Most men I know aren't lonely because they're alone. They're lonely because the relationships they have never go underneath the surface. That distinction matters more than almost anything else I talked about in this episode of The Divergence Room.
We covered a lot in 31 minutes. The cultural conditioning that teaches boys to override what's happening in their bodies and hearts, to appear strong, to push through, to never ask for help. And how that early programming follows us into adulthood as the behaviors we're rewarded for, working 80 hours a week, not needing anyone, keeping the inner experience on lockdown.
We also got into the three dominant models for masculinity floating around right now. The man who goes for what he wants at the expense of everyone around him. The man who has heart but no power, constantly abandoning himself to keep others comfortable. And the stoic, the one who shows up and serves but keeps a part of himself permanently off limits. None of them are sufficient. What I've seen actually work is the integration of both, having access to your heart and your power at the same time. Most men believe those two things are in conflict. They're not.
The deeper piece we got into is one I keep coming back to: the trap of "I am my output." The belief that once you hit the number or get the promotion or check the right boxes, you'll finally feel free. I've sat with plenty of men who have done exactly that and find themselves face to face with the same thing they were running from. The freedom most men want doesn't live in the achievement. It lives in how we relate to the present moment.
And we ended where I always want to end: with something concrete. One person. One conversation. A little more truth than you'd normally share.
Where in your life have you been waiting for the achievement to finally feel like enough?
Read Full Transcript Full episode text for reading and search
Host (The Divergence Room): Hello, guys, and welcome back to the Divergence Room. Today's guest is someone whose work addresses a challenge that millions of men face, but few openly discuss. Loneliness, isolation, and the struggle to understand what it means to be a healthy man in today's world. Jason L. Has spent more than 20 years immersed in men's work. After confronting his own experiences of loneliness, discomfort in his body, and difficulty building meaningful romantic relationships. Through that journey, he discovers something that's fundamentally changed his life, which is the power of community. Today, Jason is on a mission to help men improve or men move beyond the outdated lone wolf model of masculinity and create deeper relationships, healthier emotional expressions, stronger partnerships, and a greater sense of purpose and belonging. This conversation is about identity, vulnerability, connection, modern masculinity, and why so many men are silently struggling despite appearing fine on the surface. Jason, welcome to the Divergence Room.
Jason Lange: Thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here.
Host (The Divergence Room): You're welcome. Let's dive right into it. When you look back at your younger self, what was life like before you discovered men's work?
Jason Lange: Yeah, for me, life was lonely, isolated. I was quite numb, quite depressed, and I didn't have a sense of how to be in the world in a way that made me feel alive and engaged and connected, which I think a lot of men these days struggle with in terms of there's things we want to bring and create in the world, we don't necessarily know how, and then we feel alone in doing it. And that was very much my case as I was a teenager and into being a young man.
Host (The Divergence Room): So you've spoken openly about holding loneliness, discomfort in your own body and struggles with romantic relationships. At the time, did you realize these issues were connected or did it feel like separate battles?
Jason Lange: Yeah, they. At first, they felt like separate battles, but, you know, as I grew and developed, I started to connect the dots on them. Right. For me, in a lot of ways, my journey to growth and awakening, like you said, started around as I hit puberty. I was. I'm a heterosexual male. In my case, I was interested in women, and I just found I didn't know how to connect. I would get really anxious, uncomfortable in my body, really stuck up in my head, and didn't know how to kind of bridge the gap in terms of creating connection with women. But then as I grew, I did start to make some male friends. And what I started to notice even in that was, wow, they relate to each other in a different way than I do. Right. They. They horseplay, they hug. There's, like, physical Connection in how they relate to each other. And I felt uncomfortable with that too. And as I continued along my journey, it really just became clear to me that I didn't know how to be physically or emotionally connected to people. I knew how to connect in the mind, talking about things and concepts, but that wasn't enough. And it would leave me feeling lonely even when I was around other people. This is, I think, a key thing that a lot of people don't understand about kind of the so called male loneliness crisis is it doesn't mean every man that's feeling lonely is just stuck in his room alone on a computer, so to speak. A lot of times men have relationships with other men, other people in their lives, but they're just surface level, they don't go underneath and we don't have vulnerability in these relationships. And that was the case for me and what made me feel so alone.
Host (The Divergence Room): Do you remember your first men's group experience? What was what surprised you most about it?
Jason Lange: Yeah, the. I'm gonna share a couple in. In that the. The very first formal men's group I sat down in was a bunch of guys, some of whom I still know. And we were quite young and it was unstructured and we didn't really know what we were doing. But I liked it. I just remembered liking it. And I remember even at that time, it reminded me of something else I'd experienced, which was earlier in my youth, as I was a teenager, even though we didn't know how to talk about things, sometimes me and my friends would just gather around a fire in one of their backyards. And sitting in men's circle reminded me of that. And I felt familiar. And I think it's a place actually a lot of men know. What started to change as I sat in men's group and got deeper into it was not only that structure and format of sitting in the circle, but then knowing how to go inside into what was happening in each man's life. And as I dove deeper and deeper in, particularly in groups that had skilled facilitation, I discovered parts of myself I didn't even know how to access before. And I noticed I started feeling a lot closer and more emotionally connected to other men in my life. And it was hard, it was vulnerable, it was scary. I didn't always want to get real or go inside or reveal things. And it's been a lifelong process of doing that. And the main payoff is I just feel better in life.
Host (The Divergence Room): Many studies suggest we're facing loneliness epidemic, particularly young men or Particularly amongst men. Why do you think so many men feel disconnected today?
Jason Lange: Yeah, like I said, I think it's a confluence of things. One, there's how we're raised in what culture teaches us as boys and men about what being a man is. And for so many guys, it's really the same story that from, you know, a young age, we're taught that to be a man means to be tough and to be invulnerable, right? That, oh, yeah, you just get over your pain, you push through it, you fell down and hurt yourself. That's okay. Get back up, get right back to it. And that kind of resilience, you know, that's not a bad thing. It has real positive attributes, but the main message it often sends is whatever's happening inside your body or in your heart, ignore it, overpower it with your head. And this message gets drilled into us throughout our lives as boys and men, right? Then we get into often a schooling system where, you know, what is school? In a lot of ways, it's sit still and pay attention. What do young boys need to do? They need to move their bodies. They have a lot of energy, and they're put in schools where it's basically like, well, that need, that urge to move your body, that's wrong. Override that. Sit still, pay attention. What's happening in your body, override it with your mind. And then we get into kind of adolescence where things shift to real peer relationships. And in order to stay in the in group, often with other boys and other men's, we have to play cool, right? We don't want to show vulnerability. We don't want to cry. We don't want to be weak. We got to posture up and put on a tough face to. To. To kind of fit in. Otherwise, we're the bully, we're the target, or we're. We're the kid that's bullied, or we're the target or we're ostracized or whatever. And then it just keeps going, right? We get out into the world, and what are men rewarded for? Oh, my God, he works so hard, right? He works 80 hours a week. He sleeps under his desk. To do that, you got to override your body, you got to override your heart, you got to override your connections. So there's this culture, what we kind of call the man box, that we're taught as men of what it means to be a man. And part of it is do it all alone. Don't ever ask for help, and don't show Weakness. And then we kind of have that, and it starts to meet just all the cultural and societal changes we're in now, right. Where more and more connection has moved online, things are mediated with our phones. Local communities, in a lot of way, don't quite have the strength they used to. All kinds of opportunities for socialization are going away. And this hits men harder in a lot, a lot of ways. And so many men I know just, they tell me, like, I want to make friends, but I don't even know how.
Host (The Divergence Room): Right.
Jason Lange: Where do I meet good quality men? Or where do I find the time if I'm a family man? So there's a desire to do it, but there's just a lot of factors kind of playing against it, you know? And the percentage of men who reported having no close friends was about 3% in 1990. It was up to 15% by 2021, likely. In the age of AI and chatbots, it's probably even higher these days.
Host (The Divergence Room): So
Jason Lange: there's a real need. And then last part is we're just not taught the skills for how to actually relate and create connection and go under the hood and talk about our internal experience because of all the ways we've been raised.
Host (The Divergence Room): Yeah. In your experience, what's the most emotional or what's the emotional cost of trying to handle everything alone?
Jason Lange: Yeah, it's a lot of tension is one way to put it. A lot of stress and a fear of doing things wrong. So an attempt to try to do everything right and perfect for me in particular, because I didn't feel there was any safety net for me to mess up. And that has a huge cost on men. Right. I mean, it's kind of a platitude, but it's like the joke about a man who doesn't want to ask for help or doesn't want to ask for directions and ends up wasting, you know, time or going the wrong way or expending a lot of effort when help would have just gotten him there faster. But to ask for help means to be vulnerable. And to mean what it means to be vulnerable for so many men because of our cultural programming is to not be a man. So this all swirls together. And for me, it left me isolated, alone, and stressed out. And as I've learned to ask for help in my life and get support, what I found is it actually helps me get back to my center, my power, my ground even faster and actually become more effective in being able to move towards the things I want to move towards in my life.
Host (The Divergence Room): You mentioned that the older paradigms of masculinity are becoming less relevant. What parts of traditional masculinity do you believe needs to evolve?
Jason Lange: Yeah, there's, you know, I often tell the story in terms of the three main archetypes or models for masculinity that are swirling around in our culture right now. And the oldest is what I kind of call what many people in the work call the macho jerk. Right. It's just the guy who. It's my way or the highway. I dominate everyone. I go for what I want and damn the consequences, right? I take, I take, I take, I take. I, I am not attuned to others and I just steamroll and go for what I want. And those men have a lot of access to their own power, but they tend to cause a lot of damage along their way, whether it's damage to kids, to women, to other men, and frankly to the planet and the environment.
Host (The Divergence Room): Right.
Jason Lange: We just have endless examples of what that kind of man does and the harm they cause, and it just doesn't work anymore. Then there's kind of a cultural correction to that man that started, you know, appearing over time, which is what we kind of call the, the nice guy. And this is the man who doesn't want to cause damage or hurt or harm and wants to be incredibly safe in the world and is very sensitive and attuned to other people's needs. The trouble with the so called nice guy is instead of not being aware of the impact on others or the environment, he neglects the impact of his decisions on himself. So he abandons himself. He puts other people's needs above his own and all costs. And that man is often not trustable, can't set boundaries, avoids conflict, and in a lot of ways is constantly abandoning himself, like I said, and will often fill up with a lot of resentment in the world. So he's got a lot of heart, but he's not. Got a lot of power, not got a lot of balls, as we sometimes say in the work. Then there's the third guy, which I kind of call the, the more traditional, stoic, and for whatever reason, you know, kind of sometimes more of a generational or grandfatherly energy. You know, a father who may, or grandfather who maybe served in a war or went through a depression or famine and really survived something intense, but does not talk about it. His inner experience is on lockdown, shows up, he serves, but there's just a part of him that is off limits to anyone else. And he prides himself on not needing anyone. Now the Challenge with all three of those is they end up hurting us as men and they're not sufficient in the current day. So the evolution where we need to go in terms of healthy men and masculinity is in some sense just having the capacity to have both an open, attuned and sensitive heart and be in touch with our power, our boundaries, our no, our desires. And it's not an either or like so many men believe it is. Oh wow, if I become sensitive, then I lose my power, etc. Or if I become powerful, then I'm not safe and I'm dangerous, which many men have experienced from other men. So the evolution is learning to both end it, that to be a truly powerful, integrated man means you have access to your heart, your sensitivity, your vulnerability and your strength, your power, your go, your force when needed to create safety. And those kinds of men are rare these days, but when we're around them, it's quite inspiring. It often relaxes everyone to be in that kind of man's presence. And so learning that sensitivity, vulnerability, they're not a weakness, they're actually a profound strength. And that when we tie that into connection with other high quality men who will keep us on track in life, we really start to see a new type of masculinity emerge that is all about connection, brotherhood, sharing power, rather than just dominating, but still being willing to advocate for oneself.
Host (The Divergence Room): No, men struggle with having emotions. The struggle in a lot of men don't struggle with having emotions, they struggle with knowing what to do with them. What emotion do you see men suppress the most? And how does suppressed emotions usually show up later in life?
Jason Lange: Yeah, exactly. So the issue, so many men that come to work with me, how I phrase what you just said, is they don't know where to put their emotions, so they just keep them all inside. They're either afraid of their emotions, afraid they'll hurt other people, afraid they'll be overwhelmed themselves by them. And so what they do is they just pull it all in and numb out, disconnect, etc. And what's so powerful about stuff like men's group and men's work is it gives us somewhere to put our emotional selves. And the problem is never the emotion, it's what we do with it. Do we collapse into it and become powerless and victims or do we posture too much about it and point it out at other people without their consent? That's what's really dangerous in a lot of ways. A healthy man, part of a collective or a group, knows how to both experience and contain his emotions. And I see this in men's groups all the time. The first time a man witnesses another man who is fully in touch and experiencing his anger or rage, but is completely safe in how he's doing it because he's not acting it out aggressively, that is a game changer for men to witness, where it's like, wow, I feel your anger and I feel safe with you. That's, again, an example of it doesn't have to be an either or, because I know how to contain my anger. And frankly, the most dangerous men on the planet are often the ones that, you know, family members, spouses, loved ones will say, are you mad? And he's like, no, that's when you want to run for the hills. Because if he's not aware he's mad, you never know what he's going to do with it. Could explode at any time. But a man who can stand there and say, yes, I'm furious. I feel so much anger in my chest right now, that man is actually a lot safer because he's aware of what's happening inside of him, and then he can make choices about what to do with that energy. One of the smartest of which would be bring that anger to your men's group where they can help you move it and feel it. Other ones, for a lot of men, fear, grief, and definitely shame. One of the deepest ones I see for men who have just completely buried their shame and are totally afraid of it. And as they learn, hey, there's a healthy, safe place where I can bring my emotions, where it won't hurt other people, and where I get to experience it fully. What that does is it frees the men up so deeply out in their lives because any unfelt emotion that's inside of you, you're dragging it around with you in every moment of your life. And that drag costs you energy, it costs you presence, costs you attention. And so as we learn to kind of clear the backlog of these feelings, we actually lighten up and become more available to do the things we want to do in our lives.
Host (The Divergence Room): A big part of this podcast is helping younger listeners, teenagers and young adults navigate their path early. What is one mistakes young men make consistently when forming their identity?
Jason Lange: Yeah, I think the big trap for so many men is that I am my output. And what I mean by that is losing ourselves and identifying with the externals in our life. I'm only a man if I make this much money. I'm only a man if I'm successful at this job, I'm only a man if I have a six pack in abs. And the challenge with that is none of that lasts. None of it lasts. And it tends to push us into that place of competition, doing whatever it takes to get ahead, and often neglecting ourselves in the process. And so the biggest shift I see for so many men, and particularly young men these days, is two things. It's one, learning that having emotional intelligence does not make you weak, it actually makes you more effective and stronger as a leader in your life. In that having a support system around you to give you feedback when you need to be held accountable and to support you when you're knocked off center helps you get more of what you want in life and faster. And so, so many young men want to skip these two steps and it will catch up with you throughout your life. I work with a lot of guys who are on the other side, right? They're in their 40s, 50s or 60s, they did the career, they, they push themselves hard, but they neglected themselves emotionally and they neglected their relationships the entire time. And the bill comes due. Whether loneliness, physical, emotional or mental health crises, relationships that fall apart, this stuff will catch up with you as a man. And so it's not that you have to stop trying to achieve and create and do things, it's that realize now that investments in peer relationships with other high quality men and investments in tools so you can increase your emotional intelligence will help you get everything you want faster and you'll be healthier in the process.
Host (The Divergence Room): So if a 17 to 23 year old man feels lost, what's the first real step? To give back himself?
Jason Lange: Yeah, often the most simple step I make for tell guys on this journey because it costs nothing and almost every man, no matter how isolated he is, can often think of one person here. And it's just to feel into your life the relationships you have and who's another man that for whatever reason you have an intuition you would like to connect more with. You like him, you trust him, you've just felt connected to him sometime, you met him. Leadership in this day and age as a man is to be the one to initiate deeper connection. And so it can be as simple as reaching out to another man and saying, hey, I'd like to connect. And then making time to get together in person or over zoom or whatever it might be. And then doing the things so many men fail to do. And rather than just talking about things, sports, media, politics, whatever, slow down and model for the other man by revealing what's actually going on in your life? What's hard? Where are you in pain? Where are you succeeding? Where are you thriving? What are you wanting? What are you scared about? And you just share a little bit and then you make space for that man and say, what about you? And just opening that kind of deeper connection with another man can profoundly change your life. And it will often get you more connected to yourself. You will potentially have a new type of connection with this other man where you can get real about what's really going on in your life and and resource each other to do the things you really want to do.
Host (The Divergence Room): So my final question for you today. What do you think men misunderstand most about themselves?
Jason Lange: Yeah, men misunderstand most. One of the most common ones, I would say, is we focus. I kind of said it already, but we focus on the goal or the outcome or the achievement. We think that once I X, then I'll finally feel free. I'll feel good enough, I'll feel worthy. I won't have any tension or problems or yada, yada, yada. And it never works that way. I've worked with plenty of men who have checked all the boxes we think will make us happy and we think will make us feel free as men. The certain number in the bank account or the certain promotion at work or the a relationship with a certain type of intimate partner or the family or the car or the thing or the certain body, and sometimes it provides a little bit of temporary relief. But what those men often feel confronted with is the same they were dealing with before that achievement. Now what? I thought this would make me happy, but now what? And so the deepest work us men can do in a lot of ways is to realize the freedom so many of us really yearn for. It's not given to us by external circumstances. It's about how we relate to the present moment. And it's a much tougher pill to swallow, in a sense, because it radically changes how we approach our lives when we realize, oh, all the things I thought would make me happy, they're not actually going to make me happy. So what does that mean? And that deeper inquiry, that's what tends to free men the most.
Host (The Divergence Room): Jason, I really appreciate you coming to share your perspective like this. What stands out most in this conversation is that the real struggle of men isn't a lack of strength. It's a lack of connection in a healthy way. Thank you so much, Jason, for coming on to the divergence room today.
Jason Lange: Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me.
Host (The Divergence Room): You're welcome. Do you want to share more about your work and how the listeners can find you.
Jason Lange: Yeah, best way to check me out is you can visit my website, Evolutionary Men and you can actually take a a fun free quiz I have called the Evolutionary Edge where you can learn about your deepest gifts and your deepest challenges as a man. And you can just head over to quiz Evolutionary men takes about 20 minutes and you'll learn quite a bit about yourself that will help you step forward in this path.
Host (The Divergence Room): Awesome. And as always guys, this the dev again. We'll see you the next episode.
