeah, I think it's more or less I seek it because I feel like I need it rather than validating myself for who I am and what I've accomplished. - Okay, tell me what that looks like. How do you seek validation from others? - Well, I try to impress people. Like I talk about myself a lot.

stories of things that I've done or things that I've, you know, recently accomplished and wait for that response of like, oh, that's amazing. That's great. You're doing awesome. Blah, blah, blah. Rather than just being happy with the accomplishments or things that I've done for myself and, and kind of connecting with the people that I'm talking to about what they've done and what they've accomplished, you know? Do you embellish? Yeah, I think I do. Absolutely. Yeah.

Can you tell that I've worked with some externally seeking validators in the past or have been one myself? Yeah. Okay. Do you find yourself seeking external validation from specific people or is it just everybody? I would say it's kind of specific. I wouldn't say it's necessarily...

Down to like one specific person, but definitely like people that I admire, authority figures, you know, like bosses also like in relationships, you know, that validation from my partner. What is validating yourself look like? Self-love, I guess. It's just understanding that, let me rephrase that, self-love in the way that

I can be validated knowing that I've done things that I'm proud of and that I can maintain my own sense and not have to have it from somebody else. And so just telling myself, you know, I actually took kind of one of your recommendations for one of your YouTube videos and I did a like validation journal where I validate myself for, and this is important because, and I've been doing that.

How's that going? It's actually pretty cool. I like it a lot. Yeah, it works well, right? Okay. Another question for you. Tell me, I don't know how to phrase this for you. Tell me who you found it impossible to either get validation and recognition from growing up or who told you you weren't good enough. Oh, that was my dad. A hundred percent. Yeah. He had a secondary business venture.

And that was the most important thing to him. I tried to follow in his footsteps of that business venture to try to gain approval and it didn't really pan out.

But I was trying and you know, I didn't really realize it at the time but it was definitely me trying to gain some sort of validation or approval of being enough for him. Okay, so you tried to follow in his footsteps. Yeah. Say a little bit more about your relationship with him. It was very like

bro relationship rather than father son so a lot more of just like hanging out like talking about just regular stuff rather than like actually like touching on anything like emotional that I didn't feel like there was very much emotional safety at all to be honest and if there was any emotions that came out they came out fierce and with a fire there was a lot of amped up emotion rather than just healthy talk about it

okay take a breath in take a breath take a breath you're good i'm good i'm good just take a nice deep inhale through the nose say what's happening in your body as you talk about your dad anxiety what else um kind of like sadness yeah what's the anxiousness about

- Just like remembering what it felt like, just like not feeling worthy, not feeling like I was enough and always constantly trying to gain that approval and never succeeding. Just, it doesn't feel great. - Okay, another breath. Now, I really just want you to slow everything down. Okay, my guess is that inside of you, if I could take myself and everybody listening,

and we could go into your mind and feel what it's like to be in your body, it would probably feel like things move pretty quickly. So just take another breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, and then say what the sadness is about. - Not feeling loved. - Well, say what it was like to not feel loved by somebody specifically that you were desperately trying to get loved by. And I'll just pause you there and just say one more thing.

That is the exact pattern that's unfolding inside of you still. So say what that was like with him. It's kind of hard to put into words for me, but just felt like almost like I didn't belong, like there was something wrong with me. And I didn't know what it was and nobody was going to help me find it. So I just kind of lost. Okay. What's happening inside of you as you say that? Well, let it affect you. Just let it hit you a little deeper.

I mean, I've been working a lot on self-soothing, so I'm trying to kind of just internally remind myself that none of that is actually true. None of what's actually true? That I'm not lost, that there is nothing wrong with me, and...

Yeah, just, you know, I understand that that's what I went through and that's where a lot of my internal hurt comes from, but it wasn't true. It wasn't true at the time and it's not true now. And it still affects me. It's definitely shaped who I am, but I can, you know, I'm working on reshaping that and healing that hurt. Is your dad still alive? What's your relationship like with him now?

Um, still pretty bro-y. He has come around to where he tries to be more emotionally involved and wants me to call him more and tell him about things that are going on in my life and how I'm doing mentally. And, um, I try, but his response is hurtful. Uh, I give him the benefit of the doubt. I know that he has a lot of hurts I've into and that there's things that he would need to heal in order to really be that

father figure that I wish that I had or that I could have had, but he's trying. I give him props for that. Have you ever expressed any direct anger or disappointment to him? Oh, absolutely. Okay. What's that usually sound like?

Um, me yelling, not healthy expression at all. Um, I've dialed that back. That was years ago when I used to do that, but, um, really, I don't really anymore. I don't really talk to him about it. It's, it's been discussed a few times and, you know, there's been some changes made, but I'm sure there's room for more growth there as well.

Hmm. Two more questions and then we'll see where this takes us. When was the last time you cried? Uh, Saturday. Okay. What was it about? I wasn't really sure. Um, I was feeling kind of sad, a little lack of motivation that picked up the guitar and just kind of started picking. And next thing I know, like, I don't know if it was the melody you decided to play or what, but I just,

Next thing I know, I'm crying blank. Nice. Okay. The other question was, tell me about the cross around your neck.

I went to Christian school a long, long time ago and definitely built a relationship with God and I've been trying to kind of reconnect with Him and find my faith again and you know just kind of in the building process still but I definitely believe in God and I definitely

I think that he has a plan for me and that there's more to my life than what I've experienced so far and that there's better things to come and that he's helping guide me there. What's that been like? Ups and downs.

Definitely, you know, I can see a lot more of things that are happening in my life and that rather than just like if it's something that pushes me towards something, like maybe it hurt me, but it caused me to, you know, dive into myself and self-reflect that there was a purpose for that. And there was a reason. And even though it might not have been a pleasant time in my life, that it had its purpose. Yeah. Okay.

If you can't tell by now, I'm doing a lot of evidence gathering.

And so I'm going to shift into a different gear now. A couple of things I think are important. All right. One is I want you to explore. I'm going to just give it an amalgamation of like, I'm going to give you some direction of things that you can do and take on. You don't have to do any of them. You choose whatever you want, right? This is just, you know, this is more of an exploration than anything else in a very short period of time. One, I would encourage you to explore the concept of grace.

both from a biblical sense and from a personal sense of what it looks like for you to be an embodiment of grace for yourself. When we grow up with a father who

is the archetype of a tyrant. What can happen to you as a boy is you start to believe that life itself is, anything that's wrong in life itself is somehow your responsibility. Other people are upset you did something wrong. Boss is angry because he got cut off in traffic and somehow it evokes an emotion inside of you like, shit, what did I do? Or how can I fix this? Or

everybody else's emotional state, well-being, and the world around you starts to take on the quality of you having something to do with it. And so the word for this is called omnipotence. So what starts to happen to young kids when they've experienced

a lot of hostility when they're very, very young. And I think part of the reason why you've had a hard time getting out from underneath this is actually that a lot of what you're dealing with is precognitive, pre-language. So I'm gonna tell you a little bit more about that part, okay?

And I'm going to first give you a little bit of a homework assignment. And you can go back and watch all this. You can grab everything that I've given you, right? You don't have to try and remember it right now. Please go back and watch some of this and just take it all in, okay? Because I know I'm kind of turning the fire hose on a little bit, okay? So just acknowledging that.

An assignment for you would really be about discussing what the first three years of your life, three and a half years of your life looked like with your father. What was happening in your household? What was going on with him? What was the marriage? Were they married, your dad and your mom at that time? Yeah, they got divorced when I was like five or six. Okay.

and really start to explore what happened in that time period. Because in the first couple of years of our life, there's some really important things that happen developmentally. And what can happen is that we can have events unfold that interrupt that development so that whenever something gets activated in us later on in life, we move back developmentally, back down the chain.

And for some men, what happens is that they're doing all this work and they're trying to change things and they're trying to fix things, but they can't really describe why they can't move through it. And it's like, it's always escaping them. It just seems like this shadow that's bigger than them, that's haunting them, that they'll never get out from underneath of. And it kind of feels a little hopeless. And I'm not saying that you sound like you're hopeless by any means. Okay. It sounds like you have some good direction.

However, it does sound like with this part of you that there's a sense of like, I don't know if I'll ever get out from underneath this. Is that right? Wouldn't disagree. Yeah. So precognitive and pre-verbal just means that some of the things that interrupted and caused this pain happened before you have memory of it. And I'm just going to give you two pieces of information and then we'll probably start to wrap this up, okay? Okay.

psychologically and developmentally from zero to 18, 18 months, that first period of life, we go through

our nervous system, our brain starts to wire towards whether or not our world is okay around us. So that's mom's nervous system, that's dad's nervous system. And we get a sense of like, is the world a safe place? Is my environment okay? Because as an infant at that age, there's not much difference. I have a five-month-old right now, six-month-old today, actually. And

for her, there's no difference between her internal system and her external environment. They're both the same thing. So lots of hostility outside feels like lots of hostility inside. Lots of loud yelling outside feels like a lot of tumultuousness inside. It's sort of the same thing, okay?

Then from 18 months to three years, and this is what I really want you to look into, is this different developmental stage of, am I okay? Am I all right? Or is there something wrong with me? And that's where I hear a lot of what you're talking about. A lot of what you're talking about, is there something wrong with me? And I would imagine that if I followed you around and could hear your thoughts, there's this constant stream of hypervigilance

of tuning in to how other people interact with you. Am I okay? Did I F that up? Are they judging me? You know, like all that type of commentary. Is that right? So that's usually pretty indicative that something happened in that period that was really jarring for you. Now, I'm not saying that it's like some big trauma. It might just, I mean, just, I say just very loosely, okay? It might just be,

that your father's anger was quite robust during that period of time. And it's very common because children are omnipotent. They don't know any better. They think that at that age, from 18 months to three years, they literally think that everything that happens outside of them is a reflection of them. So when you're in that developmental stage, what you're questioning is, am I okay?

Dad's mad. What did I do wrong? Dad's yelling again. What did I do wrong? Right? Mom's crying. What did I do wrong? They're fighting. What did I do wrong? What's wrong with me?

So if you were in an environment and if your parents got divorced when you were five, I would imagine that when you were two and a half, three years old, probably wasn't great at home. So my guess is that you took on a lot of what was happening in your home environment to mean that there was something wrong with you and that you were at fault for the yelling and the arguing and the dysfunction. I can see that.

So a couple of things that I, last thing I'm going to give you is I really want you to start to separate personhood from behavior and what that means. And this is sort of very indicative of shame, right? Guilt says I did something wrong. Shame says I am wrong. And how we start to end that

cycle is by starting to realize that I can do something bad or wrong and not be bad or wrong. I'm a good person who did some bad things and you are a good person who has done some bad things and that's okay. That's all right. Does that make sense? That does make sense. So I want you to practice that in real time, but I also want you to start to journal and go back

and look at some of the choices that you've made and just look at them and say, okay, that was bad, that was wrong. And that does not mean I'm a bad person. I'm a good person who did a bad thing. And here's the lesson that I learned. So you have to kind of extract the gifts and the lessons from those behaviors

so that you can carry them forward into the present. Okay? Okay. Any final thoughts, comments, questions, snide remarks, as my old singing teacher used to say? I just can't wait for my parents to see this.

I'm sure they'll have questions for me. Yeah, they'll be like, what are you talking about? But spend some time actually with your parents and ask them about what the first three, four years of your life was like, what was going on in the household, what were things like for you? I think it'll actually open up some good communication with them. Yeah, and it's not about blame. I want to make that super clear. It's not that you were wrong or they were wrong, they're bad, you're bad. It's not about that at all.

It's just that the way that attachment works and the way that our brain wires and our nervous system wires in early life is very specific. And we're learning a lot about that in neuroscience and neurobiology in the last 10 years. And so our home environment has, in those first three years, a really big impact on us. Now, it doesn't mean that you're stuck like that.

So you're a good person that did some bad things and some wrong things. And there's one more thing there, hold on. Yeah, and I think there's also, I want you to go and grab, do you have a copy of my book? That's okay. If you want, go grab a copy of the book and there's a section around fathering yourself. That three-year-old boy inside of you is still very active.

that is questioning, am I okay? And it's very, very deep. It's not even really like a conscious thought. It's more of a nervous system response that happens first. It's like, it's a body up response. So your body first sends, like sets off the alarm bells of, oh shit, like, am I okay? Is something wrong with me? Am I all right? And then the mind starts to chatter afterwards. So just know that when that starts to happen,

You need to breathe. That's why I got you to breathe and slow down and just practice that as often as you can. And just take some deep breaths throughout the day. Set an alarm if you need to, you know, 10, 15 times a day, have it go off, take three to five deep inhales through the nose, longer exhales through the mouth. And you might even want to just create like a little saying for yourself, like, I'm okay. I'm okay. Nothing like nothing wrong with me. I'm all right.

you know or you might even want to take that opportunity to speak to that three-year-old kid like you're good buddy you know you're okay you're doing a good job all right i've been doing that actually good good i do this with my boy all the time even after he's acted out i'm like when i say my boy i mean i have a four-year-old son almost and so i practice with with him you know it's like you're you're a good boy you're okay you're good

because I can see it in him. He likes to make himself wrong as we all do, right? It's like, oh, I did something wrong. It's like, no, you're three. You don't know the world at all. So anyway, thank you very much. Follow up with me. Don't hesitate to DM me or send an email and let me know how this is all going. And if you have any follow-up, okay? Will do. Thanks, Gar. Awesome, brother. Thank you so much.

All right, sir. How you doing? I'm doing well, Connor. How you doing? I'm good, man. How are you feeling about entering into the lion's den? Yeah, definitely nervous. But, you know, haven't formally done any kind of podcast situation like this before. So, you know, excited, but a little nervous as well. Yeah, I mean, this is definitely a different type of podcast, right? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Definitely the context, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, tell me what brings you to my doorstep today. What caused you or called you to sign up to talk? Is there a specific question or challenge that you're facing that you want to get into? So what brought me to actually seeing your content and start following you was just kind of a realization of things that I was denying that affected me growing up in my childhood.

and also kind of like attachment styles that I was looking into after a few recent events that kind of triggered a lot of kind of suppressed emotions, I would say. Like a breakup or? That was one. Yeah. A long-term breakup was one thing. And also before that, my father passed away.

um as well early 2024 so it'll be almost two two weeks it'll be the one year anniversary of that and then also the um a few months after that uh me and my girlfriend who were together for about six years uh our relationship ended so those events is what triggered a lot of

me having to face kind of really hard stuff. And it's been one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life is just, you know, facing what in your book that I've started reading, you call the shadow, I think.

So yeah. You had mentioned in the intake that you have been having to admit to yourself that stuff from your childhood has affected you more than you wanted to believe or admit. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah. So I think one big thing was my father not being present.

in my life for a majority of the time. He was always a very good person and a lot of people liked him, but he just simply wasn't around. And he ended up marrying somebody else that wasn't my mom and had a family or had stepchildren and had a family there. So I think for a long time I would tell myself...

it's fine it's what it's not that bad it's not affecting me um until and I kind of forgave him for not being around uh when in my early 20s I was like you know he's not gonna come around and be the person I wanted to be so for me I need to forgive him and then after he passed though I just couldn't

deny that it affected me as much as I was denying it was. You mentioned being emotionally distant from people in your life. Tell me a little bit more about that. Yeah. Again, that's just one thing that I was denying that affected me. But I think not having a father figure or feeling like I could have anybody I could rely on

emotionally growing up, I think made me kind of feel like I couldn't reach out to people to talk about things that I'm going through. So I think that kind of led me to be

Distance in friendships as in not telling people things that I might have been feeling. Friends, family, and in relationships. Basically, it didn't matter how I'm feeling or that I maybe had to be the strong person so that somebody else could come to me and not feel like I'm in a weak place like that.

Got it. Why couldn't you rely on mom growing up? So when I was, again, this, I don't have a whole, I have some memory, but when I was really young, my mom went to prison for three years when I was three years old. And then me and my siblings, we had to move in with some family friends.

Again, I don't have a lot of memory from that. And then when she got out, she came, she got us, um, she got us back and she, she was doing well for the most part, but why'd she go to prison? Um, drug related charges. And then, you know, when, once we got out, she had her boyfriend at the time was an alcoholic. He was a severe, uh, severe alcoholic functioning, you know, functioning, but

severe he wasn't he wasn't necessarily mean or anything but he wasn't like a supportive emotionally but she was busy you know she had four kids my siblings me my two brothers uh my sister so um and i'm the youngest out of the four so you know she did the best that she could i think um

with what she had once, you know, once she got out, her priority was taking care of us. So she was working two jobs a lot of times, just not around the whole lot. And then she ended up, she was sober for a little while, but then she ended up relapsing when I was in about sixth grade through junior high. So that was, yeah, that was really hard on me too. Um,

Yeah, so those were some big reasons why I couldn't rely on mom growing up. Well, relationships don't sound like they've been very safe or trustworthy in your life. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, relationships have been typically, I think a lot of times have led to

a lot of people kind of just not showing up for me in the ways that I maybe needed to say the least yet. - Yeah, I mean, it's a very clear, like when people let themselves down, they also let

us down, especially when we're children. And I'm curious about, just in a few words, like in a sentence or two, what would you say was the main challenge in your long-term relationship? Yeah, that's a good question. That's a tough one. I might need a second on that. But

I think for me, yeah, just kind of fully putting everything that I could into it. Like opening up, being vulnerable.

and the challenge of feeling worthy as well, feeling like I'm worthy of somebody loving me, I think. - Well, it's also, I mean, I think I would imagine that that's probably on the surface, but I think if we scratched a little deeper, my guess is that there's probably a very deep unconscious fear of relationships

because they're a threat. I mean, you have a pretty consistent history of relationships being unsafe and there's some, I don't want to use like therapy speak, but there's some very real abandonment that's very present in your life. Can you just do one quick thing for me? Oh, yeah. Okay, just try something. So just take a deep breath in through the nose and exhale out the mouth.

and then exhale good and just do that two more times and exhale and soften the eyebrows and last one and just say what happens as you do that yeah definitely start to relax a little bit more yeah hold on hold on before you say anything take another one and exhale and then just say what it's been like for you to share your story to share everything that you just shared

Um, yeah, it's feeling, you know, a little tightness in my chest and, um, it's hard. Yeah. It's, uh, yeah. Stressful. It's a, yeah. Stressful. Um, what's stressful? Say what's stressful about it. Just saying everything, but my, I have, again, I've thought about

I've had this reaction before, but you know, yeah, internally I'm, I'm like, what are you doing? You know what? Don't say anything, you know, don't. Yeah. It's, it's kind of unconscious, but I can, again, I've been trying to work on, on this for the last, it's, it's only been like a few months, so I'm still, uh, kind of a white belt you would say at this. Um, I, yeah. Um, I use that

well just just so you know i follow the the oh it's escaping me there's a specific brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor and team where they make their students stay white belts no matter what for three years so i follow that principle yeah no that's great well yeah i've been doing brazilian jiu-jitsu for quite uh about 11 years now so nice beauty but but yeah it's stressful for sure um yeah definitely

Fear of abandonment, I think, like in my relationship, kind of thinking, you know, what's the point if you're just going to leave me? You know, like everybody's left me kind of or everybody's disappointed me. So what's the point of giving all that I can? Yeah, well, that sounds very true. And that sounds very sad. Yeah, I try to be positive, but...

uh-huh well okay okay well but let's not let's not bypass what it actually is yeah right let's not bypass it yeah it is that because i think you know i have my son is almost four and you know when if your mom went to prison when you were three your father wasn't around you spent three years with it sounded like a family friend is that right um it was a yeah we got it was a family friend that lived in georgia and yeah

So you got relocated? Yeah, I got relocated and they, yeah, let's just say they weren't great caregivers to say the least as well. They were, you know, not so much to me, as much to me, I don't think, but they were, you know, they were physically abusive. They would hit us and just weren't, yeah, they just weren't nice people. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's a lot. Yeah.

that's just a lot and i think if i i mean it would just if my son went through that it'd be heartbreaking heartbreaking and i really just want you to know that as a father my heart breaks for you as a son who didn't have a father that showed up to protect him from that level of hardship and that you deserve that like you really deserved to have been protected yeah

Thank you. I really appreciate that. It does mean a lot. - So just stay with the first second, take a breath, and just let it affect you. You deserve to be protected and loved. Say what happens inside, 'cause I can tell it hits you, but I can also tell there's a little bit of a battle. - Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, same thing, just that kinda tightness in the chest, getting a little warm.

And yeah, a little shaky as well. So another inhale and these 15 minutes conversations. I'm like, this is not what I thought it was going to be for sure. I definitely thought it was like, oh, I'll do a call-in show and people ask questions. Yeah, I can only imagine. Okay, here's what we're going to do, my friend. Okay?

I want you to know a couple of things. I'm just going to say a couple of things to you and I'm going to give you a couple of things. One, I don't pity you. I don't pity you. I really want you to know that because I think sometimes men can go through a lot of hardship and they've stopped themselves from really feeling the depth of their sadness and grief for what they went through because they don't want other people's pity to

piled on top of the pain that they're already carrying. So I want you to know, I do not pity you. I feel very heartbroken for what you went through as a boy. That, I mean, it's terrible. It's devastating. Okay. The second thing I want you to know is I get why you've been emotionally distant. Holy shit. Fucking yeah. I mean,

If anything makes sense, it's that you would emotionally distance yourself from other people. That is the most logical thing to do with the amount of hardship that you've been through in relationship. That makes total sense. You've done a beautiful job protecting yourself. I bet you are such a good human being. You seem like such a nice guy with a good heart and

I think you've really done an incredible job protecting yourself from the hardship that you went through. I mean, the fact that you are not in a worse way is phenomenal. Yeah, honestly, I...

i am very grateful for that as well i know yeah i'm very grateful that i was able to luckily find fitness um jiu-jitsu you know i'm a fitness instructor now um you know i've been doing jiu-jitsu and uh you know not you know i i've you know had my yeah have my but

but I'm, you know, never got into heavy drugs or alcoholism. I drink once in a while with friends, but nothing off the rails. And I couldn't be more thankful for that because a lot of people around me, you know, family included, you know, turn to drugs and alcohol. And that's one thing.

Yeah, I'm very thankful. Well done. Well done to that. Okay. I know there's more to your story that adds to it, but I just really wanted to acknowledge that. Okay. I get why you've emotionally distanced yourself. It's not a hall pass. I'm not saying you're off the hook. Now you have the opportunity to start to develop that emotional closeness. I think a couple of things. One, your emotional avoidance is a protective strategy.

Okay. It's actually a self-protection strategy. And so for you, what's going to be challenging moving forward, just that you know exactly what's going to happen, is the closer you get to someone, the more intimate that you feel with them, what's likely going to unfold for the first little while is that you are going to feel a threat response. Yeah. Okay. You're going to feel a threat response. It's like, it's going to feel like this is dangerous.

this doesn't feel like something I want to do. And you are going to have to work against that natural automatic response mechanism in your body that is telling you that relationship and intimacy is dangerous. And I would really encourage you to, are you, you're single now? - Yes, yes. - When you start dating, I would encourage you to prioritize safety.

And it might sound boring. It might feel boring at first. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But what I would encourage you to prioritize for a little while is finding people to date that you feel very safe with and that you can begin to develop and repair yourself.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. The same thing is true with developing safety and relationship. And so I would encourage you to do a couple of things. One, I would encourage you to find a very good men's group. Okay. You could join the Alliance. There's other ones out there that I can recommend to you. Like Everyman, they're good. The Nation, I mean, there's a bunch of them. So if you want a recommendation, DM me, or you can join the Mantox Alliance that we have. There's like 800 guys in there. And

I would encourage you to join that with the intention of starting to develop safety with other men and safety in relationship. My mentor has a saying, which is we're wounded in relationship and we have to heal in relationship.

And so a lot of your healing is going to be done in tandem with other people. Yeah. Okay. So try and find a really good men's group that can be a part of when you start to date, date for safety. And that will help you get a sense of like, oh, I can open up. I can be real. I can say how I feel about things. I can be honest that like, no, I don't want to go to that stupid dinner party or whatever it is. I can be honest about these things and my needs.

and that I don't have to withdraw in order to just be in this relationship. - Yeah, definitely. That makes sense. - Okay, final thoughts, comments, questions. Do you have any questions for me? You're like, "I have a book full." - Yeah, I wish I wasn't blanking out at the moment.

That's okay. You're good. DM me, message me if you have questions. Yeah. I think the, yeah, the men's group would be a great idea. Maybe when I am feeling that kind of, is there any steps you might take if I'm talking to somebody and I'm like, uh, you know, this is too safe for me. Uh, because I definitely, I've gone one day or like you,

you maybe like yeah one date with this person and kind of already felt that kind of this person seems a little too stable like why I don't know yeah and I know that's anyways I know that's no no you're good I really appreciate the honesty lean into it

And if anything, be candid. I mean, maybe tell them. Like, you know, go on another date and maybe not on the second date, but like at some point say like, this feels uncomfortably safe for me. And just be open about it and be like, this is actually foreign for me. You know, part of building really deep intimacy is that we start to reveal the hidden parts of ourself that other people don't know about.

That's the trick. And it's also the threat of intimacy, is that you start to reveal the parts of yourself that are hidden, that other people don't know, and that you are sort of sometimes afraid to reveal. And that's really at the core of love, is that we're fully known. Our psyche, our hearts, our soul, our body, we want to be fully known. But that's been...

unsafe so call it out you know and maybe it's not with this person maybe it's a different person but you know use your discretion and your discernment of that but call it out okay all right buddy we're gonna have to pause there thank you so much for joining me this was a real treat i appreciate you and uh don't don't hesitate to reach out okay i really appreciate you and all your work has um definitely been helping me a lot so keep up the good fight man appreciate it thank you sir thank you

All right, my friend. Welcome. How are you doing today? I'm really good, Connor. I'm relishing this opportunity to speak to you, to be honest. Likewise. Likewise. It's a pleasure to connect with you. And you've won automatic points in my book because you're wearing a Honda shirt. Not a Yamaha, not a Suzuki. I used to ride a Honda. My sport bike was a Honda VTR 1000. Nice. And yeah, 98. It was a V-twin, you know, dual exhaust, canary yellow. Yeah.

Loud as all hell because I tweaked and modified it. But anyway, neither here nor there. Tell me a little bit about why you are here, what question you wanted to dig into, or what challenge you wanted to address. So why I'm here is because about a year ago, just over, I sort of really got into my sort of self-help journey. I started to gain more of a curiosity to learn about

myself and reasons why am I feeling this way or reason why I've got this pattern of behavior. And I came across your content and I find your content very good to be honest, very helpful, particularly because I don't have that many male role models in my life, to be honest with you. And a lot of stuff out there is obviously quite toxic, quite chauvinistic and not really the sort of idea of masculinity I wanted to, I want to subscribe to.

with a lot of your content and a lot of other content that I consume, I guess would be the word,

I find it can be, well, two things. First of all, quite overwhelming. And I don't mean overwhelming in terms of emotionally overwhelming. Obviously there is that side, but I mean in terms of just there's so much to digest and you're thinking, okay, what does this specifically apply to? And then I also, because there's so much information, I can find it can sometimes seem quite contradicting, contradicted, depending on a situation. So

Yeah, I can give you a couple of examples if that might help. So you talked about one of your episodes quite a while ago, you talked about not shaming yourself for, well, just generally, but also you use specifically, I think, porn and weed as examples of if you're trying to quit that and you're doing well and then you go back into it, don't shame yourself. Don't just, oh, I can't do that. Just accept it for what it is and move on. And that really helped. But then what I found was

I was kind of using that as almost like a license to do it because it's like, you know, it's not actually that bad because I saw I would just start again tomorrow sort of thing.

So the approach there you might think is, okay, well, you've got to actually be a bit more tough on yourself, be a bit more disciplined there. But then also I have a lot of financial issues. So I've been trying for years to try and work and, you know, try and sort my financial issues out, which often means I'm quite burnt out. And then a lot of what you said, and you said it in, I think, one of your episodes recently, you know, stop things to, you know, stop doing 2025. It's stop working so much, stop burning yourself out so much.

And it's like, well, in that situation, I don't really have a choice. Like I have to work, but there is financial realities that I have to do. So it's like, at what point do you, and I know those are two specific different examples I've just given you.

But this is what I'm talking about. It's like the self-leadership of where do you pick this in this situation and where do you pick this in this situation? How do you know when to dive more into that? How do you know when to pull back more into that? I know that's a lot of stuff I've just thrown at you and I hope I've communicated that well, but it's just the sort of general confusion of, you know, in this specific situation, what is the best thing to do? Well, that's the question I think we're all asking. And there really isn't

A perfect answer. How old are you? 26, like it is math. Yeah, amazing. I mean, you're very articulate. The fact that you're looking at these things right now in life is amazing. I hope my son at 26 is as articulate and kind and funny, charismatic as you are.

And it's really interesting to hear you asking these types of questions. You're actually, on the surface, I think it probably sounds like you're asking a simple question, which is how do I make the right choice? But I think you're actually asking a much deeper question, which is how do I live the duality of life? And that's a very big question. And

Because in part, what you're asking is, how do I live in a way that is compassionate towards myself, but still firm and disciplined? And that's no small task, right? That's a really, I mean, people spend their entire life trying to figure that out. And so just know that what you've sunk your teeth into is something quite meaningful. In my books, it might not be to other people. But for me, this was really a big...

A big question. It was something that I grappled with for years. How do I live the duality of existence? How do I live with compassion and not beat the living crap out of myself for watching porn again or smoking weed or drinking or texting that woman that I know I don't want to text? How do I have compassion for myself for those actions while still being firm and disciplined

and not fall into the kind of shame-oriented punishment that I had used before. Does that make sense? I'm just going to pause there. How is that hitting for you? Yeah, it's good because I know I have a tendency as well because of certain childhood traumas and things like that and I

I was working with a therapist for quite a while. I've had to stop because I can't afford it. But, and what we worked out with him and I specifically picked him, I specifically requested for a male therapist as well, which I thought was important. But what I worked out with him is I have a sense that I'm kind of not necessarily being left behind in life, but not achieving what I want to achieve. Right? So, and I've worked this out with, because of my childhood and because of certain other situations.

The way I've quote unquote survived that is being always searching for the next thing, always searching for, and it is like the grass is greener on the other side sort of mentality.

But what I find that can be quite, although that gives you hope and drive to achieve and go and do things, it also means you're never sat aside in your current situation. And I found that particularly in relationship as well, that I find I've had relationship difficulties, obviously aside from all the attachment starts and all that, which is again, this is another thing I was talking to you about just before we came on is that there's, once you start to scratch the surface of this stuff,

you realize that there's a whole there's a whole world out there right there's a whole and it can be hard to to sort of pinpoint exactly what to give credence to in that moment because you can get just overwhelmed with so much but pick relationships for example if you have a conflict in a relationship you say okay is this my attachment style is this her attachment style and

Is this just a general thing? And you can sort of just overanalyze everything to the point where nothing ever gets done. And you just sort of sit around, you know, cuddling yourself in a ball in the corner, not doing anything. And that's obviously not helpful either. So yeah, it's, I guess it is a much bigger question than perhaps I realized asking, but it's, I guess it's self leadership is what we're talking about, is knowing what to do in that situation. Well, let me

Let me just piece together where I want to move here with you. I think you're pointing at something that a lot of men struggle with, which is overconsuming and overanalyzing. And it is so common that when I see this all the time, I did it myself, that when men have

some type of whatever we want to call it, awakening, self-reflective, jarring, some experience either externally or internally that causes them to start to look at themselves in a different way, in a more earnest, truthful, curious, exploratory manner. Especially if it's a lot of men come into it because something's happened outside of their life. They lost a job, their relationship has ended,

And the thing that they've been ignoring for a very long time, they now say, okay, I'm going to heed that call. I'm going to go on that adventure. And I'm not going to ignore it anymore. I'm going to start to figure out why do I feel this way? Why do I make these decisions? How come I keep going down this path of sabotage? Why do I hate myself so much? Why can I not stand who I am? And

It's very common that when men start this journey, and I don't know if it's the same for women, but I certainly see this as a really heavy pattern for men, is that we take that intensity that's living inside of us and we direct it at this exploration. It can lead to a ton of overconsumption and then overanalysis and take us out of the core of positive

part of the main lessons, which is developing, we'll just call it awareness.

Okay, awareness and presence. And it's an incredibly potent attribute that the world needs more of. And it's also incredibly challenging to cultivate and maintain, especially when we've had trauma. And I don't know what yours is or what you're talking about necessarily. Maybe we can illuminate that in a second. But over analysis is an escape hatch for presence.

Overanalysis is an escape hatch for presence and awareness. It's a way of ejecting from the truth of our current moment experience, emotionally, physically, whatever it is, environmentally, the circumstances that we're inhabiting. And so it's a protective strategy.

And so what I hear and what you're saying is that you have some really strong protective strategies that you deploy to help you not feel what's happening inside of you sometimes. Would you say that's accurate?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, as you say that, I can feel myself sort of almost like I've been found out, do you know what I mean? But what's interesting is it's not like I am intentionally doing that. It's not like I'm intentionally deploying these strategies. Correct. Like you just saying that to me now, I'm like, actually, I feel like there's a deeper consciousness in me that knows I'm doing that. But now you've just pointed that out to me. It's like, oh, actually, I am doing that. And it's like the first time I've realized I'm doing that. Good.

Yeah, because what you said about presence, I find quite interesting because I have had a sense for quite a while. I'm either living in the past or the future and not really, obviously I'm experiencing the present, but I'm not really there. Correct. So let me just say one thing about that, that I think will be helpful and it might be hard to hear. Okay. But it will be helpful, I think in the long run, which is that

Part of the impact of trauma is that it steals the present moment away from us, or it steals us away from the present moment. So part of this symptomology, I guess you could say, or the byproduct of the symptoms of having trauma is that we don't want to be in the present moment because at some point being in the present moment was brutal.

or it was dangerous, or it was threatening, or it was so overwhelming that we didn't know what to do with it, or it was terrifying, or whatever it was, right? Maybe it was sad, maybe whatever. And so part of the healing of that trauma is learning how to pull ourselves back into the present moment

and be with whatever is present, whatever is there happening inside of us. Because it's easier to eject. You know, there's different forms of it, right? There's sort of more extreme forms like disassociation. And then there's just, I don't say just because it's...

It's very hard to contend with sometimes. Then there's the overanalyzing, right? Getting caught in the ruminating thoughts that sort of grab a hold of us and pull us to the past or the future and keep us there.

And again, it's a protective strategy from what's happening in the moment. And so again, trauma both hinders and infringes on our capacity to be present because it feels hard and overwhelming and it can just feel hard to bear.

Now, I've worked with a lot of people who have very intense trauma and it's hard for them to bear being present in the moment. It's actually just a tax on them. It requires a tremendous amount of effort. And that is part of the work. It's part of the healing process is to bear whatever is there inside of your heart and your body and your mind that your brain and your psyche have said,

move away from that. That's a threat. Don't feel that. Don't think about it. Don't experience it. Get away from it. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. It does. But it's one thing understanding this is the other actually doing it. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Correct. So take a breath for me in through the nose and exhale at the mouth. And then just take two more of those just like that in through the nose out through the mouth.

Good. When you're ready, take your time. You can close your eyes if you want, or you can do it with your eyes open, whatever you're most comfortable with. Just make a statement about what's been happening inside of you as we've been having this conversation. What's been going on inside of you? A sense of fear, I'd say. Fear and...

Also, shame slash embarrassment slash feelings of inadequacy. Okay, so take another breath. And then again, when you're ready, say what you're afraid of. I guess never being able to

overcome the things that I'm avoiding or running from. Or what? What are you avoiding and running from? Just dealing with the trauma, dealing with the feelings, learning how to integrate that and just not being able to achieve what I want to achieve. Another breath. So my trauma is an obstacle to my future.

my trauma is an obstacle to my future self my potential my capacity yeah okay and i guess i'm i'm sort of i'm worried that i don't have the strength to actually overcome it well that is normal that is normal and so take another breath in stay with it for a second nothing for you to overcome only things that you need to learn how to be with

truths inside of you. Another breath. One of the main challenges in trauma is that it creates a situation where we experience something either repeatedly or in the moment that is overwhelming and feels like it's too much for us to handle. And my guess is that based on what you're telling me, that whatever happened to you was too much for you to handle in that moment.

I guess also there is resentment that I'm still being affected. Even though I'm not in that physical situation anymore, I'm still being affected by it, which makes me resentful that I had to experience that. Yeah. So another layer. I hate my trauma. Yeah. I hate this thing. I hate this feeling. I don't like it. I'm going to give you a frame and then

See if we do another little piece of work because I don't have a lot of details and information on what you're talking about. And I don't know for time's sake how deep down the rabbit hole I want to take you because I also want to be mindful of what you've experienced and not airing all that out because we didn't talk about whether or not we're going to talk about any of that. You came in with a very different question and I want to be respectful of that. But I'm going to give you some direction. Okay? Right now, the story is...

My trauma is my obstacle. So it's a wall and not a door. And what I would encourage you in terms of how you can start to frame it and start to view it and look at it is what if my trauma is the doorway and what lesson, gift, et cetera, can I extract from it or can I see in it? And that might be very challenging. And I'm not saying that you have to do that immediately.

I'm not even saying that a month from now you'll have anything, but to just see if you can view it as a doorway instead of a wall.

Because the wall is overwhelming. It's like, I always imagine, do you ever watch Game of Thrones? I always imagine trauma creating that ice wall, that 800 or 900 foot ice wall. It's like coming across that is going to feel overwhelming. But even in that ice wall, there was a door and there was an elevator and it led somewhere and you could get to the other side.

And tell me how that lands, in all honesty. Do you hear that and think, that's bullshit, I hate that, F you for telling me that, I don't want to have to find any gift in this giant flaming hot mess? The way that's managed for me is, I'm aware of, you know, as you know, the mantras, the obstacle is the way, and the shadow, you know, doing shadow work from...

how that holds the answers. And I sort of, I guess my trauma probably affects me and my whole being more than I think it does. Well, tell me how you think it affects you based on what you know. Self-esteem, I think, is quite low. And my belief to achieve things and also give myself credit for when I have achieved things. Nothing ever seems enough for me.

And I am stuck in that mindset of once I get to that point, then I'll be okay. But that point never comes. Sorry, what's that point? As in always hoping that the future situation will be better than my current situation. But then obviously things change and it's like trying to hold on to smoke. It's just always slipping through your fingers all the time.

So it is what I, and I think from this conversation, what I'm understanding is it's more is like you say, it's a, that always chasing after that point is a over, over analysis of, and is a coping mechanism. And it's that, that coping mechanism is easier for me to always be within that mode than it is to just sit with how I am and feel the feelings that are going on inside. Mm-hmm.

And because for many different reasons, but because it is, you know, it is frustrating. It is also very confronting and there's a lot of stuff going on, which is not, which I don't know what the answer is to it. And like you say, you do have, you can't keep running away from it. You do have to go into it. And I, and I have been doing, I do try and do that and I have made progress, but it's, it is like,

when's this going to end? Yeah. Okay. So take another breath from me. And was what you went through a single event or was it reoccurring? Okay. For a long period of time or? My entire childhood, basically. Okay. Yeah. Stay, stay, just stay with what you're feeling. I can see in your eyes that it's just right behind the surface. Like say what's happening inside of you. You just sort of touch on it. The way I feel it and the way it,

I've described it to my therapist before is it's almost like viewing something behind frosted glass. Sometimes it gets closer to the glass. It's like, let's say it's like, it's a light behind the glass, right? Sometimes it gets closer and it's brighter, but it's still a, it's still a bit, I can't quite make out what that is. And then when I try and sit with it, I'll try and think about it more. It's an involuntary process. It just gets pushed down again, I guess.

Are you talking about the details and the imagery of what happened or are you talking about the emotions and the experience of it? The emotions and the experience of it. Yeah. Okay. All right. So another breath. What is your perception of what would happen if you let yourself defog, defrost the glass and feel what you know is there? I'm just confusion. Why did that happen?

Why did that happen to me? But then in my adult self, I know why that happened. I know the logistics of the reasons why that happened. The unknown of, I always feel like I have to come up with an answer for everything.

I have to try and justify it within my head, come up with an answer. And I even did it then. And that was an involuntary thing that you're good, you know, and that's what you're talking about. The over analysis of the, the, of the coping mechanism, because I can't just sit with it and I can't just think about it because it's so, it's so, it's so unpleasant.

Well, that's the catch. I'm going to make a really important distinction because here's what I'm really talking about. I'm telling you and asking you and moving you towards not thinking about it.

Actually experiencing it, actually feeling it, not the trauma, not the events of what happened, but actually feeling the ripples and the waves and the effect that you've been left with because you have been thinking about it endlessly.

Of course you're afraid of actually feeling the impact of it. That's normal. That's okay. And I think when that fear bubbles up, you move back into analysis, trying to find the reason. Why? How come? Mostly irrelevant. So take another breath for me because what we're talking about

is pretty big. And I'm also mindful in this moment of moving you towards something without follow-up, okay? If we were working together right now in a session one-on-one, I know exactly where I'd take you. And I know exactly what it would look like.

I think you do too. I think you know exactly. We're like, we're right there. You know, it's like we're right on the edge. But I'm super, super mindful that I don't think that you've allowed yourself to move into what we're talking about in a way that has been held and contained in a proper way.

I think you've thought about it a lot, but it doesn't sound like you've let yourself feel about it a lot. I agree. This is the, this is the, I think the nub of it. And this is the problem is I cannot, I have not yet been able to actually allow myself to think that I know to, to feel that. Yeah, I, I agree. You're spot on. You're spot on. And when you decide to do that, things will start to shift. It will be brutal and it will be hard and it will not be easy. It'll probably be messy.

there'll probably be a ton of anger and a ton of grief and sadness.

Absolutely. And this is another common thing when we've experienced, and again, I'm working off of not knowing actually what happened, and that's okay. I don't need to know the details right now, okay? Very common response. I have some guesses around what you experienced, but very common response for people that have experienced trauma is to not let themselves fully feel the impact of it.

One, because it's, you know, it can be, I don't want to say terrifying, but for a lot of people, it's a lot of fear. What's going to happen? Will I be okay? Will it swallow me up? Will I cry forever? Will I ever come out of it? Will I live in depression forever? You know, will I just be effed up for the rest of my life? Those are the stories that happen. But the secondary thing, and this is the really important thing that I want you specifically to know,

is that when we've experienced trauma, oftentimes it's that we were put in a position of powerlessness to circumstances, to somebody, to anger, to hostility, to unwanted, you know, all kinds of stuff.

But we're put in a position of powerlessness where we have no say and we have no control. And what happens when what can not stop but hinder our healing with our trauma is that we begin to control not allowing ourselves to feel that as a means of regaining some power. So I was out of control when that happened, but I can control not feeling this shit.

that make sense yeah and so that's a very common obstacle that people face with the healing it's like well if i feel this then that person that did this to me will have won

Or if I let myself feel this, then what I went through will have been true or I'll have to feel the regret of not having done X, Y, and Z or whatever it is. And so we have to confront the being out of control there. How does that land for you? Yeah, it's a lot. It is a lot. Um,

Yeah, it is, I guess what, yeah, it's like what we talked about. It's the, well, not being able to, first of all, not being able to control it. And then if you do start to understand it a bit more, try and not necessarily justify it, but rationalize it in your head of all this. These are the reasons why that happened. But that rationalization is also in kind of, in a way, just taking back control of it because you are justifying it or you are understanding it more. You're, you're,

contextualizing it rather than feeling it. Yeah. And you have something working against you in the best way possible, which is that you're quite smart and you're quite quick. And that's a beautiful gift. And when we're dealing with something like this, our mind can become extremely adept and competent at compensating for

for feeling what's actually happening. It's using logic when you should use emotions. Yeah. It's ejecting from the truth of your experience. I'm just going to say that again in a different way

Because I really want the point of what I'm saying to land. Because this is super important and I think we'll probably wrap up here. Okay. And I'll give you some stuff for moving forward. When we experience trauma, our choice is taken. It's ripped from us. It's very, very common. Whether it's a car accident or abuse or whatever it is. It's often that we are put in a powerless position. We do not have choice. And what I'm saying to you is that you...

You have to be the one to choose to go into what you're feeling. I can guide you there. I could even get you there if I wanted to, but that would be improper of me as a practitioner. That would be wrong because part of your healing needs to be about you choosing to enter into a really hard experience. You went through a really hard experience, sounds like repeatedly, not by choice.

Part of the healing of our trauma is we choose to go into the real hardship of what we've been carrying around by our choice. And that's the reclamation. That's the healing of the trauma. I'm choosing to face this. I'm choosing to feel this. I'm choosing to deal with this. So far, it's been, I'm choosing to control and push this part down because it's frightening. And that is okay. No judgment, nothing wrong on that at all.

I'm simply telling you that the next step for you is to choose to move into it. And I would encourage you to choose to move into it with somebody. So my invitation for you is if you want to get into some of this stuff,

and you're okay with this format that you and I could work together for a few sessions like this. Definitely. Okay. If, and I don't have to be the person, I just want to make that super clear. And this might not be the right format. So that's just an invitation for you. Okay. Probably not the conversation you were expecting based off of your question. No, no, definitely not. But I think

this underpins my initial question anyway correct yes well done any final questions for me there's no final questions i can ask now that aren't asking things that we would have to delve into basically so can i just say something you're really doing a great job you're really doing a great job i don't again i don't have details or context for what you've gone through

but you really have your wits about you. And I can tell that whatever you went through was really challenging and really hurt you. And I don't know what that is. I'm sorry that those things happened to you, whatever they were. And I'm here to help you if I can. And if you want, I know I can.

but it's if you're comfortable with it. You have to find the person in the container that works for you, and that's part of the choosing. But I just want to reinforce, you're doing a great job. I didn't address my stuff like you are. I let my stuff drag me down into chaos. So well done. Well done. I was still a disaster at 26. Complete and utter. I think the term in the DSM-5 is shitshow.

i think that's that's like the clinical term that psychologists are using now but thank you so much for for joining me and chatting with me today and keep in touch reach out to me and let me know i can support okay thank you very much connor thank you sir

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