The Men’s Group With Jason Lange Blossom Your Awesome Podcast

Host: Foreign. Episode number 281. Today on the show, Jason Lange is here with us. Jason is a men's embodiment coach, group facilitator, and evolutionary guide. Jason helps men drop in and wake up to deeper clarity in their life's purpose and relationships. He believes every man should be in a men's group for the growth and support opportunities they provide. I am so honored and delighted to have Jason here with us sharing his wisdom and insights. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show.

Jason Lange: Thanks so much for having me, Sue. Excited to be here.

Host: So excited to have you here and get into the remarkable work you do. So you are a men's guide. You are men's embodiment coach, group facilitator, evolutionary guide. I just love that you help men drop in and wake up to deeper clarity in their life's purpose and relationships. Give us the backstory how and why you got into this line of work.

Jason Lange: Yeah. So my journey to becoming a men's guide really started with my journey in my own healing. And so I was a young man, white boy, raised in the Midwest of the United States. A lot of affluence, a lot of privilege, and had pretty much all my basic needs met, right, in terms of survival and just food on the table, safety, security. But my edge that I discovered, you know, as I started to grow up was my house had zero emotional connectivity or physical intimacy. A lot of neglect in that realm when I was growing up. And so when I became a teenager and suddenly all these hormones were running through me and I was getting interested in women and wanting to get relational. My body was just extremely anxious, would get very uncomfortable, felt disconnected from myself, and I would get. Yeah, I would clam up, particularly around women I was really attracted to. And in general, I started to notice. I just felt uncomfortable connecting with people. And that pain kind of led me on a journey to, like, why? What's going on there? Which led me back into my past in therapy and eventually got me. I was pretty lucky in my mid-20s that I got connected to a men's group, got connected with a bunch of guys who wanted to go deep, some of whom were older than me and further along in their journey and had the experience for the first time kind of being around older men where I was like, oh, that's what I want to be when I grow up. Not in terms of my job, but like, wow, how this man breathes talk, talks, folds himself, moves through the space, connects with other men. I was like, that's amazing. That Feels really good. What is that? How do I get that? How do I become you in a sense? And that really started my journey of men's groups and men's work, which I've done so much transformational work, all of which I'm really grateful for. But the one that's had the most stickiness and long lasting impact on me has been being in extended men's groups where I'm building and fostering deep connection with other guys who are helping me attract the things that are most important to me. Kind of that simple in essence. And I got so into that journey for my own healing that at some point I just, I kept talking about it, sharing like what was working for me in life. And people started to notice and I started to have a lot of men asking me, well, like, can I join your men's group? And it was here in la and you know, we just met in a teeny room. So literally I couldn't fit more than eight guys in it. And so then I kind of bridged the gap to, well, okay, well, yes, come on over sometime I'm going to lead a group for some other men so other people can start to have this experience. And then that kind of just kickstarted this whole journey for me of, okay, I had to learn a lot of painful lessons about how to get more of what I really wanted in life. And I'd be happy to share kind of what worked for me and get men connected to other men in the process. And like I said, for me the themes were getting connected to other men, learning how to become in touch with my emotional self, learning how to literally just be in my body and not in my head and be totally numb and dissociated and getting connected to a clear vision, you know, of kind of in general where I wanted my life to go. And I'm just so passionate about supporting other men and doing that now, particularly in the context of group work.

Host: This is so powerful. I love that you are talking about this and that more men are having this conversation and you're on this mission to get as many men and men's groups as possible. I think that's so cool. So let me. My first question for you is, what do you think when you went in, like, what was the biggest thing that you instantaneously were like, what? Whoa, this is huge.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I think for me, part of what I was related to in terms of seeing other men was in particular having the embodied experience, meaning I'm actually with someone who's doing it. So we're not talking about it, but I'm actually getting to experience it with them, was being around men who had full access to their emotional self and still felt strong. So what I mean by that is witnessing a man being totally overtaken in grief, but still feeling like, wow, that guy is solid. Like, he's. I really feel his strength and even his ability to just feel what hurts in his life. He wasn't like, collapsed in it. Like, oh, my God, I don't know what to do. Like, this hurts so much. And then the kind of mirror, or I guess the other side of that was being around men who had full access sue to their anger, but also felt 100% safe. So a man was fully in touch with his rage, but there was never a moment I actually felt unsafe around him because, again, he wasn't getting overtaken by the emotion. He was in relationship with it. And I didn't even know these were options. And a lot of men don't of like, wait, that's a possibility in our experience that we can actually be emotional human beings and still feel strong and still feel safe. And as soon as I experienced that, I was like, well, there's a whole different way of living here that no one ever told me about. And I didn't even know. And, you know, I've been trying to avoid these emotions my entire life because I didn't know how to be with them. So, yeah, I had this experience that kind of blew my mind as to what's even possible for us men to be right. It kind of shattered the, so to speak, man box that I had grown up in. And many men have of, you know, we're not allowed to be emotional, and if we are, we're weak or we explode in anger and we're dangerous. And all these things that so many men, and rightly so, some have grown up experiencing or been on the receiving end of. And just being in a men's group and being around men who knew how to both hold themselves and be fully connected to their emotional experience, it was almost like to kind of use computer language lingo, like, it reformatted my brain. It was just like, wow, everything I've been taught is wrong. Like, there's. There's a whole new possibility here, and I want to learn how to do that. And that was what really kind of drew me into the work.

Host: You know, what's so beautiful is this juxtaposition of vulnerability and anger and rage. Because I know, you know, the stigma in the world is like, you are not strong. If you're showing vulnerability. Right. That's kind of the message you received growing up. You know, not necessarily intentionally, but from the world at large, right?

Jason Lange: Yeah. Yeah. That's a big part of, you know, what we kind of call the man box, that there's this whole checklist of what you're allowed to be and feel as a man. And if you don't choose check those boxes, you're not a man. And emotions are a huge part of that. Right. And this doesn't even just go towards men, but I think young boys in particular are susceptible to it of, like, just. I mean, I still hear this in the world. Right. It just shatters my heart. You know, you hear a parent, their child is in distress, and the first thing they say is, stop crying. Aren't you too old to be crying? Why are you crying? And, you know, I think boys in particular, we receive this, and then we very much receive this from other boys. I think that's actually the worst place where this gets reinforced as we kind of become adolescents. But, you know, the frame on that, that the messaging a lot of us men get from a very young age is discount and do not trust what's happening in your body and in your heart. Override that. And that's often actually what men are rewarded for culturally and societally. We're actually rewarded for being disembodied, work long hours, pick yourself up by the bootstraps, getting into intense physical activity, sports that literally destroy, you know, many men's bodies, going to war. Like, there's just so many places that, you know, unfortunately, we're making that equality more the case, which is the wrong direction of, like, hey, let's all disregard our bodies. But I think it starts at that young age that, yeah, we're often rewarded for that. Right. And part of the counterculture that, you know, we're trying to create in men's groups is no, like, no, your body. Our bodies matter, our feelings matter. And so much more opens up for us when we bring that back online. And in my world, men's groups are a particularly safe place where we get to start building that skill set as men that nobody taught us.

Host: This is. And, you know, this aspect of, like, you say, if you're not able to express vulnerability in your emotions, that that quite often is probably what leads to the rage and the anger, because that's kind of more accepted and expected, even on some level of men, to express their emotions in that way rather than in a calm, soft manner.

Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, anger, particularly outward Facing anger is. Is maybe one of the only socially acceptable emotions for men, particularly from other men. Oh, he's pissed. Yeah. You know, like, that's okay. Oh, he's still a man. He got really. You know, someone cut him off in traffic, and, you know, he gave that guy a mouthful or whatever. And even what we're speaking to here, you know, it's deeper than that. It's. You know, there's a huge. One mistake a lot of men make is conflating anger and aggression where they're very different, right? Aggression is when we take this energy inside of us and we point it out at the world or other people without consent, right? Like, and we've probably all seen men who have literally lost, you know, blown their lids, like, they actually explode. That's not what I'm talking about here, Right. What I got to witness was a man who. I mean, this is so simple, right? In some sense, but a man who even has the capacity to say, wow, my chest is on fire right now. I am so pissed. Part of me wants to punch a wall. And it's right there. You can feel the energy is there, but the man is also aware the energy is there. That man is 10,000 times safer than a lot of men who just become the explosion, right? Just. They just hit the wall. There's no distance between them and what they're experiencing. And so this, again, this capacity we can build of being totally in touch with our emotional experience but not being total, not collapsing into it, is, I think, some of the most nuanced, powerful work men are being called into right now. That, hey, yeah, and we got to model this to. For each other because almost none of us. So few men. I work with a lot. A lot of men sue. And so few men had any. Modeling from healthy, masculine role models of what it means to be in contact with your emotions, to take responsibility for them, and simultaneously to not be stuffing them down or repressing them or numbing them out or exploding with them, so to speak. But, like, what's that healthy place kind of in the middle where we get to be vulnerable, right? Where we get to feel our grief, and that's actually still strong. And I think, you know, that was one of those experiences I had, and many men I work with do of. Wow. I actually trust that man more having seen him grieved or cried or the way he held himself in his tears and he didn't shy away from them. I believe that man is stronger now than I did otherwise. And I often say this to a Lot of men. You know, who's more afraid? The man that's afraid of his emotions or the man who goes right towards them. Right. It's just like, yeah, I feel overwhelmed right now. I feel anxious right now. I feel scared right now. I feel mad right now. That takes a real type of courage in my mind, that we need a lot more men stepping into.

Host: And I would imagine, and I know this is the case from other conversations I've had affirm this for us. You know, it's not just what's happening there within the group, but this is transformative work that's being done because you go out in the world and now you're more receptive and show up in a different way with your spouse and with your girlfriend or wife or sister or mother. Right. I mean, all of that.

Jason Lange: Oh, yeah.

Host: Happening.

Host: Oh, this is so beautiful. And I just have to say I have to commend you, Jason, for the work you're doing. And, you know, I know you are on another level now because you went out seeking this at such a young age. You know, where you see men, so many men probably are in their 40s and 50s before they come to something like this.

Jason Lange: Oh, it's so true. I'm always so excited when I work with a guy who's like, you know, in his mid-20s. I'm like, you have no idea. Like, you are on the fast track to greatness in your life. The fact that you're able to do this work so early, because, you know, I was able to do that to an extent, and still, you know, I'm figuring stuff out as I go, for sure. But then I do work with a lot of men, you know, late 40s, 50s, sometimes even 60s, who are just now realizing, wow, my life's not going to change unless I change inside, right? Unless I'm able to change my relationship to myself and my experience in some sense. And to have the privilege of doing that work earlier is so incredible. I mean, it's never too late to change, in a sense. But there is something really cool about getting exposed to this stuff at a young age. And, you know, I got just enough of it. Like, I'm so grateful I got into that first men's group in my 20s, because my life would look totally different now without it. And, you know, for many men, because there haven't been many avenues in our culture for men to grow in this way. And there's particularly, I would say with men, kind of a stigma against therapy or working on yourself again. It's kind of that emotions or weakness. And you only go to therapy if you're broken and, you know, this crap we're fed that sometimes men Won't show up to me now until things have really gotten extraordinarily painful, right? They lost a relationship or a wife or their career fell apart. They're depressed. Like, it. It takes, you know, a pretty big interruption later in life to get men to say, wow, I gotta do something different here. But for men that heed the call, things can really change pretty fast.

Host: And what would you say? Because, you know, there are so many men, I don't know what the numbers are, but I would say I'm going to throw out, like, I don't, you know, I'm going to guesstimate a majority of men, whatever that looks like, are resistant to something like this or just, you know. So what would you say to those men who are like, oh, no, I'm not joining a men's group, or, you know, whatever their resistance is around that?

Jason Lange: Yeah. I kind of boil it down to. There's. There's two paths. You can either be proactive or you can wait till life gets bad enough. Like, that's the honest truth. Like, at some point, again, kind of the. A lot of the programming men receive is the lone wolf, right? This idea of I got to do it all by myself, never have to ask for help. You don't share weakness. You. You don't tell people you don't know how to do things. Like, you just be tough, right? I mean, here, here in the States, right, we're kind of fed this, what I kind of call, you know, BS narrative of the, like, rugged individual cowboy. Just the. The guy who can do it all by himself, literally picks himself up by the bootstraps, doesn't need anyone. He's tough. Nothing, you know, he's tough as nails. And the truth is, you know, that's a myth. It's not real. Those guys often end up drinking themselves to death. I mean, honestly, like, the way men like that cope with their pain catches up to them. And with every. With most men I work with, a lot of us guys make this assumption we can push our body as hard as we want for as long as we want, and it's always going to be there for us. And one of the big interrupts that happens for a lot of men in particular at some point is their body fails them. It's like, wow, I actually, you know, maybe it's just for two weeks because, you know, I hurt something, but, like, I actually cannot do this alone right now. I literally cannot take care of myself. And that shift is huge into vulnerability for men. And you can either have that come at you through life circumstance, or you can start to prepare for that. As I say of, yeah, what will you do? Because I don't care who you are as a man or a human, at some point your body's going to fail. We all get old. Things start to happen. Who's going to take care of you? What community, what connection do you have around you? Who can help you when you're down? And so what I say to men who are skeptical is start now. Because otherwise, something's going to happen to you. And just there's a lot more space and choice when you can be proactive in it. And the truth is, the men I work with, the men I've seen, really dive into, you know, men's group work, men's work in general. As I say, they end up getting more of what they want. When we're relaxed, grounded in our bodies, when we know how to handle ourselves emotionally, when we. When we know how to regulate our nervous system, when we have a strong support system around us, Turns out people feel more relaxed and comfortable around us. They trust us more. I'm not joking here. They want to pay us more money. They want to be around us, they want to be in relationship with us. Life gets a lot better when we break this mold. If we have to do it all alone and instead shift to a, okay, you know, as I say, we can grow faster together. Pretty much everyone gets this, right? If I'm like, okay, here's a workout routine. Go work out your hardest for the next two weeks. You know, we'll push ourselves. You know, it's cool, we can go for it. But if I'm like, I'm gonna come work out with you every day for the next two weeks. You work out harder when someone is with you. It's like, oh, man, wow, they're going too. I wanna go too. Yeah, you know, there's little fun, fun kind of coopetition. Like we push each other, we train a little faster. And it's the same for all this interior work for men. We grow faster together. Other men can see our blind spots faster. They can see what we can't see. They can offer us feedback on that, and we can course correct so much faster. And so if there's a place in your life, you know, speaking to a man maybe, who believes that, where you're unsatisfied, this is a doorway to moving past that is getting help.

Host: I love that you make it so cut and dry. Like, you're like, there are two paths. And I know there's some Men who are comfortable with their feelings and emotions and whatnot. But you can always do better. You can always improve and level up. And that's what they're going to get there even, right? Because they're. You're getting something as a man that no matter how much work and what you've done, it's like a whole nother level to show up in this way with other men.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I totally agree. Again, there's an accelerative. It's. It accelerates things. We develop faster, we grow faster, we get deeper. And, you know, I. I won't lie and say it necessarily makes life tremendously easier, but it does make life better when we're in connection and community. And, you know, another man I work with, he. He said this phrase that has just really stuck with me of, you know, community is immunity. And so when we have a strong communal network, we're actually more resilient, which is the thing we really want. It's the thing that myth of the cowboy is. Is trying to say to us is, you know, be resilient. He's resilient, but you're not resilient if you're totally alone. Right? And you know, the, literally, the metaphor of the lone wolf, the funny thing about that is guys often take that on as like a source of pride. You know, I'm the lone wolf. I don't need anyone. In the real world. The lone wolf is the one who is kicked out of the pack. And that wolf will die sooner than the rest. That wolf will not survive as long as. And I argue pretty strongly that's very true for men. And there is more and more research. I mean, it's not even just men, but I think men are more susceptible to isolation, that, you know, loneliness is just as deadly as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day in terms of heart disease or being morbidly obese. Just having some kind of group, this is one of another one that came out with, that you're participating in, increases your longevity by like five to 10 years. Literally, just being part, feeling like you're part of a community, you will live longer. And so if you want to have, you know, an amazing, thriving life, you might already be crushing it in your life. But what I'm here to argue is it can get even better when you're in connection with other men. You'll grow even faster. You'll become an even deeper human being, and you'll have some resiliency there for you if you ever get into a hard place.

Host: Now for that man who Is so resistant and so scared and so, you know, just not about this and has not expressed emotions. Is there some practical guidance you can offer that, like, okay, he's his. This is a new idea. Maybe he'll do it down the road, but for now, he needs to just learn to get in touch with his emotions. Is there practical advice for that person?

Jason Lange: I hate to beat the dead horse here, but go spend time with other men who are deeper than you. You like. It is a transmission that is so much faster than reading in a book or anything cognitive I can even describe. It's when we're around people who have done some of the work we haven't done yet. And there's a real lack of this in our culture right now. I think, again, is part of what's so painful for men is we no longer have any rites of passage. There's very little intergenerational connection, right? We're all kind of siloed with people our own age oftentimes. And men's groups can just burst all of that so, so enormously where you can get connected to men further along on their journey, earlier on their journey. Every man has a different skill set and gifts in the world. So when you get into a group, you're also getting exposed to like, nine different. Let's say it's a group of nine men. It's nine different types of genius, right? Guys who probably all excel in slightly different things that we then get to kind of grab little pieces of. And then you get to bring the part you know you're gifted at and share that with the group and together again, it builds that resiliency. So I would say, you know, take the chance and just go to a group or an event, try some men's work, get in the room with other men, and you'll know pretty quickly if it's for you or not. But there's no, you know, this is why I focus on embodiment is there's no shortcut to it. You can't read about it in a book. You have to have the experience. Your body has to have the experience of being in a space where men are connected to themselves in this different way. Because I can talk about it, I can tell you about it right now, but it's still so different than when you're actually there. And it's this immediate experiential imprint of, wow, now I know that that's possible. Now I feel in my nervous system, because of CO regulation and mirror neurons, something is possible that wasn't before. So if you're skeptical, you know, you just get like, try it out. It's an act of faith.

Host: And now so. And I know you're saying, go, and I would imagine in person and being with men in that physical sense, like, in a space, is so much more powerful. But I'm sure. Are you doing some of this work online as well and zoom.

Jason Lange: Totally.

Host: Whatnot?

Jason Lange: Yeah. I mean, I think it's part of why the men's work, the men's group movement right now is it's having a bit of an explosion. And I think a big part of that is because of technologies like you and I are using now, where we can connect with each other without being in the same room. And previously, you know, I got lucky in my 20s, I lived in a particular town where there was a lot of transformational work and growth, and I had access to this kind of stuff. Many men I work with to this day live in parts of the country where it's just not there yet. There is no local group to go to. Right. And that's where virtual work is really starting to fill some of those gaps so men can have those experiences. So I absolutely lead virtual work. There's lots of virtual work for men appearing. And, you know, while my favorite thing is always to get in the room with a man, because there's a tangibility to it, I've been blown away by the depth of connection and work that can happen in these virtual spaces. And, you know, to be totally frank, for some guys, it's actually a safer gateway, because the other thing that often prevents some men from connecting with other men is they have very much actually experienced the wrath of other men through bullying or mocking or abuse or shaming or, like, they've actually had the experience of, no, I can't be vulnerable because men will attack me for it. So this. We're not always just making this up. There's plenty of men I work with who have lived that, and so their nervous systems are terrified to step in a room with a group of men, because the last time they did that, you know, they actually got hurt. A virtual space can be a nice gateway in. Because you can be in your home, you can be safe, you can. You can be in a place where you feel really comfortable, where you have that actual. That. That distance, and you can start to build that rapport and connection, and your body, your nervous system can start to get the experience of, oh, this is okay. This is okay. These guys actually aren't out to get me. They're here to Support me, and then you can, you know, stay in that or. Eventually, you know, often guys I know end up meeting up with each other in the real world because they've fostered that offline connection and build. Built some safety and trust with each other. So there's a lot of ways that the virtual stuff that I can do and that many men do, it's a great gift because it allows anyone who has the impulse now to get connected to other people, regardless of who's in their locality.

Host: Jason, you know, looking back, backtracking a little, like, on your own and experience as a young person, like you were saying, there were these, you know, you had this childhood. It doesn't sound like there was a bunch of trauma or things, but you had these needs that were not being met. So what can you say to parents, you know, raising boys? Like, what would you tell them right now if you could?

Jason Lange: The greatest gift you can give your children is to deepen yourself, do your inner work, your healing work, learn how to get in touch with your emotional body, learn how to set boundaries, learn how to deal with conflict, and learn how to be present to yourself and take responsibility for what you need to heal. It's kind of this side effect that I don't really promote. But many men that work with me come in because they're wanting to work on their relationships or their purpose or their career or whatever. And we start doing this deep work, and they come back and they're like, I gotta tell you, like, my relationship with my son or my daughter is the best it's ever been, right? And I didn't expect that. It's kind of an offshoot, because as they start to do the work, often their children can feel it. And like I said, for men in particular, we've almost never had a model of what healthy connection to emotions looks like to our emotional self, right? And so you start doing that work yourself, whether you're a mother, a father, that is such a great gift to your children. And it's also teaching your children that everybody needs help sometimes. We all need to keep growing throughout our life. We're never done. And you don't have to be perfect. You can grow along the way, Right? And the willingness to take that responsibility, I've seen it change lives, you know, for children. And, you know, sometimes I will get guys coming to me, and they're like, you know, my son or daughter, they're having some behavioral problems. And it's like, well, you know, the first place you got to look at is what's Happening in your nervous system. And if you have a spouse, their nervous system in between the two of you. Because oftentimes struggles for kids, they start there, they co regulate off our nervous systems as parents. So if there's anything unresolved in us, there's tension between me and my wife that's going to show up in my kid's nervous system. And so the more my wife and I can take responsibility for what we're feeling in our bodies and learning how to process that and how to model that, maybe even how to model sometimes mommy and daddy fight. We still love each other, we still stay connected. Wow, Daddy's feeling really angry right now. I need to take three deep breaths. That's how my kid learns to do that, right? They seem my daughter sees me do that and that's how she learns how to do that. She's like, oh, when daddy's angry, he does this. Maybe I can do that too. And sometimes I lead her through that. Right? That kind of thing. It's not the sexiest thing in a sense because it doesn't sound fun. But it's like, you got to do your work as a parent. It never ends. And your willingness to take that on, I argue, is the greatest gift you can give your kids.

Host: That was such great guidance. I absolutely loved what you shared there. Now for you personally, I love that you have said this over and over again. This idea of the ongoing journey. You've done so much deep work, you've been doing it for years, for decades even. But what does, like, where are you at with that? What, what, what can you say personally about your own spiritual evolution?

Jason Lange: Sure, yeah. The older I get, the humbler I feel, the more it's like, okay, I got even more work to do. And I don't mean that in like a shaming way or like a self effacing way. It's just like, wow. Like the human experience is always changing and I'm always learning more about myself and I can always feel a new of vulnerability to step into, of transparency to step into, of power to claim in my life. So I'm constantly humbled, you know, particularly as becoming as a parent. So many things that were unresolved in my nervous system, you know, have come up and I've had to learn some hard lessons around, you know, it's easy to want to blame my kid, but it's like if I get triggered, it's not my kid's fault, it's my nervous system, right. It's something I can't hold in my Nervous system. And so that gives me something to look at of like, yeah, why am I getting so angry about that? Or why am I so upset about that? Or why do I want her to have to do something a certain way? And then I have to look at my own belief structure in life. And so I'm very much just of the belief that, you know, it's just, this is a lifestyle we take on. We're never going to heal it all, we're never going to fix it all. And it's just part of the fun of going along the journey. And if two people, you know, particularly spouses, are committed to that, of just, hey, the whole point of us being in relationship is so we can grow, right? So we can grow. That creates a really beautiful context to move through life in, right? Where we actually welcome challenges or I welcome triggers now or now I get excited to some extent, right? When I realize, wow, I'm being really reactive around this. Instead of, you know, crunching away from that. It's like, why am I being so reactive around that? There's probably some gold here for me. There's some insight. There's something I'm not seeing here. And there's almost like an embracing of these different parts of myself. So, yeah, I don't think I'll ever be done. And I frankly, I tell people I work with, you know, if any coach or therapist or spiritual teacher tells you they've got it figured out, I'm healed. I finished my work. Run for the hills. I honestly think, like, run for the hills. I don't care how developed you are. There's always something to be working on. There's always something to be working on, right? And it's those. You know, for me, it's particularly been those men who have been honest. Here's what I'm really good at. Here's the edges. I'm still working. Those are the men I trust the most. Because I'm like, that feels real. That feels. You're not hiding anything from me. You're not putting on a facade, you know, something so easy to do. And our kind of social media, you know, era get on the channels. How glamorous at all. I figured out this, and it's like, there's almost always more to it than what we see. And I'm a firm believer. And yeah, we just. We just keep growing. We just keep growing, right? It never ends. And that's, you know, for some people, that can feel overwhelming. But when you relax into it, it's like, oh, that's okay. That's okay. There's nowhere to get. It's just to keep peeling the layers of the onion and you never know what you're going to find next, which kind of keeps life interesting, too.

Host: That is beautiful. And it speaks volumes to your own personal growth. I love that. So now tell us how I'm going to have links to your stuff for people, but how. What are different ways people can work with you?

Jason Lange: Yeah, absolutely. Best thing to do is you can always check me out at evolutionary men, but I do one on one work with. I pretty much just work with men at this point. I will work with women, but it's always through the context of being in a couple right now, if I'm working with a couple or me and my wife are working with a couple, just because that's the journey. I know. So that's the journey I feel most comfortable supporting in right now. So I work with men one on one. I lead a couple of different group programs, one of which is totally virtual. If you kind of want to experience coaching and group work all together, there's one that's like a hybrid of virtual and a live retreat, kind of what I call a shadow work men's group, where we really get into the depths of our kind of emotional content and traumas and unfelt experiences. And then I also do a live retreat every year where if you just, you're like, okay, I want to try it. I'm going to get into a room with a bunch of guys, see what happens. That happens every Labor Day. So lots of ways to work with me. And you can always also just reach out, write a message, here's what's going on in my life. And we can use that as a starting point to talk about, you know, whether it's with me or not, what a path forward for you might be.

Host: That is awesome, Jason. Okay, so a couple of things. First and foremost, you have been so awesome. You've had so many amazing insights. I have loved all of what you've shared, and I'm so honored to have had this time with you.

Jason Lange: Well, thank you so much, sue, for taking the time and helping me spread the message. It really means a lot. And, you know, a lot of men, there is a portion of men that make up these stories that, you know, men and women have to be enemies, and it's just not true. And it's just always so great to feel someone advocating for men, too. You know, everybody's in pain and we all need help. So thank you for being, you know, creating spaces like this for men to get some support too.

Host: Oh, that's awesome. Thank you so much. And now, in closing, I have to ask you, you've already said so many wonderful things, but what is that closing message, your hope for everybody that you would like to leave us with?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I think you hinted at it, but I believe every man should be in a men's group. And I think if every man did have this experience of other men don't have to just be my competition. They can be my allies in connection, in support, in accountability, and that I'm allowed to bring my emotional self there, the world would be a much, much better place. There's a reason, you know, men are being called forward right now. There's a long history of what happens when men in power who are disconnected from their hearts, how they can impact women, children, the environment, the world. Bad things have happened and are still happening. And I argue this men's group space. One of the ways. There's a lot we can't control in the world, but one of the ways you can kind of be a bit of a revolutionary is to disrupt that whole pattern that so many men are just raised right into and say, you know what? No, I'm gonna do it differently. Do it differently for me, for my kids, and just check out a men's group or tell a man, you know, who's in pain, like, hey, it might be helpful for you to just get around some other men. You don't have to suffer alone. So just tune in, find a group, try. Try something, even if it's just a best friend. Call them up and say, hey, I'm struggling. Here's what's going on in my life that can change the world, in my opinion.

Host: What an awesome closing message. You have been so wonderful. Thank you so much.

Jason Lange: Such a pleasure to be here.

Host: You thank.

Jason Lange: Thank you. Sue.

Host: Sam, Ra.