5 Things the Men in Your Life Aren’t Telling You but Need to Talk About
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Hey, it's red male, and welcome to the mall rows cast. Today i've got a special tweet for you and me. Ladies and gentleman, Christopher Robins has agreed to come on the show today.

No.

well, I gave you no choice. I'll be honest with that. I sort of twisted your arms into this because there is a very important thing that once you share that with me, I wanted you to share IT with everybody.

And I should just point out everybody that like a lot of our podcast episodes, we're just put arms around you and taking you on a walk with personal today. And what's happening on our walk is there's a construction project outside. So if you are some beeps, are some backing, you're just hear with us invert on a walk of, right, Chris?

Just another day and the beat beeps.

Yep, that's right. So I was talking to Chris this morning and I think a lot of you know the story about the restaurant businesses uh, tanking and our live savings going down the drink with IT. And after Chris left that business, you took a couple years to really figure out what you are going to do next with your life and to heal.

A lot of went down for you personally in the wake of that experience of launching a business, pouring your heart and soul into IT and then um is not working. And one of the things that you've done is you've started immense retreat called sold degree. It's a five day experience where you take men out into the woods and include yoga and journal and guided meditation and all kinds of coaching.

And so you've got one of your men's retreats coming up and you never ever talk about what happens at them. You come back and you're completely transformed. And I really respect the fact that you don't share anything because it's all confidential.

But I asked you this morning if you would just tell me like what are the themes that come up when you go and do a retreat with five men or your coaching your male clients? And you said there are five very distinct CT themes that all the men that you work with are struggling with. And when you told them to me, I was shocked and I said, everybody needs to hear this. So that's what I want to talk about. Okay.

yes.

So can we go through them? What are the five things that all the men that you know and the men that have been on your retreats and the men that you coach, what are they strugling with, but not telling the people on their life that they're .

struggling with? We were talking about this morning is just that a guys don't put themselves first. Everyone else comes first. Men have lost touch with their own wants and needs.

They struggle to even generate one men, or lonely, or friendless, or lacking the ability to or the confidence to generate friendship. There's an obligation to make money for everyone or be the provider, be the protector, whatever that entails. And men often do not feel good enough. And men are seeking a deeper, more meaningful life.

Well, that's a lot. That's on every guys mind. How about we dig deeper into these five things and take them one at a time?

So the first one, Chris, everyone else comes first. And that manifests or shows up often, at least with many of the men that i've engaged with, is them losing complete side of what they need or want for themselves just because their the muscle of looking out for themselves is completely lost. It's all about everyone else when .

you first share that in the kitchen this morning, I looked at you with, like, my eyes crossed, because I had never, in a million years, thought that a dude feels like everybody else comes first, because every woman that I know says that everybody in her life comes first. And so IT never even occurred to me that the guys walking around feel as though everybody else in the family, or with the roommates, or with their significant other, that they come before them.

I think they're putting what they perceived to be the needs of the people around them first, which means they're pouring themselves into work or we know other obligations, if you will. And you know, I have guys that have come on retreat and they haven't believe in conceived of a hobby, much less what's important to them. You also explain that .

you have this exercise that you do with your coaching clients and that you guys do on retreat that really illustrates what you're talking about. Can you explain that?

I've asked guys to take out a piece of paper and write down specifically what they want and need. And many just drop lank can fill the page.

nothing.

No, they actually have to step away from the exercise and even give me a day or two before they really feel like haven't really thought about that before.

That's a layer deeper that I think what most women struggle because I think at least the women that I talk to and my friends and listeners to the show that right in, you have a sense of what you need to do to put yourself first. You have a sense of what you want in terms of your own needs. And there's a longing for IT but to have an experience of life where you have so put everybody else before you that you don't even know or feel like your needs matter enough, you can't even put him on a pizza paper wow.

that's a lot. Yeah, it's IT is a tough to swallow. And with all do respect, I think that if you look at something as basic as a exercise, for example, you see a guy spending a good bit of time exercising.

That's not to say that he doesn't perceive that is being a need or a want of his, but there often times is still a layer of obligation. I got a good for my wife or my husband. There's a GTA hfa. And so i'm not sure that can always fall in the appropriate category of genuinely, what do I need to feel good about myself and my life?

What's the second one? I think .

people are um not sure if you'd say explicated they are lonely but there there many or friendless or have lost their way in developing friendships. The muscle has weakened as they have poured themselves into things like work and family and god forbid they running into health problems. I mean, all of these things started take precedent to cultivating real deep friendships.

And so particularly when you hit your forties, fifties, I think you really have to work extra hard at cultivating and building friendship. Maybe there are people in your life that have been around since middle school or high school or college, but outside of that, especially if fear somebody that's moving or changing jobs for that matter, they can be really disruptive and be a major road block. And then subsequent, just an excuse. And then nw, the sun, the guy wakes up and like, yeah, I don't really have a lot of friends around me wow.

what about the third saying that men struggle but they don't really talk about I was a .

cultural thing of course, that that man um naturally still follow that societal norm of needing to be the provider and the protector or an I want in the same and that whether .

they .

are generating the pressure upon themselves or it's coming from external forces. And I think it's probably a little bit of a mix of both. But the the sense of responsibility that the more money I make, the more security and freedom and happiness I can create among gs the people around me. And so therefore, let me go back to making money.

And is there also this pressure among guys that you measured up based on how much money you make? Like you, i'm saying, I don't know .

that ys influences by looking around or over their shoulder or whether it's all self created. You know that your own is your own expectation level. And that was the other thing that we talked about this morning was just.

I'm not good enough. I'm not living up. I'm not. I'm not reaching the goal, whatever that goal is well.

and I can see that if you feel this sense of obligation that everybody else comes first, so much so that you're not even in touch with your own needs and then you also have lost touch with your friends and now like my god, where my friends go, and then you start to feel this obligation to just make money. All those things become measuring sticks where you're like. I'm just not measuring up in any of these areas.

And what's interesting is that the fifth one that you said is how they ultimately end up with you as a coach or attending uh, a retreat or being part of your online community coaching programs that you do. And I think this is an important one for everybody to hear. This is a struggle and an interest that that a lot of guys aren't talking about.

And what is IT that men are seeking a deeper, more meaningful life, whatever that might mean for them. And even announcing that publicly, I think, is a little tRicky at times, not because guys are not willing to admit that once they arrive at IT, but I think IT takes some time to arrive at that like a yeah, there's something deeper that I want to go after that I haven't yet in my life. And like I said, that means something different to every guy out there.

Well, what's also interesting is that I think when you realize you want something deeper, IT probably set up a major conflict, because that would mean everybody else might not come first. And IT also means your focus shifts from merely providing and crying the latter and making money to something intrinsic and deeper that might not involve money at all.

Well you're right. Um IT definitely is a pendula swing to focusing on self which is like we talked about a weak muscle but um I can also imply that something is broken and needs fixing. They need to figure out that it's not about it's broken or you know something has to change. It's about my heart talking. My soul is talking here.

What's Normally talking for guy.

um had to solve the problem. How to make a work, had to lose the pound. I like had to get the girl had a, you know, what are my kids need? Um is the car need fixing? Like the list is long.

So is the heavy net on, my god, I feel bad. You know, I have no new honey for twenty eight years. And I would say that you struggled with all of these things for a very long time.

The only time that I didn't see you struggle is when you were launching the restaurant business with your best friend, JoNathan, and when IT was first happening and you were so alive and fulfilled. And then, of course, as is the case with most restaurants, IT was great. Well, IT was great.

And then that was horrible when IT was horrible. And when you came out of that restaurant business, the story that most of our listeners ers know, you are a shell of the person that you are now. And you really went to work on yourself, and you are looking for a way to get together with other men and developed friendship and deeper meaning.

And you couldn't find IT. So that's why you create its old degree. And I think IT would be helpful for everybody to hear the fact that you were struggling and how you were struggling with these five things. And I remember a particular moment in time is just three years ago, where you mean what i'm .

talking about.

I think so where I had asked you if you would be a part of a focus group for the book. I was researching the high five habit, and I asked you if you would please, for five days in a row, just add the habit of high driving yourself in the mayor to your morning routine. And do you remember what you said that I was a stupid idea?

I believe IT was that .

the stupid is fucking thing i've ever heard of not doing IT. And when we come back, because I think this is a great time to take a quick pause, I want to pick up the story because at the time, I didn't realize how longer you were. I didn't realize how much you are still struggling. I didn't realize the sense of obligation and how you are not taking care of your own needs and how lonely you were both in our marriage and in your life. And I want to go to that moment of what happened next, and we will tell that story when we return, stay with us.

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Welcome back. I'm here with my husband, Christopher Robins, who's also the founder of the man's retreat sole degree. And we're talking about the five silent struggles that men have and how knowing about them will help you support the man or anybody in your life for identifies me.

I just ask her if he could go deeper into how these five silent struggles impacted him. And so we're going to go back three years to a moment in time where I was researching the high five habit, which is just adding a high five in the mirror to yourself as part of your morning routine. I was in the middle of researching, and we had all these focus groups, and I I D ask chis if you would please participate in the focus group and high five himself in the mire every morning as part of his morning routine. And he said, n fw, you did have a very deliver IT, i'm not doing that.

Yeah, I immediately thought, was the domac's idea ever? Let's go to the myr. Let's high five ourselves. And this is gonna lay all problems.

Wow, I don't. I'm not saying it's going to solve all problems, but I know based on the research and I know based on the testimonials of hundred and seventy five thousand people that are so profound that when you take on this habit, IT has a shocking impact on your brain and how you see yourself in the person in the mirror. And that kicks open a door to an entirely new possibility.

And, you know, we're laughing. But when I kept pushing you, because i'm like to, you're my husband. I need you to try this. I want you to do this for five days.

You share with me something that I didn't know in the real reason why you thought this was stupid when you dug a little deeper. IT was really sad. And honestly, IT was scary to hear as your spouse. So would you share with everybody sort of the deeper insight as to why you had that reaction?

I think um the time I related to the idea of a high five to myself as being enlargement, the idea that you would hide five yourself to uh inspire forward action and yet I find that the power of that high five in the mirror is less your hand meeting the mirror and more your eyes meeting your eyes and. That's where the struggle was.

because. When I took that chAllenge on. I remember really .

um the high .

five was easy, the looking at myself in the mere that was not easy.

Can I hand I think IT was .

not easy because there was so much reflection on the past you know, I was looking back, I was not um I was not seeing .

somebody .

that deserved a high five. I saw failure. I saw upset. I saw just not living up to the expectation that I think I had set for myself um and i'm sure that society y's expectations were also influencing that. But just where I was at the time, I I didn't I didn't feel like I deserve that high five. So I I think that that was probably the the underlying reason why my reaction to the idea of doing that was this is stupid when the truth is that I was, I was, I was not .

happy with .

myself and didn't think high five was was deserved.

It's really hard to hear how long you felt that way about yourself because I, I stood next to you for years, the sink right next to you. And when I looked at you, my, I saw the world's best dad, amazing husband. I saw somebody who was absolutely in trial to helping me.

Build my business. I felt grateful for you. I didn't know you thought any of those things. You just kind of put on a smile and Carried on. You were so certificate about IT.

So can you explain because I think that there's a lot of people, especially men, that really beat the hell of themselves when their career doesn't go, how they thought I was gonna go, or they get laid off for you, become an entrepreneur and entrepreneur ship lets fricking clammers. It's a bitch, especially in the restaurant business. And you have been an entrepreneurs. Can you just share just a little bit of context for people so they understand like how long you would look in the mire and see somebody that failed and why you felt that way?

Odd had to have been fifteen years. Anyway, years. I yeah no, I don't think IT was the unraveling of the restaurant business that was the beginning of that. I think that IT, i'm not .

sure exactly one.

But I as you and I know, like at the looking back on my very colorful career, I am grateful today for all of the things that I did. But having moved through so many different roles and responsibility, ie. S and industries and companies, and the changes I just never ever related to myself, like I was succeeding in a professional sense.

And I, of course, concluded that there in lies the source of my failure, because my job here is to be the provider, the proverbial provider, and to go, a quote, make IT happen. So the discomfort with myself and my progress professionally was absolutely what I think drag me down. I would say that at the time you and I were in the throws of IT, I mean, we were talking about just getting up and put on your boots and just diving in to the fire every day. There wasn't at least they .

didn't .

seem like there was a moment to actually stop and acknowledge the good. And quite Frankly, you weren't acknowledging me like that you might have seen me as a good husband or father, you know, business partner, but those words weren't being shared between us. And so naturally, I didn't get that reinforcement verbally from you. But I also think that the being in the thick of IT and running as fast as as hard as we were, didn't I know the idea of stopping and looking in the mirror and seeing myself truly for who I am, and the good that I have done, and acknowledging all the failures as being a source of powerful learning and all that stuff fucked that like IT wasn't, I wasn't. And that's why I say, I think the hardest part was.

To to stand in front of that mere. And see your whole cell.

And for guys I think for guys, that is. For many, borderline feels impossible because that's what we do. We just get up, put the boots on and go, okay, you know, mill needs something, the wife needs something, the kids needs something, the the employer needs something.

Okay, okay, let me jam in a quick workout. You know, maybe because maybe i'm thoughtful about what my mind, body or spirit needs, but also something that I think is an after thought for guys. And we put everybody bot ourselves first.

So the act of standing in from a mere and high five ving yourself and looking yourself in the eyes and saying, I love you outlandish concept, but hugely, hugely important. And IT doesn't happen unless you're sort of willing to really stop and slowed how and and consider that you you matter more than your wife, your kids, your employer, the rest of IT. And I think that's part of what has I think maybe over the years, dragged me down, was paying zero attention to me and paying .

all the attention .

or so I felt on everybody outside of me and providing and trying .

to prove that you were successful and trying to earn money and live up to also your dada's expectations.

Yeah, well, that mean, if you really want to go back to the root, we could be here all day. But yes, even just the basics of putting on a suit tie and packing a brief case and catching a train and working in a sky, a, you know, high rise in manhattan, all of those things were just visual cues of what I thought I should be doing, not of which, of course, played out other than the occasional suit, until till ties in the rest of IT flew out the window. But just, I wasn't, I wasn't being like my dad, which is what I thought I was supposed to be doing.

So you get really emotional when you talk about looking at yourself in the mirror and. I wanna hear you talk more about that because the chAllenge of simply standing in the mere and looking in the eyes, I agree with you, that's the hardest part of adding this habit to your morning routine. Just put the toothbrush down and be with the person in the mayor. Look them in the eyes and don't see a reflections. See a human being who needs you that half of men and women can't or won't look at themselves.

And it's a good point because you can IT sounds weird, but you can look right through yourself in the mirror, yes, versus actually seeing yourself.

yes. And if you aren't looking through yourself, a lot of us look at all the things we don't like. And so even gaz zing at ourselves is an act of self criticism because, like, I hate my this, I hate my that my, you next sagi.

And, you know, you have sense done tremendous matter therapy. You are in the middle of getting your masters in spiritual transition, al psychology. And you've been leading retreats with men called sold degree for four years, Chris.

And there's a lot of emotion that comes up for you. Six years. Are six years terrible.

Can I get to hide? five? Here we are.

You there? Thank you. Don't let go my hand. I want to hold your hand. You have been in the presence of so many men, and you've even had oakly reach out to you and had you council some of his friends through anxiety and three issues. And I know there's a lot of emotion there. So you can you like, just speak to the men and the boys that maybe listening, or to the people in their lives that love them, about what you've witnessed, about the importance of being able to look yourself in the mere and learn how to take actions to truly support and love yourself, and that this is a very foreign concept for boys and men.

I often talk about sold degree as being a space that I hold for men that allows them to slow down when the truth of the matter .

is it's in the .

slowdown that all of those beautiful things can take place. And I think that the the reason why there's a lot of emotion there for me, particularly with guys, why there is a lot of emotion is because in my experience and sitting with men. Very rarely do men feel truly seen and heard 嗯。

on an emotional level.

yes. And even in just every day, real life.

i'm so happier. Here we have to take a short break to hear work from our sponsors. But when we come back, I want to go back to the mayor and hear more about that experience when you first started looking yourself in the eye and trying this high five habit.

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Welcome back. So Chris, let's go back to the mirror. And what you experienced when, for five days in a row, you made IT a habit to stop at a time in your life where you were still beating the shit out yourself and look yourself in the eyes. And so what did you experience for yourself personally, in terms of the science working, the shift in how you started to see the person in the mirror?

Well, transformation doesn't happen without .

repetition.

I know you call IT the high five habit, but it's one of those things that doesn't IT almost feels elusive in terms of becoming habitual. And that's because next week or next year, some shit might go down and you might do something or something happens where you really feel immediately lousy about yourself. And so even though there may be some habit of you getting up saying I love you or high driving yourself, your life circumstance is going to get .

in the way frequently, correct, just like with exercise or drinking your water or getting a good night sleep. But when you come back to that moment, i'll tell you something I look at myself differently, and I know you do too. And so the importance of this, because this is something that most of us don't do.

I think we casually slip into the subconscious where we beating selves up and more on autopilot. And every time you pass a mere, you have a chance to look yourself in the eyes and see a person that is worthy of celebrating, of cheering for, of believing in, simply because you're here. That, to me, is the power of this. What is the power of IT for you?

The looking in the mirror and the acknowledge ing of myself. It's rarely like, okay, you got this, you know alright, your next meeting or your next, whatever. I think one last thing I want to say to the men out there, any man who feels a sense of failure or that they haven't lived up to their own expectations, or those outside of them, any man who's been battling with or has battled with addiction or depression, any of these things that drag us down, I strongly encourage you to start with you and to begin with forgiveness.

Not always so easy, but without a doubt, I know from my experience, not just me personally, but being in the company of lots of men, that we are all working our us. To do the right thing. And while we don't always believe that the results live up, it's in the forgiveness and the starting with yourself and the self acknowledged.

And I want to go back to what you said in the very beginning, because I know that we're gona get a tonic questions. Grace, how how do I begin? That one step that you could take today is trying this habit. I've even just looking yourself in the mere.

but i'm shocked that i'm even saying this giving my initial reaction to the high five habit. But I agree, start right there. Start in the mirror.

You will never forgive yourself if you refuse to look yourself in the eyes with compassion and with forgiveness and with understanding. And one of the reasons why i'm i'm going to keep pampering this, everybody raise your hand and hide five, the mayor, because if you're at a place where you are beating the shit out of yourself and you can't stand yourself for whatever reason, whatever you did, we've done something you don't have to change your thoughts.

The neuro bix and the science of simply making the physical ter of the high five and all of the lifetime of positive programing associated with IT IT has a chemical, a neurological, a psychological benefit immediately that is grounded in science. And so the physical act does the work for you, and IT starts to plot new neural pathways, and IT releases dopamine, all of which will help you do the other work that you need to do to walk down the road of forgiving yourself. You gotto start by simply looking at yourself in the eyes and seeing somebody who is worthy of forgiving, because you are.

Yes, I can't stress that enough. The mirror is where IT happens.

It's one of the reasons why I always sign off the show by telling the person listening that I love you.

I love that about how you sign off. And I know you mean IT.

I do mean IT because I just know how many people can look at themselves in the mayor. And IT breaks my heart and IT feels good to have somebody tell you that they love you and that you're proud of them.

And to some extent, unless you're willing to do the work on yourself, to let love in from yourself, to demonstrate encouragement, support and love by looking at your eyes in the miro, or hide, hiding yourself in the mirror, if you can do that for yourself, you will never let the love in that is all around you from other people because you don't believe you're worthy of IT and you're proving IT based on your actions. What are you thinking about? Because I can see you getting moved.

Well, i'm i'm always moved, by the way, that you sign off and tell people I love you. And IT IT tied back to what I was saying earlier is just my own experience in being in the company of men who don't you know, they don't feel that while you're standing in front of the mirror and you're looking at yourself, you may feel alone, but you are not alone. And either the struggle .

you have .

with forgiving yourself, or the judgments, or the failures or whatever that may be, you are not alone .

at a really wild level. There's actually a human being in the mirror who needs you. So one person you spend your whole life with, and the moment that you can look them in the eyes and see a human being worth cheering for, you'll realized you are alone because you've got yourself. I want to thank you, Chris, for speaking directly, a man. But everything that you're saying, everything that i'm saying is universal.

And I do think it's important though for men and boys and people who identify as well that you hear a mail voice saying these things IT is critical that other men realized that your emotional health, your sense of self estee, self awareness, self love and going back to the very beginning of what I said at the beginning of this episode today, is that I think we get self love wrong, Chris, because we think love is a feeling. yeah. But the truth is, you only feel loved because of other people's actions.

And when IT comes to learning to love yourself, you have to start with the actions, actions that demonstrate love. And when you are able to stand in front of a mirror and look yourself in the eyes, that's an act of love. When you're able to bring compassion and understanding to the person in the mayor, and you see somebody that's trying, and you see somebody that has regrets, and you see somebody who still has an incredible life to live and is worthy of love, that's an act of love.

When you raise your hand and high five yourself, that's an act of love and all. The research also shows that the most important habit that has the biggest impact in our lives is being kind yourself. I want you to do this for real.

So you know how I mentioned that I had one hundred and seventy five thousand people from mindy. One countries try this for five days. Well, if you want to try this for five days and get support, got a high five chAllenge dot com.

And you can do this chAllenge with people around the world. And high five is spelled H I G. H, the number five chAllenged dot com.

And for five days, I will support you, cheer you on. And so Chris, I just wanted, thank you. And I love that you shared all that you just shared with us.

And I have one more story I would love for you to stay with me hang, because I think you're gonna love the story too. It's from a woman increase. And her story says at all about how you are one decision away from a different life, because you are one decision away from changing the way you treat yourself. And when you change the way that you treat yourself, a whole new life opens up for you. Just like I did for Chris and just like I did for me.

He ml. I'm not sure where to start with this email, but i'm going to start with saying, thank you. You've helped me gain my identity in life back.

Buckle up. It's a long email. My name is Chris and thirty five. And from the united states, back in two thousand and nine, my life was falling apart at the seems, but quietly was doing the best I code to manage with the tiny amount of tools I had.

But starting in twenty twenty, through the beginning of twenty twenty one, or the worst times of my life today, all that I had worked for in my life and sacrifice to build the life that I always and jumped and wanted was ripped for me. And there was nothing mill, literally nothing I could do to stop IT. And then I went a well.

I went from being a confident, fit, happy, joyful, positive and full of faith, wife, friend, sister and daughter, to something unspeakable. I adopted unhealthy coping mechanisms to none, my emotions. I got lost in tiktok, wasting hours of my life.

I was Better, angry, broken hearted and crushed. The spirit I started getting stuck in. What I now know is reminding, and the pounds stacked on one after another, along with the shame, guilt and discussed at some point, I didn't know what wade more.

The shame and guilt, or the literal thirty five pounds that i've put on the spaces, as I once felt safe and fulfilling, were no longer safe. Because my mind, my anxiety, mind SHE came with me everywhere. Her named the race, I named her, and he wanted to make sure I knew how horrible I was in every moment of the day.

How could you make mistakes? You deserve this hurt. You're a disgusting person.

You really don't have friends. No one really likes you. They just use you and leave and on and on.

This went, I could not even look in the mirror. At some point, the panic attack started. I'm talking full blown intense attacks where I shake rock back and forth and smack myself.

I would keep these attacks away from my family. And now at this point, my brain told me, no one loves you, no one, so you might as well not be hearing anymore. And IT was so loud all the time, there was no reprieve until at night when I would open a bottle of wine and have summer dinner. And even in my sleep, I would wake in panic .

attacks on .

my way to work. One day, I thought, while trying to suppress the attack I could feel coming on. I can keep living like this.

I hate the person I see back in the mirror, and all I see is the damage person and the damage that's been done to me. Over this last year, I started to pull out my phone to see if I could find something to help. And what did I find a podcast? But IT wasn't yours.

But when you are being interviewed on and I changed my life, I was in the middle of cleaning a glass slighter door, and you said, go look at yourself in the mirror and gave yourself a high five, I stopped everything. I walked into the house and looked into a huge drown mirror on my clients wall and just started to stare at myself while I listen to you speak. I raised my hand and I fight myself, and the tears came rolling down.

And in that moment a new life began. The Spark was small but profound. I have to listened the high five habit at least four times. My healing journey started in december of twenty twenty one. I got myself in a therapy.

I am in doing tons of research on anxiety, depression, trauma, A D, H, D, M, P, T, S, D, so I can understand what is happening in my brain. But now I wouldn't be here today writing this email had I not stumble upon you and all the good you put into this world. Although now I think after listening to your episode on synchronicities IT wasn't my chance on that day that I first met you.

I was done and I had no more fighting me and I was ready to call IT quits. But today I can say i'm a different person. And I mean, again, and I owe a lot of that to my big this now, robbins, and if anyone hasn't told you to day mail, I love you and I believe in you.

呼喊。 I don't know to say other than just beautiful .

says a lot about the impact you're making.

You know, I am I just know how long I struggle. And so if you can learn, had get out a bit five, four, three, two, one and get your feet on the floor and stand up and get going, you can keep going.

And if you can stand in front of the mere, no matter what's happened or what you're feeling or what's going on, good or bad, and you can look yourself in the eyes, and you can see a person who is worthy of love, who is doing their best, who needs your support, is tired to feeling beaten down, and you can raise your hand, and you can give that person a simple, high five to demonstrate that you see them, that you love them, that you're there with them. I personally think that's a secret. Everything I love you, oh.

I love you too, what I want to say.

So let's go back to the mirror. Can you describe the person you see today?

I see a man I love. I see a man i'm proud of, I see .

a great father.

and I see a great partner to you. And I see a man who has accomplished a lot in a short period of time. I see a man who's doing his best and deserves a look in the eye in a highlight. And for that, i'm i'm grateful, given that .

men silently strugling with these five things, what is one thing that anybody listening should start doing in their relationship with the man in their life.

encouraging men to give thought to and pursue in earnest things that they genuinely feel they need or want? Be curious with your man about the things that he is longing for, curious about wanting to do more of and encourage that.

whether it's golf or like going on a solo hyphen or pursuing rap mute you all yeah any .

of that I mean, I would say with something like golf, if there is something about competition or friendship or the social nature of IT that the guy really feels he genuinely needs for his own joy and happiness and well being, then yeah, encourage that. And for many guys who haven't been able to put their finger on that, try to strike those conversations where maybe those things can get exposed such that they are suddenly seeing something new and different, that oh yeah that that thing then encourage IT.

You know, I just got something at this. Because I didn't know that you felt deeply like everybody else comes first and because I had this opinion that i'm last on list, right? There was always this tension in our relationship. Whenever you wanted to come home from work or do something on the weekends, that wasn't something that I wanted you to do.

And so I can see how the guilt or the pressure or the to do list, or the attitude that I might have thrown at you because you wanted to go off and take a long bike ride, for example, with a cycling group on your own, or take a walk in the woods, or go to a meditation retreat, or whatever IT was meeting IT like, because I have something that you want to a do. I'm playing into that sense of obligation that you have in the sense that mells to do list comes before what I might need for myself. Yeah sorry. No, you don't need .

to apologize for that. But IT does. IT does point to the importance of city in a relationship. They're being a healthy baLance of each person having their own neither hobbies or interest or things that they because without that, one gets zero. And the other one is i'm going on plane off again. Hey, i'm going out to i'm going to go to work in the shop, going with a boy to play poker and then you're doing nothing or vice versa like the guys like, yeah, honey, you should go get your nails done or do you should go do this or you should go for a hike or you and then he's left with the goose exos it's IT can be a chAllenging baLance that's .

a beautiful takeaway right there that instead of focusing on the transaction and that tit for tat, that you focus on an opening for both of you. That if my job is to encourage you to get out to that cycling group to pursue some of the things that make you feel more alive and give your life meeting and you're doing the same for me, then we achieve the baLance by looking out for one another hundred percent. That's beautiful. Thank you, honey.

Thank you.

Y, I wish I could be a flying that retreat. Too bad, somehow I think it's perfect that i'm not there as a fly more tree. And one more thing, in case nobody else tells you today, I want to make sure I tell you, I love you, I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to start to create a more meaningful life. And I really hope, hope the conversation today is gona help you do that and will help you support the men in your life doing IT too. Already, i'll see in a few days.

Already, let's go. My best. That was a city had five one more. Oh, I love you back. Why are you rolling your eyes?

I'm listening to you set the table.

Let's go. okay. Hey, it's red mill. And welcome to the male Robin's podcast, how I starting this.

You Better good something like this.

Okay, here we go. Hey, it's rand mall. And welcome to the malay's podcast.

That's not a weird. Hey, each friend. Mell, oh my god.

Hey, hey, hey, hey. That's why. IT, oh, my 天。 Oh my god. Oh my god. I but I think get so much Better open their year.

Oh, and one more thing I know, this is not a blue per. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers right? And what I need to read you, this podcast e is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes.

I'm just your friend. I am not a license therapies, and this pocket is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional. Got IT good. I'll see in the next episode stitcher.

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