How Men Are Dying Five Years Earlier Due to a Deeper Crisis You Can’t See | Beyond Transcendence with Andrew

Jason Lange: Sam,

Andrew: I'll do that again. Welcome, beautiful souls. Take a breath and arrive here. A lot of men are struggling right now, not always visibly, not always verbally, but internally. The old paradigms, what it means to be a man, are breaking down to the lone wolf, the emotional shutdown, the pressure to carry everything alone. For many men, those models no longer work, if they truly did. Today's guest works directly in that space. His journey into men's work begins in his 20s. After years of loneliness, discomfort in his own body, and the difficulty creating meaningful romantic relationships, what he discovered changed the course of his life. Out of all the personal growth he's explored over the last 20 years, men's groups become the most impactful. Not because they offered perfection, but because they offered honesty, connection, accountability, and real support. Today, part of his mission is helping men move beyond isolation into healthier ways of living, relating, and expressing themselves. This conversation is about masculinity, vulnerability, brotherhood, relationships, and what happens when men stop trying to do a completely life. As you listen to this today, you may recognize parts of your own experience, feel less isolated in your own struggles, or begin to rank strength against what actually means. This is beyond transcendence. With Andrew, let's begin. Welcome to the show, Jason.

Jason Lange: Thanks so much for having me. I'm pumped to be here.

Andrew: It's great to have you. So going back, you talked about, like, oh, you're. You said old paradigms of masculinity no longer works. What do you think men were being taught about a man that's falling apart?

Jason Lange: Yeah. So a lot of the men I work with are bumping up against this challenge of what we were taught it was to be a man. Doesn't work anymore. Right. And when I say doesn't work, part of what I'm pointing to there is like actual death. Men are dying on average, five years earlier. Three out of four suicides here in the US in some Western countries are men. And there's this real thing starting to show up. And, you know, there's a surgeon General's report from about a decade ago that's often quoted in this work of loneliness itself is reported as having the same impact as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Like, it leads to, again, earlier death, faster heart disease. And one of two of the most simple things so many men are taught about what it means to be a man. Right. To be masculine, are be invulnerable and do it alone. And those two messages start from really young ages in all kinds of way for men, and then filter their way up and that's what kind of leads to these. This massive inflection point I think we're in right now, where so many men are suffering and importantly, they don't even really know how to talk about it or get the type of support they need around it. So one last stat that just blows. Blew my mind. I saw from up in Canada last year that really even reformatted for me this kind of stereotype of what a lonely man is, right? A guy who has no friends, you know, just lives in his house. Was that of men that attempted suicide in Canada. Over 60% of them had actually reached out and tried to get some kind of mental health support in that before the attempt. But what they got back clearly wasn't serving what they really needed. And I think that is a big part of what we'll talk about today, which is in my work connection, it's male bonding, it's brotherhood, it's support from other guys. It's a sense of belonging in community. And we swirl that along with just, you know, most guys I work with come in and they're kind of playing out three. One of three different archetypes a lot of men roll with these days. In addition to those kind of general things, I was talking about one, the old school macho jerk. Just the. I'm kind of an asshole. I go for what I want. In a way, I'm really in my power. I take what I want, I move towards the things I want, but that's often at the expense of other people. I'm usually disconnected from my impact on other people on the planet, etc. And a lot of guys, you know, grew up feeling the negative consequences of being around a man like that through bullying, abuse, et cetera, or, you know, just over the last decade in particular, have seen the many consequences of that in our culture. And it's still happening, right? We just had the rape academy a couple weeks ago reported on of what happens when men who are disconnected just go for what they want. But then there's been what I would say, kind of a reaction to that type of man that's been growing over the last decade. Decades. One of my mentors is this guy, Dr. Robert Glover, who wrote the book no More Mr. Nice Guy, which every year since he released it a couple decades ago, sells more copies than the last. And so there's a number of men then who saw, I don't want to be that kind of guy. I either experienced firsthand the damage of that man or again, have witnessed it through the culture. So I want to be a safe man. I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. And so what these guys do is we focus on being nice, and we want to make sure you're doing okay. And the consequence of that is often we can't set boundaries. It's very hard for us to ask for what we want, speak up for ourselves. And these men often feel like they're getting left behind in their own right. And then there's just the third one I kind of joke about, which I kind of call the grandfatherly mode. And the only reason I say that is because one of the clearest places in the culture I do hear from guys is like, yeah, you know, it turns out my. My grandfather served in a war and did, you know, had some pretty gnarly experiences, but he never talked about it once. Just keeps it all inside. Shows up, steady presence in the family and the household, but kind of goes with that more stoic thing of my internal world. I just don't go there, and I definitely don't share it with other people. And those are the three kind of strategies I see most men using. And they're all failing men in different ways for the reasons we talked about in terms of the mental health consequences. And so a lot of men come to me and they're like, hey, I get a sense what I'm doing isn't working. I see that those aren't working. What's next? What are we supposed to be as men? What are we supposed to grow into? I don't even know how. What to aim for at this moment in my life.

Andrew: Wow, that's truly powerful. So your own journey started with loneliness and discomfort in your body. What was really happening beneath that for you at that time?

Andrew: Wow, that sounds like a wonderful brotherhood to be a part of Absolutely. Why do so many men struggle to create deep friendships and healthy emotional connection with other men?

Jason Lange: Yeah, one is, like I said, these ideas of what it means to be a man, one of which is, don't give men other ammo, they're your competition. And the journey, you know, I've kind of mapped out and seen and as I've worked with many men is part of the challenge for us guys is again, some of this is cultural force, some of this is familial, some of this we do to ourselves. But for most boys and young men, thankfully, it's starting to change. But from a very young age, we are actually taught and rewarded for not being in our bodies. So there's lots of research about how young boys and young girls are often parented different. You know, the kind of platitude we often share is young boy falls down, generally what energy comes back to him, oh, you're okay, you're tough, you're fine. Just get back up, get back on the swing, you can do it, right? And obviously there's something to that. Having some resilience. But rarely do boys in the same way, particularly in my generation, again, it's changing, but receive the type of comfort often offered to little girls of, hey, that probably hurts. Come close. It's okay to cry. It's okay, you're in pain. Take a moment, let's. Let's reground together. And then that process just continues, right? So many men I've worked with and I still hear it out in the world this day, right? Boy starts crying, stop crying. You're tough. How a boy, but frankly a human does that when like if you imagine me coming up to a little child who's bawling and in pain and I say, stop crying. How they do that is they hold their breath, tighten their body, squeeze off the feeling and the sensation, they tighten up. Then young boys get into school. Mainstream school system, which I'm not against. But the truth is, what do they ask you to do all day in school? Sit still, pay attention. Male bodies and female bodies do have some differences. Young male bodies need to move. They're kinetic, they have a lot of energy. We actually learn through moving bodies. But in school we're told no. Sit still. So that urge you're feeling in your body to move, that's wrong. Override it with your head. And if you can't do that, guess what? You're a bad student. You might have adhd, we might have to put you on medication. Then we get up into our adolescence, our Kind of peer energy starts to take over. Bodies are developing at a different time. Social hierarchies develop. There's in groups, there's out groups. Things we have to learn to manage. How do most boys learn to manage that? Keep it all inside, don't share, I'm scared, don't share, I'm feeling vulnerable. Definitely don't share a tear because that might be ammo for someone to come at me or ostracize me. So play it cool, be cool. Then we get out into the workforce and you know, say what you want about our modern day, what do we tend to celebrate? Oh, he works 80 hours a week, he sleeps under his desk. He's such a hard worker, he just goes, goes, goes. What does that take for men, it means disconnecting from your body, ignoring what your body needs. And the downstream of this to kind of come back to what you're saying is in the work I do, emotion, all emotions start as body sensations. So if we are not in our bodies as men, we are disconnected from our emotions. And from a very young age, men are not taught to be aware of what we're feeling in our bodies, let alone how do we share it and express it. So what most men do is they disconnect, they numb, or they self medicate with alcohol, weed, porn, masturbation, food, video games. When their inner state isn't feeling well, they try to change it through some outer shift. All that then adds up to men often have something happening inside. Sometimes we can't identify it, sometimes we don't know how to talk about it. And so we might have friends, but many men I work with, right, Heard this story from a client about a month ago. He's like, yeah, every year I go on a ski trip with guys I've known since I was like 5 years old and we just don't talk about things. He's in the midst of a pretty painful divorce. One guy kind of mentioned it and then that was it. That's just not where they go. So he spent three days with men, but came home and felt lonelier than ever because no one actually knew the pain he was going through inside. So part of this, how this all swirls together is how most men relate by default is side by side through triangulation. Which means me and you, we hang out and guess how we create connection. We put our attention on some third thing. We watch a sports game, we talk about something, we do an activity. What our attention is not on is each other. Our attention is not on each other. And that is what creates the deepest connection overall. And men just aren't trained in how to do that and are taught that if we do do that, there's something wrong with us or weak. So there's many men that want and yearn for connection, but they don't know how to do it particularly. Then you hit middle age, right? You got kids, you got a job, you have very little time. I got guys coming to me and saying, how do I make friends? Where do I even meet men available for real connection? And this is, I think, part of what's creating this pretty big crisis right now.

Andrew: So out of all the professional work that's you've done, why were men's groups the most transformative?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I've. I've done so many things, and men's groups for me have moved the ball. And now for the hundreds and thousands of men's I've worked with, because they, at one level, they give men two very simple things that every man I have met is yearning for. A sense of purpose and a sense of belonging. Purpose, meaning when you become part of a group, you know, usually between six and 12 guys, anywhere in that range, your presence really matters in the group. You might have the one piece of feedback for a man to change his life. You might be the one voice that he feels safe talking to or expressing to, meaning it really matters. What. When you're there and you're not there in the group, the group feels it. So there's a purpose to showing up to. If nothing else, serve the men you love. Then you get a sense of belonging because you're part of something. People notice when you're not there and they want you to be there. And together you're traversing something. And there's a, you know, not perfect science around this, but there's increasing research around, you know, male bodies in particular seem to have more receptors for vasopressin versus oxytocin. And these are both bonding hormones. And for men, males, surprisingly, how vasopressin works is we create connection and bonding by doing hard things together. And what a men's group does, paradoxically, is the hard thing we start to do together is navigate the pain of our life. And so as we start to move through the challenges of life with other men, we get deeply connected to them, and that connection is. Ends up regulating our nervous system. So guess what? We're more available to handle the challenges in our life, let alone have an actual group to support us through it. And then with that comes support. Right? These are platitudes in the men's workspace. But you get support. Meaning for most men I work with, one of the biggest challenges they have is they do not know what to do with their pain. Who do I talk to about it? Who do I share it with? I don't want to burden anyone. So I'm just going to hold it inside. Having a men's group, a place to come and support, which is literally. Most men I know feel like they're holding up the world. I'm sharing all the, you know, I'm holding all the burdens for my family, my job, my wife, my parents, whatever that might be. Men's group is a place where you get to drop that and actually be held as a man, Meaning you have space to feel your pain. And then on the other side of that is challenge. Right? This thing that so many men I work with aren't even aware they're craving until they get it. And what I mean by challenge is it's someone who loves me and is tracking me and points off when there's something I need to see that I'm not seeing points out to me. So I kind of call it the spinach in the teeth moment, right? I'm walking through my day hanging out with all these people. I finally get to you. You're like, hey, dude, you aware you got a big old piece of spinach in your teeth? You kind of look dumb. And I'm like, ah. I feel a little embarrassed. I feel a little shame. I'm like, oh, my God. Yeah, you're right. I get it out of my teeth. Then what happens is I say thank you because I've been walking around all day and no one told me, and I've looked like a total idiot, but you told me, I trust you more now. And that kind of feedback about where we're drifting from the life we want to be, living terms of how we're showing up when we get that lovingly from another man. That is so potent for guys. And although it can sometimes be hard to receive feedback about where we're not showing up fully in our life, what most men experience when they feel that is love. This is someone who cares about me to not let me get off the hook or get in the way of my own best self.

Andrew: For the man listening right now who feels, like, disconnected, isolated, or stuck trying to carry everything alone, what's the first step you'd encourage him to take?

Jason Lange: Absolutely. I will always say connection. So most men I know, even the ones who feel really alone, maybe don't have a lot of people in their life. Usually if we sit down, kind of audit the Rolodex of our life, there's usually one or two men that come to mind, maybe an old friend, maybe just some guy at work that for whatever reason you have an intuition you would like to have more connection with or have felt some kind of connection with. And leadership these days for so many men is going first. So being the one to invite that man out to coffee, to go on a hike or go on a walk and then take the conversation deeper. So instead of just hey, did you see the last game? Or what's going on with the weather, it's actually reveal something about your life that not everyone knows where you're maybe in pain or something you're celebrating that not everyone has seen and see what happens. Not every man will meet you there. That's the painful reality. Some men are totally afraid to go into depth. But if you do it a couple times, I guarantee you'll meet at least one man who is absolutely thankful you opened the conversation in that you two are able to get real in a way you might not. And just that flow of connection can be enough to start to change a man's life. So to actually try it and see how do you feel afterward, that's the key. The thing about connection, about men's group. Sometimes we get really nitty gritty with accountability and coaching and what's the plan? Oftentimes all that changes. We have. All the stressors and problems out there are still there. Right. Didn't actually change anything in the group, but we talked about it. And in talking about it, we create space in our nervous system and get a little connection which resources us to get back on the court. Beautiful.

Andrew: Well, this has been such a wonderful interview, Jason. Where can people find you?

Jason Lange: Yeah, absolutely. If you like what I'm talking about here, you can listen and read ad nauseam about men's work and the male crisis and male transformation, all of that men's groups at my website, Evolutionary Men. So it's not.com but it's.men. and if you go on there, you'll see my podcast, my writings and a lot of great programming and even just some ideas of how you can start your own group.

Andrew: What a needed conversation today reminded us that many men are not failing because they are weak. They're struggling because they were taught survival instead of connection. The old model told men to isolate, suppress and endure silently. But silence comes at a cost. This conversation showed us something different. That strength can include honesty. The masculinity can include emotional awareness. And that brotherhood is not a weakness. It's medicine. Maybe today you recognize something in yourself. Maybe you felt less alone in what you've been carrying. Or maybe you realize that healing doesn't happen in isolation. It happens in connection. So as you step back into your day, take one slow breath and ask yourself honestly, what would I changed if I tried to stop doing this alone? Until next time. Remember, you are the creator of your own story, and your soul is the pen. Much love to you all.

Jason Lange: Sam.