Here's the thing about unrequited love: we think it's about wanting someone we can't have, but it's actually about wanting something we're terrified to receive. I had a powerful conversation with Melanie Curtin on her show Dear Men about a pattern that used to run my life called the Super Crush. You know that woman you obsess over for months, maybe years, who clearly isn't available or interested, but you can't seem to let go? Yeah, that was my specialty.
Looking back now, I can see how those crushes were actually keeping me safe. Safe from having to face my real edges around intimacy and touch. Safe from having to deal with the awkwardness of actual connection. I could stay in fantasy, or get rejected in ways that confirmed what I already believed about myself, without ever having to risk real vulnerability with someone who was actually available.
What shifted everything for me was working with a somatic therapist who helped me understand what was happening in my nervous system. She was the first person to point out how I'd tense up just from eye contact, how my body would freeze at simple closeness. That freeze response, that inability to self regulate, it came from never learning how to regulate as a kid. I never got attuned to. So my nervous system learned to seek out unavailable women because that's what intimacy felt like to me growing up. distant, unpredictable, just out of reach.
The real work was learning to distinguish between that hyper-electric pull toward unavailable partners and genuine electricity with someone who can actually show up. Moving from falling into love (chaotic, disorienting, out of control) to walking into love. That shift changed everything about my dating life and eventually led me to my wife.
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Jason Lange: You know, I don't want to come across as harsh, but I do want to offer as an invitation to any men who do feel like the women they don't like or that they want, don't want them back. And if this is a long standing pattern, you know, I'd like to offer a bit of a challenge that is, you know, in my perspective, from where I stand and the many men we've worked with and the work I've done myself, if that keeps happening, there is somewhere in your life I think you can take deeper responsibility for in deepening or healing.
Melanie Curtin: Hey, guys, welcome back to another episode with Jason Lange, Fan favorite. Love to have you on the podcast. And today we are talking about the pattern of that we've seen in a lot of our clients, of when the women you really want don't want you back. And this is something that Jason, you've had personal experience with, and we've also seen in a number of the men that we work with. So I'm excited to kind of discuss what's around it and how to resolve it so that men don't have to keep going through it. So I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit to your personal experience of kind of attracting women that maybe weren't right for you and then on the opposite side, feeling like the women you actually wanted, didn't want you back.
Jason Lange: Yeah, I think for me, the place to start here is, um, I think you and I talked about on one of my first appearances here is the idea of the Super Crush, which was how I initially related to the feminine in the sense that I would get these massive crushes on women that would last months, sometimes entire school years. Oftentimes that I wasn't actually interacting with that much or not in a way of actually showing any kind of attraction or, you know, moving things towards dating.
Melanie Curtin: And this would have been. And college, like, timeline.
Jason Lange: Yes.
Melanie Curtin: And twenties. Would you say it also extended into your twenties?
Jason Lange: Oh, yeah. There were definitely remnants of that. You know, it would flare up, let's just say every couple years.
Melanie Curtin: Super Crush Flare up. Super Crush Flare up would be a really good band name too.
Jason Lange: Totally. And I mean, I think the main thing with that that I came to realize is, you know, it was really kind of getting hung up on partners that weren't actually interested or available. You know, when I did kind of find ways to move closer to that, let's say, it just wasn't reciprocated. And that was what caused a lot of anxiety and pain and frustration. Uh, and Then, you know, oftentimes, along with that, there would be other women who would be interested in me that I wasn't interested in back. And so there was this, like, stuck feeling of, why can't I find someone who I'm interested in that's interested in me? That. That was really kind of the crux of it.
Melanie Curtin: Well, it's interesting because, you know, we throw around that term, attracting unavailable women, and we don't always specify what that means. But it sounds like for you, it wasn't necessarily that those women were emotionally unavailable at all. It's that they weren't interested, which meant them that they were unavailable to you. So unavailability doesn't have to mean that this person is, you know, I don't know what the word is emotionally, like, not ready for a relationship, but it can be actually that something in us isn't ready. And so we aren't attracting. Yeah. And so I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to that, because I think that can be. When you're in the experience, it's just so frustrating. But the hopeful part is that there is actually you have more control over it than you think that you do. Which is. Which is good.
Jason Lange: Yeah. And I think that point you just made is really important that I think it also illuminates what's often a big pain point that sometimes I experienced, or certainly clients we've worked with experienced of, let's say, pursuing a woman, not being super comfortable, you know, sharing desire, moving it towards dating or whatever that might be. So kind of getting stuck more in that friendly friend zone place that I often did. And then, you know, at some point, kind of spilling. Spilling my guts, oh, my God, I like you. And dah, dah, dah. And then, you know, a woman sometimes saying, well, I'm actually, you know, I'm not ready right now, or I'm not, you know, some. Something comes up, right. There's a reason and then. But something. But somehow, you know, to protect me. It's often not about me, but then, you know, weeks from suddenly she's dating someone, but. And then there's the pain of. But wait, I thought. And it turned out actually it was me. Right. It was just the interest wasn't in me specifically, which is painful. But like you said, actually there's a whole lot we as individuals can do to start to shift that. And so for me, I think one of the first things I realized looking back at, you know, those super crushes and being interested in women that weren't Interested in me was, I think, the hidden goal in it. Maybe, let's say the hidden desire in it for me was that it was actually a way to. It was. It was very safe. Let me just put it that way. So there's actually a lot of safety in being more in the super crush zone of a. You know, on one end of the spectrum, never even telling someone I like them or, you know, pursuing. Because then it can just stay in, like, fantasy. And I never have to be rejected all the way to. Yeah. Actually trying to, you know, share my. My interest and then getting rejected. But the. There was something looking back, you know, when I started doing my work of, oh, wow. Yeah. I never actually had to confront my edges of intimacy by choosing to get crushes on women who weren't interested in me that I kind of knew from early on. I think that was one of the things that, again, in hindsight, I can see is often more than I like to realize. It's pretty clear when there's interest early on. Right. When there's at least a desire to explore it versus not.
Melanie Curtin: And.
Jason Lange: And sometimes the most painful super crushes that I would get stuck on were like, that kind of wanting to pretend that maybe there was still something there and if I just waited or decoded or, you know, like it would be there, but there just wasn't actually interest coming back in an explicit way. And that. That kept putting me in a place of not actually having to move through some of my deeper issues when it came to intimacy and relationship. You know, stuff that I now know is attachment. You know, things. Things around attachment styles and parts of my nervous system that got set, you know, in my early childhood that I still. Right. I'm still in relationship with those pieces of myself, like, and always will be. And I think that's. That's totally normal. But for me, kind of having a bit of an anxious avoidant and choosing partners that weren't actually available to me. They weren't interested. And by doing that, I could sidestep a whole dance of awkwardness or uncomfortableness.
Melanie Curtin: And it wasn't like. I think that's the confusing part about choosing. It's like when we say choosing, it's not a conscious choice. It's not like you were 21 years old consciously choosing a woman that was unavailable. You had feelings and you had attraction and you were interested in this woman. Let's just call her Claire. And Claire was attractive to you. She was really cute. She was funny. You liked her. There was a reason that you wanted to move towards her, she was attractive to you. So if you had told 21 year old self that you were choosing someone that wasn't available, that would have been very confusing because to you it was like, I don't feel like I'm choosing. I'm going, you know, towards what I want and it doesn't ever seem to work out. Why is that? Why is it that the women I like don't want me back? It's such a frustrating experience and I think can be so confusing. So when we're saying the word choosing right now, it's not a conscious choice. It's more like your actual body, your subconscious, your physiology didn't really feel safe getting really close to someone. And so it figured out this coping strategy, which I think the shorthand for that is attachment to not get close to someone. So there's this again, push pull, which we covered a little bit last week in terms of somatic therapy. The push pull of your conscious desires and then your unconscious body and its level of safety if your unconscious body doesn't feel safe with something that must be dealt with before your conscious desires can come to fruition. So I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to how did you end up figuring this out? When did you figure out like, oh, there's something unconscious going on or I'm involved here, it's not just something that's happening to me, you know, what was that process like and how did you kind of unwind from it?
Jason Lange: Yeah, for me, you know, I think it peaked right when I was, you know, I was starting to do inner work. I had a therapist for a little while and then I lost my insurance so I didn't have that therapist. But then I found a way to start seeing a coach. And I was doing men's group and I was pursuing a super crush over a long time. And this is one that I've written about the worst state of my life, which is a pretty intense experience where finally, you know, actually the super crush was interested for a moment and there was like a window and we were out on a date. And then patterns in my nervous system of like being so malnourished for touch came out that I was like really heavily, you know, going heavy on the touch at this concert and it didn't feel good to her. So at the end of the day, you know, we're like walking along and I'm like trying to get close to her and she just shoved me away and she's like, I don't remember the exact words I think I wrote about it, but basically just like, stop. I just need, like, I need. I need some space. It's not that I don't want it. It's just a little too much for me in public, which literally, she said, it's not that I don't want it, but immediately my nervous system just tanked back to, you know, what I would say is the age that a lot of that nervous system trauma first got developed in. And I just flatlined. I mean, it was just. That was the end of that whole connection. I couldn't. Basically couldn't talk the rest of the date. And it was clear something was up for me. And I had a session, I think, with my coach within the week or so, and he had done some depth work, and we ended up going to a pretty deep place. And very clearly in the middle of that session, he's like, hey, man, you know, I love you and I want to support you, and this isn't really my territory. I feel like you'd be better served, you know, going and finding another therapist. And luckily his, you know, his wife was. And he connected me to her, and she was a somatic therapist. And that really was the awakening of specifically having a somatic therapist who. And I think it was important that she was a female and that in my sessions with her, she was the first one that just clued me into those very subtle, like, notice when we make eye contact and when I'm this close versus this close, like, what happens in your nervous system. And that is where I would feel anxiety, like, of just closeness, just closeness. And she started me on a beautiful path that helped me start to unwind some of that and get more comfortable with giving and receiving touch in important ways. That it was that. That awkwardness that I think was at the root of all these mechanisms that then got deployed so I wouldn't have to feel that awkwardness, right? So, like, that touch, intimacy, awkwardness. So at a very basic level, that was there. And then the super crushes and the safety and the choosing unavailable women, which in some ways reproduced, you know, patterns of what intimacy was for me as a kid in terms of not having a lot of physical touch or emotional closeness with my mom. So that's what I knew it to be. So that was my safe space. And anything to that was like an uncomfortable threat that I didn't yet have the tools to be with. So I was just constantly, you know, it is almost like a superpower in that my attraction pattern, like. Like X ray vision could kind of pull Figure that out without me consciously choosing it. But there would be, you know, I clearly had built up a pattern of knowing, oh, when someone's not immediately available, that's who you should go for. Because then, right. It creates this safe space. So ironically, it was me trying to create safety for myself because there was actual deep fear of connection and intimacy for me specifically.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah. And there's something that I've noticed in a number of clients that we've worked with as well, around a freeze state. So I've noticed that a lot of the men that I've worked with and that you've worked with and that we've worked with together. When a woman does show interest back, a lot of times that man will go into some kind of freeze state. So he won't know what to do with the attention or it will feel overwhelming too much for him. Whether this is in a sexual scenario or not. If it's just a woman flirting with him or giving him attention, his body will actually kind of freeze up. He won't be able to speak. He'll feel anxiety or he'll just feel numb. He might just feel nothing. But there's this physiological reaction that I think, again, can be really frustrating and confusing if you're going through it because you're like, you know, she was giving me attention, I should have gone after it, or why couldn't I? Or why didn't I? And all of that. And I guess I just want to sort of name that explicitly here because that feels like it's related to this subject. It feels very related to. If your actual body, you know, isn't. Doesn't feel safe with closeness. When closeness comes towards you, not even just you going after, but when it comes towards you, you. Your body's not necessarily going to feel safe. And so some strange things might happen that might be really frustrating for you as you're going through them.
Jason Lange: I think that's super important. Right. It's not that. Again, it's not that it's like a conscious thing or you're doing something wrong. It's, you know, I like to think of our nervous system as literally a channel for giving and receiving. If we're not used to receiving, if we've never actually known what, like, safe touch and presence and interest and affection is coming at us. It can be overwhelming. Right. It's like, what is this signal? It just sounds, you know, it actually feels more like noise at first and can be uncomfortable until we've actually done some work to open those channels a little bit and Allow that in and for it to feel a little bit more comfortable and it can just be overwhelming is often what I find. And then not having the tools or vocabulary to kind of express what's going on, I think that was something that was early for me is, you know, a lack of interoception, I think, is what they call it. So the ability to kind of name your inner experience. I didn't have much there, so it's hard to know what to do if I don't even know what's happening in me. Right. That's, I think, a big part of freeze of, like, what? And then. But I feel like I should know because I'm an adult or, you know, and then it just creates these whole Certainly spirals for me at times.
Melanie Curtin: Right. And an example of that is you're on this date, she pushes you away, you go into a shame spiral, your whole nervous system collapses, and you're not really able to speak or communicate with her about any of it. So she's just sort of like, I imagine being her. I'm like, I fucked it up. Like, I shut him down. Like, he's not okay. I'm. You know, I'm having a whole other experience too, around what happened, and I'm like, are you okay? And he's just like, almost catatonic. Just sort of like, it's fine, but I know it's not, but he can't share. Like, it's just not comfortable for anybody involved. And I'm wondering too, because it does feel like a lot of the men that we work with do come from family backgrounds with either parents who fought a lot or. And. Or just not a lot of touch. Right. Not a lot of warmth, not a lot of affection. Maybe a critical parent or neglect, like some form of neglect, which I think when I hear the word neglect, I think of, like, extreme child abuse cases where, like, kids are locked in the basement and don't get food and everything. But the truth is that emotional neglect or physical neglect, you know, lack of affection, things like that, just not really being hugged, not really being held, not having your parent attuned to you, like emotionally attuned to you, give you physical warm, like, affection can really, really impact you. And I'm wondering if you would just share a little bit about your journey, learning about that on a personal level and how it kind of affected you.
Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, this one weaves into. For those that are regular listeners, you know, large parts of my story in that, you know, and this is a pain point, a lot of Guys we work with often experience and I think is one of the things, you know, we help guide them through of the shame that can come up when we can't self regulate. So right. When we can't self regulate, we freeze, we fight, we flee, we turn to other ways to regulate. Oftentimes, right, these are substances, weed, alcohol, porn, like I talked about a couple weeks ago, ways to regulate and soothe my nervous system. And so when we, you know, when I would get overwhelmed at first looking back, right, Shame kicks out of that, like, oh my God, why couldn't I X, Y or Z? But I think it's super important. What you spoke to of tying it back into family of origin is a lot of us don't know how to self regulate because we were never attuned to. So the way we first learn how to regulate is when someone co regulates us. That's really, in my opinion, the primary function of our caregivers. Right. We have these wide open nervous systems. We have no ability to self regulate ourselves. You know, I'm a new father, so I see this daily with my daughter. I can't get mad at her when she's overwhelmed or overtired and keeps crying. She literally doesn't have the capacity to yet bring herself down.
Melanie Curtin: And when we say, when you're saying the word regulate, the simple way of saying that is kind of like to calm yourself down, right. To soothe yourself so that you feel better. That's just what we mean by that word. If it feels a little clinical.
Jason Lange: Yeah, to just kind of bring, bring oneself back to the moment and connect to the breath. Doesn't mean the problems go away, but. Right. Just an ability to kind of be with whatever's happening in us in the moment and come back and have choice in terms of how we're responding oftentimes now, like I said, I think that's one of the primary jobs of our caregivers. And if so, so many of us men, you know, that we work with in particular, and honestly, women these days too, didn't quite get that right. I think the stresses of the American nuclear family and parents having to work and just like there's a lot of time where we don't get that. There's a lot of reasons I think that's playing out in our culture right now. But so we never learned. We never had somebody like bring attunement to us and help us slow our nervous systems down and just feel like it's okay, you're all right. I think that's the ability to, I Think that might be another way to put this idea of regulating the ability to feel into. I'm okay. I'm all right. Whatever's going on, like, my life's not actually in danger, which most of the time it's not, particularly around these emotional or attachment issues. Um, now, you know, a good somatic therapist, some good coaches, some good men's groups, can help us bring that online. Right? That. That was what my work really started with, is me becoming aware of. Right. A huge part of this. Becoming aware of when. When am I freezing? Because I can't do anything to unfreeze if I'm not even aware I'm freezing. So what does freezing feel like in my body? Where does it live? How does it breathe? What does it look like? When does it tend to come up as that awareness builds? Right. There's a little bit of distance that I started to create from it that I would have a little bit more choice. And it was going in there and doing that that, you know, I started to notice that, okay, maybe I tend to go after women who aren't really interested in me, and maybe there's a reason for that. And so what would it be like to turn my attention or be more open to other types of energy from women coming at me? And that began a whole different journey, right, of actually starting to move into relationships and having to deal with the awkwardness of communicating and touch. All those things that, you know, I moved through on my journey that are edgy in a different way. Right? Edgy in the nervous system. And thank God I had practice and I had structures around me to help navigate that in important, important ways. You know, there was, you know, when I was probably, you know, high school into college, you know, I did always have good kind of crews of men around me, even if they weren't necessarily deep. But I can definitely look back and it was just touch in general, that I was just not. I was not the guy that would come up to my brother, you know, friends and tussle or wrestle. There was always distance. There was just always distance. And that's totally changed now. I'm way more comfortable with that because of all this work that I've done on my nervous system.
Melanie Curtin: So I think another good example of how this shows up, especially given what you just said, is the. The idea of settling or, like, it's confusing when it's like, I want this woman over here who I feel really attracted to and turned on by, but I don't really feel safe with her. And then there's this woman over here that I feel safe with, but I feel like if I were to be with her, it would kind of be settling. And I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit, because we've seen that a number of times in our clients, and I think you might have experienced it as well, of just the emotional resonance of someone who feels familiar in that way that maybe we felt with our unsafe parent can be very sexually alluring and we don't really know why. But there is this thing that happens, and I'm wondering, because we've seen it, have you experienced that and what was your journey around it?
Jason Lange: Yeah. And, you know, this is something that you first brought to my attention. And a couple, I don't know, many podcasts ago, this, you know, what I. What I'd kind of call maybe hyper electric. Right. Because I still think it's important. You can feel electric chemistry and energy with a totally available partner who can go deep with you. But there's.
Melanie Curtin: That's what you have. That's what you have now with your wife. So it's not right because it. I think that's what I'm trying to say is I think there's this idea of like, oh, well, if I don't go after this kind of woman, then I'm going to have to settle. Which is not what we're saying. But there is this sort of fate coming through.
Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah. And the hyper electric. It's almost like the overdrive, I would kind of call it, where how I've often seen this show up in myself and some of our clients is it's actually not based on a ton of, like a ton of data. So sometimes we can get these really strong polls to people we don't know any. Anything really about them. They're kind of total mysteries oftentimes is one way that manifests. But there's like a supercharged there. I think the problem with that, you know, my certainly diagnosis on that, you know, how right or wrong that might be, is I think that's oftentimes, you know, these somatic patterns in our nervous system that were created by our caregivers that are so deep, so primal. Right. You know, often when we had avoidant or anxious, avoidant or, you know, even the worst parents, oftentimes there'll be moments where they're present and they're with you. And your nervous system is so desperate for it. It is like. And it creates the deepest high. Right. Because you probably haven't had that often. So that's like something you Know, we're kind of seeking, I would say, a lot of us. And then these kind of hyper electric partners, I think, are often tend to have some of the same traits, right. To create some of that pattern where we could feel like, oh, they're not really present with me, but if I could get their attention, that would feel so good. And I would feel so good about myself for finally being able to get that person's attention that I always craved and you know, made up stories that it was because something was wrong with me. But if I can do it right now, then I know there's nothing wrong, right? Becomes this huge kind of cacophony of different desires. But the trick is, you know, again, I would say what makes it alluring and more like an addiction is that that person can't ever actually fulfill that because it was a wound created by the caregiver, right? That's energy we need from someone else that suddenly we're trying to get from a romantic partner. And you know, I've seen this certainly in myself and certainly with guys, you know, we've coached of the confusion sometimes I think on both sides for men and women of kind of needing a paternal or maternal energy from someone and chemistry and desire and romance. And those two things I think are really hard to hold at the same time, right? When we're wanting someone to give us that kind of just loving masculine or female presence or attention or. Or love and we're trying to create attraction with them, it's really hard to do. But the allure is so strong in our nervous system. I think it creates like a pull to try to complete something from early in our lives that we can't actually complete with that person. And so it's like a hyper type of thing. And you know, again, it's a fine line because I want. We want you to be. Have electricity with your partner. But you know, one of the first things I try to have some guys build awareness of is like, you know, who are your elevens? Like really what kind of makes them in like that just total pull versus like who are your eights? Like there's just. There's really something there, but there's not quite the obsessiveness or something just deep inside and trying to reorient that actually those elevens might not be elevens in the way you really think. They might not actually be able to get you or give you the intimacy and connection that you want. So start paying a little bit more attention to who are those eights. Like there's attraction there and there's electricity there. But I don't necessarily feel that like deep compulsion. And this is something, you know, we were talking about. One of our clients kind of came in. A lot of guys that come in to work with us. Some are just totally single and ready for a change. Some are coming out of a divorce or another relationship. Oftentimes a relationship with someone who wasn't fully available. And so there's that like, okay, I got to try to create some space, but a huge pull to that person still someone who was not fully available. And to be totally honest, we sometimes have guys coming in thinking if I do this program, I'm going to be able to win that person back. By the time they're done with the program. That's usually not their intention anymore. You know, it shifts to like, actually I'm doing this for myself. And then something happens. And we've seen this happen with a couple, couple clients at least of that electric charge for that person who's not available. And then when they change their awareness, I think of the difference between that kind of hyper electric and electric. Suddenly there's an electric person there. And suddenly they're like, okay, actually I'm a little scared now because there's someone who's really here willing to do relationship with me. And now it's actually, I'm not sure if I want that because like I'm a little. There's parts of my nervous system that are afraid to go in and see what's really there. But that there's. There is that mutual interest. Right. There's that, you know, there's that just yes to leaning in from both parties. That is a very different experience. Doesn't mean it's going to be a life partner forever or it's going to be perfect or they're the right one. But oftentimes those mutual yeses, I think where there is some electricity and some attraction are so beneficial to our internal growth and our capacity to actually be in relationship that I just don't think you can discount how important they are to getting, really getting in there and learning about ourselves and our attachment and working it with a person who we can share with and talk with and move through that stuff. And we've just seen a number of our guys do that kind of leave the super crush behind and then actually get into a deeply meaningful, healing, growth oriented relationship.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah, with. With someone that they're attracted to. Because in that case, I remember that that client, we'll call him Kyle for this call. Kyle really liked this New woman. I mean, she was great. Like it wasn't, it was not a settling scenario. And the image I get is the hyper electric is like you're running after someone who's running away from you. So there's this experience of like trying to, like you said, trying to get their attention, trying to get their attention and they're, they're turning away. They're either turning away or running away. And you keep running after them, which is exhausting versus a more calm but still exciting. Like I'm turning to face you and you're turning to face me. And now what's here like, what's here like that's exciting. There's growth potential, there's possibility, there's creativity. There's so much learning. And I was so proud of Kyle because the resilience that he was able to build in the program and the way that he was able to unwind some of those patterns we talked about really deeply served him in that new relationship because he was able to actually talk about his desire and go after what he wanted with her and say no. Right. So some boundary stuff came online and that served her as well. And so they just created a much more healthy dynamic than I think he probably ever had. And what is exciting for me is it is also like could have been the first healthy dynamic she had had too. There's something very healing about when we do our work and then who we get into partnership, that person is also served by us. And I did just briefly want to mention, I think another signal of this pattern is chaos. If you've been in a lot of chaotic relationships where there's drama, for lack of a better word, whether that's emotional or physical drama, you know, big highs, big lows, sort of this feeling of not always being in control, out of controlness, whether in yourself or the other person, you know, is that's often an indication of the hyper electric and you know, less than healthy. And what we've seen is as, as, you know, men go through our program and as they grow and become more resilient and unwind these deeper things which really, really need to be addressed, then relationships can become more stable. And I would love to hear just your personal experience of that because I think that's, you know, you are now married with baby and life wasn't always like that. So what was it like for you going from sort of super crush land into like, oh, I'm actually relating now, this is really different. And then in healthy relationship, because that was a, you know, stages you went through stages. It wasn't just like, boom, I'm married with a baby. Like there was a whole stage of growth that you went through before you were able to do that.
Jason Lange: Yeah, totally. And it's a process still unfolding. You know, it's one of the reasons I love a growth orientation and one of the reasons I wanted a partner. I had a growth orientation of like. Oh yeah. Actually the kind of whole reason we want to get into relationship is to keep growing through this stuff together. Like that's part of the point. It's not just kind of feel good all the time. It does feel good a lot of the time. But there are times where we're, you know, we're working things and you know, I think how I would name that is for me, the hyperreal tended to have the peak electric thing that one of the red flags I now often kind of tell guys to look for is falling in love without it being earned. I know it kind of sounds a little Calvinistic in one sense, but it's like I believe now that part of what you're speaking towards and part of what I discovered is, you know, like to fall in love, it's not something I have any control over. It's totally this like disorienting thing and it's chaotic and there's highs and there's lows versus like just the kind of more steady, continuous, like literally weaving it together through connection, through tension. They're bringing it back. Yeah. Walking into love. I think that's a great way to put it. And for us, you know, that started with very early on being mindful of, yeah, we're growth oriented people. What have you done? What are you doing? Talking about our growth. You know, one of the first things I did with my partner, I'm a huge fan of the Enneagram, which guys that work with us know about. And I had her do that. So we had some shared language for talking about some of the ways we show up in the world and with each other and gave us some tools to kind of name patterns as they were happening. You know, when we got married, we quickly got into couples counseling. We've done tons of workshops together. We've independently done stuff. We've done things together and that it's really, yeah. Been this process of weaving trust. We trust that I don't have to be perfect all the time. She doesn't have to be perfect all the time. I can get triggered. She can get triggered. I can be unconscious sometimes, she can be unconscious sometimes. And we use that to Actually grow our relationship because now we become allies for each other. Wow. When you do this, I notice X. And when I do this, we can really talk about that. So for me, it was something that I think I've talked about here before, and I know I've talked about with many guys we've worked with. It wasn't easy. It isn't easy in that it's always just, oh, things are perfect. Like, we're always perfectly in love. There's actual conflict. There's tension, you know, but there's ease. That was the one thing. There was an ease in that. There was a general, genuine. There was that yes to leaning in and to examining the relationship. There was a yes to, like, let's examine these structures. Let's name them. Let's get help. Let's get. Let's talk about your attachment stuff from a kid. Let's talk about my attachment stuff for a kid. And that's been a game changer for me. I didn't necessarily have that before. You know, one of the things I love about my wife is she's aware of who she is, and she's done a lot of work, and she wants to keep doing work. So that's the ground for our relationship. And it just keeps getting better, you know, in that sense, because we just keep uncovering more, and the more of these kind of unconscious blocks that we're able to remove, the more actual space for connection there is of like, wow, this feels awesome. It's really nice to just be with you, which is a great feeling, you know, nine, 10 months now into a pandemic to have with someone I've been spending 24, 7 with, you know, really, it's like, wow, okay, this is cool. If we can get through that, we can get through anything.
Melanie Curtin: It really reminds me, honestly, of building your dream house. Like, the foundational work, the foundation of that house is the growth work that both you and your wife have done. And that's excavating, right? You got to dig that shit out. You got to go through it. You got to lay a new foundation, which is a new way of being in your nervous system. And then once that foundation is there, two people can come together, and they have to collaborate on the plans. You got to figure out what you both want, how's it gonna. What's it gonna look like? What are the rooms gonna look like? And then as you're going through that and you're really working out kinks, and you're figuring out, how do we work with our triggers, what you Know when you're triggered, do you need space? How do, how do I help soothe you? What if we're both triggered? How do we. How do we do this? How do we do this dance so that it feels really good to both of us and we continue learning and we continue getting better at our dance, but then you get to live in the dream house. And I think that the model of relationship that we've been sold, I think as a culture is you get together, it's really hot, and then it goes downhill. It's like ball and chain. You know, you're married and you know, somebody cheats because it's not exciting anymore. That's like the narrative and a lot of pop culture and just I think in the consciousness, but in conscious relationship, it actually feels like the opposite, where it's like a lot of the hard stuff is front loaded. So, yeah, you get together and it's sexy and it's hot. And if you're in a conscious relationship, you are aware that the attachment shit is coming. You're not like, surprised. You're like, oh, yep, here it is. Like, this is really hard, but you know that you're gonna be stronger on the other side, genuinely. It's not that there's this surprise, because I think in the, in the unconscious culture, it's like, oh, because it's hard now, you must not be right. Right, exactly. Whereas I think in a conscious relationship, it's like, okay, we're, we're doing the work now and both people are attuning to themselves, where it's like, if it's feeling really hard and terrible all the time, and it doesn't feel like either of you is growing, and it doesn't feel like you're being spiritually served, that's not the right relationship. So it's an art, it's not a science. It's figuring out, does this still feel good overall? Are we growing? Do we feel like we're both able to be vulnerable with each other and feel safe? Because that's really what I think the difference is between a chaotic relationship and a relationship where you're going through some shit. Is that in a chaotic relationship, you don't really feel safe being vulnerable with that person. You don't really feel met by that person. Whereas in a growth relationship, you might feel tension, you might feel uncomfortable, it might feel like shit sometimes, but when it comes down to it, your partner is able to meet you and you are able to meet them and grow together and become more loving instead of just more chaos.
Jason Lange: Totally and the analogy of the dream house, I think, is really important because, you know, to kind of. I'm a guy, so I love analogies. We'll run with that a little further. But it's almost like, you know, each partner comes with a bit of a map for what they think it should look like. And a lot of times we focus on, wow, the house looks the same, Cool, we're a match. But totally ignoring the foundation work behind each one. And I think that's part of what we're really wanting to get out there to guys in this idea of I want to be able to attract women that want me in the same way I want them. Some of that comes down to this foundational work. For me, it took being in some relationships to uncover a lot of my attachment stuff that I then had to go heal. It took me going in and doing my foundation work very explicitly in the months leading up to, you know, meeting my wife, like, taking really good care of myself, getting my life in order, feeling healthy, working out, getting enough sleep, meditating, moving my career forward, like, things that were super important, being in a men's group, talking about my feelings, like naming all that was so important to my foundational health that that's, I think, part of what allowed me to recognize and be attracted. Right. It was. It actually changed my pattern of attraction. I think that's the other thing I don't want to forget to say is what I will often tell guys, and sometimes it's a leap of faith at first, is like, if you keep doing this inner work, I think you'll notice who you're attracted to will start to change. Doesn't mean you're less attracted to people, to women. Right? It's not. Again, we're not telling you to settle. I think what you'll notice is you become attracted to more things, different things, and that who you're attracted to starts to shift. So for me, a huge part of the attraction for me was my partner had done work. She was clearly doing work, like, from the moment we met. That was part of the context, and that was something I recognized because I was doing it myself. Right? And so it created, you know, this other type of polarity that we talk about of you attract your reciprocal. So if you want to attract someone with a solid foundation for a relationship, you got to be fucking working on your foundation. There's just no. There's no shortcut, guys. There is no shortcut. And if you don't change your foundation, you're going to keep attracting the same patterns Relationship over and over. The super crushes, the unavailable women, the unstable relationships, the addictive person, all that stuff. That's where we do have control. Is that our ability to change our foundation, which will change who we're attracted to and who attracts us. Hands down. We've seen it so many times with our guys.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah. And it's incredibly gratifying to then see, you know, the joy, really. I mean, so if we go back to Kyle, like, the joy of, like, oh, wow, I'm finally on a ride that actually feels good and feels genuine and authentic. We're both sharing where we're at. Or, you know, we're both. We have really connected sex. Like, that can be different. Right? Not just hot sex, but actually connected sex. Like, I feel safe. She feels safe. Like, I feel like I can tell her when I'm like, I'm not getting hard. I don't think it's gonna happen tonight. And it's like, that's no problem. Like, we can do something else. Like, whereas before, it'd be like, I'm in a shame spiral. I can't believe I can't get hard. I should be able to perform all the time. And then she doesn't know what's going on because you're in a shame spiral and all that. So just the joy of genuine connection, which is one of the best parts of life. Like, really, if you think about it, it's like there are certain fundamental parts of life that are like, this is part of the human experience that we're also supposed to have because it brings so much joy and energy and vitality to our lives and richness. And ultimately is what is supposed to lead to a new family structure. Right. Is that sense of connection and joy and trust and love is what grows a healthy human and the chaos grows an unhealthy human. So I just am very inspired by you and Violet and just how you've been raising your daughter and watching, like, two conscious parents, like, attuning and actually doing the things that a lot of us didn't necessarily get. It's really exciting what people who are doing the work are passing on to the next generation. Because then, you know, your daughter might not have to unwind all of this shit. Like, I'm sure she'll have stuff, but I think the degree will be fine. Far less than many of the rest of us and what we experienced. So I think that's a really elegant and powerful sort of legacy of work is like, our client Kyle, in the future, I think he's going to be a great dad. And I think he's just going to keep on his growth path and he's going to deeply serve the women he's with and ultimately his children. And that's. I don't know, that's really inspiring to me as we sort of wrap up this episode.
Jason Lange: Totally. I think it's one of the great things available to us in this moment in time. Like, wow, yeah, this stuff can change and be healed and we can shift it. Right? Shift the legacy of nervous system where we're transmitting to our children and that they're going to inherit. And this is, this is one of those things that I don't want to come across as harsh, but I do want to offer as an invitation to any men who do feel like the women they don't like or that they want, don't want them back. And if this is a long standing pattern, I'd like to offer a bit of a challenge that is in my perspective from where I stand and the many men we've worked with and the work I've done myself, if that keeps happening, there is somewhere in your life, I think you can take deeper responsibility for deepening or healing. It's probably not your fault. You didn't ask for these things in the way you were raised. But to really take a sober look at, okay, what part of myself might I need to heal? What part of myself could I deepen into? What kind of structures around me could I get support in doing that? Because it's a place where you actually have a tremendous amount of power. You really, really do. And don't. You know, one of the most heartbreaking things is sometimes when I get on the phone with guys who are like, at that point where they just, they've kind of given up hope. Right. Because the same thing just keeps happening over and over and like, what's the point? What's the point in reaching out to someone? What's the point in going on another first date? And I just want you to know that it can really shift. It can really shift. And there's probably just some things to take a look at there that you don't have to take a look at alone.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah, you don't have to do it alone. Yeah, that was my biggest, my biggest thing there.
Jason Lange: Don't have to do it alone. And you know, Mel and I are certainly available if you want to chat with us. And if it's not us, there's lots of other places to turn to, to start this kind of path of like, just what's there, you know, what needs to be healed, what needs to be deepened, because the moment we do that, things will start to shift on the other side of that. I've just seen it too many times and it's not a straight path and it doesn't all happen at once, but it does happen if you just keep walking that path. At this point, I feel like I can say I will guarantee that if you walk that line of inner work that something will shift in terms of who you're attracting their attraction back to you.
Melanie Curtin: Oh, that's a great place to wrap. So, yeah, just to say, if you are interested in Jason and my work, we have a free masterclass called how to Take Control of youf Love Life.
Jason Lange: And that's available at Evolutionary Men Training.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah. So free training if you're interested in that. And otherwise we will catch you next time. Sam dun.
