Turbocharge Your Growth with Masculine Feedback

All right, and welcome back. So on this episode, I want to talk about how to turbocharge your growth as a man.

And specifically, it comes from a very useful mechanism that is woven into the fabric of men's work and particularly men's groups. And it's what I call the spinach in the teeth moment. I've talked about it a few times before, right? Let's say you're moving through the world, you got some spinach stuck in your teeth. Somebody is willing to tell you that oftentimes as soon as they tell us that, maybe there's a flood of embarrassment.

Ah, wow. How did I not see that? And following that, there's often gratitude, right? Thank you for telling me that. Because I've been walking around like this for two or three hours and no one told me it you were willing to make me uncomfortable in service of me. And that's a really big part of men's groups, right? Men, the masculine. We grow through challenge, we grow through feedback, and in particular this frequency.

I learned this new term from Terry Real, and it was coined by this doctor, Dr. David Osberger, way back in the 60s. And it's the simple idea of carefrontation, right? Not confrontation, but carefrontation. It's this idea that I'm going to confront you with care, with your well being in mind. And that's something that I think not enough men receive these days.

You know, we hear particularly in the online world a lot about calling somebody out, which when you think about it, calling someone out is actually about separating them, making them feel different from the tribe. Another phrase for that that I think links right into carefrontation is, you know, something I've talked about in the men's work world of calling someone forward, right? We're calling them forward into deeper connection with themselves, with the group, with their relationships, with the environment.

And in particular, we're calling forward the best version of them that we hold in mind. And this calling forward is really just carefrontation. Hey, I care about you, and here's what I'm seeing. I'm willing to confront you in that sense, I. E. Bring in conflict, maybe make you a little uncomfortable because I care about you. And too many men who are socially isolated these days don't have that person or people looking out for them.

And what's really meaningful about that type of carefrontation is it means someone's tracking us, someone's paying attention to us. And yes, someone cares. They care enough to connect with us and point out what they're seeing. This might sound radically simple or even really basic, but it's quite profound in a group that we're getting to know over time and that is tracking us.

Right? Hey, you keep saying this, but you're doing this. Do you realize that this might be about really big patterns in life? This might also be about really simple patterns in life, right? I see this all the time in groups where we're asking a guy about a big decision he has to make, leaving a job, leaving a relationship, some choice point, and you know, he shares about the different things on his mind. And oftentimes he doesn't realize his body is already revealing the answer.

And then the men around him might say, hey, yeah, you said you want to do that. But every time you talked about that, your voice dropped, your energy got lower, your body collapsed versus when I heard you mention that other thing you thought was impossible or unreasonable, your energy went up, you brightened. There was so much more energy and aliveness in your being. And I'm not sure you realize how much you actually want to do X. And then maybe a man has a realization around that just from us reflecting that.

Or sometimes information will come into the group about how a man's presence in the group and what he's reporting doesn't line up with what's going on out in his life. Now if you want to keep it safe in a group, you would just ignore that, right? I don't want to ruffle any feathers, but a carefrontational model would say, hey, I've heard this stuff. Is it true? Does it check out? Because here's my experience of you here and here's what I'm hearing there and that divergence that doesn't Feel good.

So what is going on? Much like purpose and belonging, these two things I talked about in a previous episode that every man craves. I really think there's a deep desire inside all men to be cared for enough by others who will give them the hard feedback they don't always want to hear, who care about them enough to bring forward and create this discomfort with them of talking about where they're out of alignment, where they're out of integrity, where they're hurting the people around them, or frankly, where they're hurting themselves.

And this doesn't have to be, you know, super serious interventions, let's say sometimes this can be smaller and in the moment just really bringing forward, hey, man, I care about you. And on the one hand, you know, I want you to thrive. And on the other hand, you've been coming to this group now for six months talking about how you hate your job. And to me, I wouldn't be a good brother to you if I didn't ask you, what are you going to do about it?

Because right now I see you suffering and not taking the kind of action that's going to liberate you from that. So what are you doing? Either you got to get right with that job and stop complaining or it's time to take some action. Whichever one it is, you know, a good group will then meet you in supporting that transformation, that movement back to integrity. And this carefrontation, I think is a real skill set that a group can develop over time and particularly as we build more trust and rapport with each other.

So yes, it's certainly something you can do in a drop in group, but it's going to be most powerful in a group you've developed ongoing relationships with because there's history and context that makes your feedback valuable. You know, the most basic and kind of common version of this we often see in men's work, which is really a version of carefrontation, is around trust. Right here's where I'm not trusting you right now.

And here's what I would need to trust you more sometimes in this moment, sometimes, sometimes in your life. And that feedback, it can hurt, it can sting, because oftentimes it really lands and it points to something inside of us we've already been aware of, but for whatever reason haven't taken action around transforming because we feel shame or fear or just incapable of doing it again. A group and someone in a group confronting you with care in this way is not about shaming you and making you feel bad about it.

It's about helping you get into deeper contact with what actually is so you can start to change and move more in a direction of wholeness, integrity, congruence and alignment. I know it's made a huge deal in my life, right. I often tell stories of how I see good men's groups impacting relationships in that it's really easy to come in, whether it's in an intimate relationship or work relationship and kind of play the victim.

Ah, all this is happening and none of it's my fault. But a good group who's tracking us and tracking and knowing our stories, our patterning sometimes is going to be able to sort and sift through that and say, hey, that's not all on them. Are you aware of this? And they'll confront us in a loving way with the part we are playing in the situation. And why that can be deeply of service is once we take responsibility for our part, we're actually taking back control in our lives.

We're coming back to a place of agency that, oh, I can impact things. But sometimes we need loving, trusted, sharp, clean feedback from other men to help us keep us, to help keep us on track. You know, that's another way to think about carefrontation or calling someone forward. It's not only do we get to share our deepest wounding with each other, the parts of us that feel unlovable in something like a men's group, but we get to share our deepest vision, oftentimes our most vulnerable vision for what we see our life becoming, what we want to call forward in our lives in terms of our friends, our family, our career, our service.

Good men around us are going to help keep us on track by checking in and noticing when we've drifted and bringing forward that energy of hey, are you aware you said you wanted to do this thing and all your attention is over here on this thing? Whoa, no, I didn't. I thought I was working on the thing. But you're right, I'm actually avoiding working on the thing or whatever that might be.

And it can be hard, it can be really challenging to confront someone with this care because what it can sometimes do is actually threaten a relationship. Right? That's why we sometimes don't do this out in the world because we don't have the safety and agreements and container of a men's group to bring forward challenging feedback where it's not about me tearing you down, but it's about me wanting to love you.

And that's another way to think about this kind of carefrontation or calling Forward or loving masculine feedback. It's what it really is. It's love, right? It's, hey, I love you too much to see you walk down this path and cause more harm to yourself or to others or whatever that might be. Or I love you too much to see you collapsing in on yourself when I know what you're capable of.

You just forgot. And I'm going to give you the feedback here and the reminder that, hey, yeah, you can do this. This is a skill that we have to cultivate over time. We what does it mean to give someone feedback without judgment and an open heart? Right. Here's what I'm seeing and I'm sharing it with you because I care. A lot of groups I lead, we talk about this as one of the agreements of honoring each other and extending our guard.

And that as a man gives us feedback, we often want to give him the benefit of the doubt. It's a very generous thing. That why he's sharing this feedback with us is because he cares. And if there's one thing I've gotten really clear about, having led hundreds of men's groups at this point, is that in the right container, men have a lot of love to give to other men. We don't want to see each other suffer. We want each other to be free and liberated from whatever's gripping us in life.

Carefrontation. And this kind of feedback is one of the most potent ways to do it. And if we don't have anyone around us as men, it's very easy to get stuck and ingrained in patterns that are not serving us. If we're lucky, yes, we can see it in ourselves, but we can't always do that. We need others who care about us, who care about our journey, to let us know, hey, you've got that piece of spinach in your teeth, and I care about you too much to let you walk into that room without being aware of what I see in your life.

It really can transform and turbocharge your development as a man. When you have a collective of men around you who care enough about you to give you the hard feedback, to call you forward when you need it, and to confront you with care. We love you. Whatever story you have about yourself or your life or your part in it right now, I don't think it's right.

I don't think it's real. Here's what I see. Here's where I think you need to take responsibility. Here's where I would trust you more if you did this. Being seen in this way, as a man, something I've experienced many times. Yeah, at first can feel a little vulnerable, can be put on my defensive, but ultimately, if I just breathe and sink through that, as I've seen many other men do, we start to experience it and it hits us as love.

Wow. These men care enough about me to not let me off the hook of my own life. They want me to thrive and succeed and be free. And if I get off course, they're going to let me know when we're grounded and plugged into that as men. Certainly what it's done in my life is it actually allows me to relax and trust more because suddenly I don't have to over calculate or analyze things.

Instead, I come forth, come forward, take action, and I know there's guys looking out for me and they will let me know if they see me going awry so I don't have to hold all of that myself. And if you're a man listening or watching this, this is something I wish for you. Who is your cohort? Who are your band of brothers that will confront you with care when you need it in life to even be able to do that?

Those men have to be tracking you to be aware of your life, to know what's going on inside of it. And that most powerfully comes, in my experience, through joining something like a peer to peer men's group. So if you don't have one, once again, I'm going to ring the bell. It's time to find your men, your band of brothers, your tribe, your collective of guys who are on your team and want you to succeed in life and will give you the tough feedback you need to get there.

All right, until next time, if you're interested in working with me around dating, relationships or your masculine presence in the world, just go to evolutionary men. Apply.