Most men today are walking around completely disconnected from their own bodies, and it's destroying their relationships. I recently sat down with Maria for the Love And Legacy podcast, and this counterintuitive truth kept coming up throughout our conversation. We talked about my own journey, how I went from being that anxious teenager who could barely talk to women, completely frozen in my own body, to finding my way into men's work and eventually meeting my wife. What struck me most was realizing how universal this struggle is. That disconnect from our bodies, getting stuck in our heads, not knowing how to be present with a partner affects men across all ages and backgrounds.
We dove into what presence actually means for men, why so many of us are trained to be disembodied, and how that shows up in our relationships. I talked about the work I do around embodiment and polarity, helping men learn to lead in relationships while staying grounded in their bodies. Maria asked great questions about the different kinds of men I work with, from guys who've never been in a relationship to men who are dating again after 20 or 30 years of marriage. The thing is, whether you're 25 or 55, the core work is the same. Learning to drop out of your head and into your body, to be with what's actually here, and to cultivate that deep masculine presence that creates real trust and attraction.
We also touched on shadow work and how much tension and emotion men carry in their bodies without even realizing it. When you can finally let some of that go, move that grief or anger you've been holding onto for decades, your whole system changes. Your presence shifts. Your relationships transform.
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Jason Lange: Woohoo.
Host: How are you?
Jason Lange: Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Maria, thank you so much for having me.
Host: Oh, I listen so excited. So, you know, as we were just talking before we started recording, you know, I, I'm intrigued, okay. As to your journey and how you came about it, so please share.
Jason Lange: Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, I'm a men's guide and coach these days and my journey to becoming kind of a men's work facilitator obviously has roots in my own journey, my personal journey, my personal story. And a big part of my story was, you know, I'm a white guy, raised in the Midwest of the United States, kind of lower middle class, had a lot of my basic kind of security needs met. But the one thing my family did not really know how to do was emotional or physical intimacy. So there was, there was just not a lot of connection in my house growing up, particularly with my mom at a young age and with my dad in some different ways and even with my siblings and, and you know, that was partly because of how they were raised and all kinds of stuff. But point of that being when I became a teenager, obviously stuff started to change. Got really interested in, in women and dating and found that I Would just get really anxious around women I was attracted to, didn't know how to talk to them. My body would tighten up, would kind of lock up, and I'd get very nervous and often kind of freeze and just be afraid. And that stayed with me. Like, I really struggled in high school and in college, never really had a relationship, didn't have any intimacy with women. And it was really painful for me. Like, hey, why, why, why do I have such a hard time with this when people around me don't seem to? And lo and behold, that kind of popped me onto my journey of inner work, self growth and development, and looking at myself and some of the different ways through my attachment relationships to my parents and things around touch that my nervous system had absorbed that made me deeply uncomfortable. And it was through combination of therapy and then eventually men's work that that really started to change for me. Where I learned how to get into my body, discovered what was kind of going on underneath, learned how to access my emotions and started to feel much more comfortable in my skin and eventually got into my first relationships and had some beautiful experiences. And then, yeah, met, met my now beautiful wife and started a family together and am now very passionate about helping men also move through that journey, which there's not a lot of support for us in a lot of ways. You know, it's been a pretty like, drastically changing time for men in, in relationships, you know, in terms of what we're expected to bring and how we need to show up. And I think the, the, the very real depth of what we're asked to bring these days as well. So it was in my journey that I was like, hey, this was really hard. I want to make this easier for other guys. So it's a big part of why I do the work I do now, which, though relationships tend to be one of the primary areas, it often goes much deeper than that. It's just, and you've probably found this too, one of the only things that will get a man off the couch, so to speak, and ask for help and really have to change his life is when he can't create or sustain the type of intimate relationship he has the pain of. That is one of the few things I found that'll actually wake men up to, wow, I got to do something here.
Host: You know, I think it's interesting what you said, because first of all, depending upon what generation, I think really still on the cusp of millennials, of course, Gen X's, baby boomers and the silent generation, and that we think of Men stoic. You don't show your emotions. And. And you raised in the Midwest. I'm raised from an Italian family. Although men do cry. Okay. Men are allowed to cry, right? Like big girls can cry, big men can cry.
Jason Lange: Yeah.
Host: And I. Or does start. I mean, my perspective, I believe it starts from when you're young, which is something that you're talking about. And it starts with the attachment theory. You know, listen, nobody gives a parent a handbook. At least then they didn't. Nowadays we have so many more tools available to us that my personal belief is anybody younger, some of the millennials on and younger especially in particular, no matter what gender you are, I really feel that they're doing a better job, a better job with getting in touch with who they are because we focusing so much on self. You know, it's interesting when you talk about that when you realize to get a man off the couch is they have to be going through emotional pain. And I agree with you. And that emotional pain comes because you need to make sure you have the right fitness going on in your life. And I'm not just talking physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. So what do you do? Like yourself, you had this journey, right? But what when somebody comes to you, like, what do you. How do you start out if you can share a little bit about that and what's the process? Because I noticed you had a 6 week or 16 week or 6 weeks. 16.
Jason Lange: I've been in men's work for two decades. Yeah, I've been guiding men since about 2017.
Host: Okay.
Jason Lange: So I was deeply immersed myself for about 10 years and then I stepped into, okay, I want to start helping other men.
Host: And the Met. The pandemic brought about more men that probably fell into more of a depression.
Jason Lange: Yeah, totally. I think it was incredibly challenging for a lot of men who aren't, I would just say by default, aren't necessarily as relational and necessarily as maybe changing now, but didn't always know the value of maintaining relationships that they have, you know, benefit to themselves beyond just focusing on work, work, work. So, yeah, a lot of men ex, you know, that I worked with experienced extreme isolation throughout the pandemic and so there was quite a hunger coming out the other side. But yeah, I've helped men of all ages and experience levels. I've helped, you know, men who were virgins, who had never had a relationship before, get into their first relationships and have their first sexual experiences. As a late bloomer myself, many men come to me for that because I, I totally get what that pain's like. I've helped men get out of relationships that they felt trapped in that were not healthy for them, that they were afraid to get out of because they thought, oh my gosh, if I leave this, I'll never be able to find someone else. So I got to keep putting up with this dangerous behavior. Sometimes I've helped older men who, you know, were maybe married for 20 or 30 years and raised kids and then their spouse either passed away or, you know, it turns out they hadn't maintained the relationship and things break up and they're dating for the first time and it's a very different landscape than last time they dated. Right. With the apps and electronics. So I've helped men of, of all ages, really in different experience levels cultivate this deeper presence and in a sense feel like they, they're taking their power back in that, oh, I know who I am, I know what I want. I know how to go out there and move towards. It doesn't mean power over people. It just means I feel empowered to try to create the types of experiences I want instead of. For a lot of men, when they come to me, they feel powerless, like I have no idea how to attract a woman. I feel totally lost on the apps and sometimes it gets so painful that they just give up. So, you know, I give men community along with the training of how to get in your body, how to get connected to your emotions, learning how to lead in this new kind of integrated way that a lot of people are longing for from men that you're right, is both heart centered and safe and still directive, powerful, takes the initiative, isn't afraid to lead as a gift, not as a, you have to do this. But hey, I created this experience for us. Want to check it out? Right. Which has a great energy a lot of people appreciate. But like, like you said, us men just aren't trained on how to do this, you know, and here in the States, right in Hollywood and everything, the story always ends, the couple met, they got married, and they lived happily ever after. And nobody talks about the skills it takes to maintain attraction, relationship, connection, long term. And that's also a big part of What I do with men.
Host: You know, it's interesting that you say that because first of all, when you talked about older men, because I'm older than you and I speak to men and women in the 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond. And you know, I was just thinking the other day, because I come from the car rental industry years ago, and when I used to, when we used to hire people, we did not want to hire agents, sometimes that were trained from another company, they had bad habits. So I was just thinking as you were talking, maybe sometimes the younger generations easier when they've been the version versus when you get to the. Because we have habits that are hard to. Sure, you have two different scenarios, but it was just that brought me that correlation. But I think it's interesting because you're right, first of all, somebody younger or has less life experience because they could be older, and that's tough because they have to go through that particular change, that emotional change. And we both know that it gets uncomfortable. And that's.
Jason Lange: Oh, yeah.
Host: And then you have somebody that might have been married, whether they're widow, widower, 20, 30 years, they didn't maintain the relationship and they don't want to screw it up the next time. Right. So that's even harder when you think about that in some respects because you have to undo what they've been doing that they think is right. So I love, I love that analogy that you bring up because it is so different. And, you know, I think it's interesting now talk a little bit about your training because I was, I was reading the different training that you've had. If you can share with us about, you know, what you're doing, because you, even though you were not psychiatrists. So anything here we're discussing, of course, you know, just pure conversation. And we know that don't take anything as far as le to heart, but share a little bit about that.
Jason Lange: Yeah, I'm trained in a couple different ways. Two primary things that show up in most of the work I do with men. One is, yeah, I'm trained in just men's embodiment. So. Right. What is this process of how we get out of our heads and into our bodies and what does that even mean as men? Right. This is one of the big struggles a lot of men have right now is we're told and shown in the culture what men should not be. Right. There's tons of talk about the toxic masculine and toxic men, and rightly so. There's plenty of evidence in history for what can go wrong when men aren't responsible for themselves and the damage they can cause. But not all men are like that. And what that fails to do is also then give men a vision or a model for, well, what is. Is it. What does it look like to be a healthy man? And so men, we want to get it right. We want to do things right most of the time. But oftentimes we need a sense of where we going. Like, what is it I'm growing towards. So a big part of the work I do is around this deeper embodiment. Connection to self, connection to other, and then, you know, connection to Earth, honestly, itself, that, hey, we're all part of a system. And so that. That training also also relies heavily on. Yeah, this body of work now that's now so popular, called polarity, which is just how does masculine and feminine energy, which you don't even have to call it that. You can call it lead and follow. You can call it structure and flow. There's so many different words for this yin and yang. You know, these are kind of primal energies that show up independently of people's gender, in a sense. And as a man, I have feminine energy. As a woman, women have masculine energy. And part of what's been shifting in our culture is the great rebalancing of, hey, I'm allowed to have feminine energy. Now as a man, women are allowed to get out and kick ass and not just be stuck at home and create their own lives and be independent. And that's all great. That's like a huge plus, right in evolution. But it's left a lot of people confused as to then, ooh, why doesn't relationship work anymore? Like, and why is it sometimes depolarized long time. So I work with men on, yeah, how do we polarize a relationship? Right. How do you keep that chemistry alive? And like you said, you don't have to be. As a man, you don't have to hold the masculine. And as a woman, you don't have to hold the feminine. And as 9. 9. Binary. Binary, you can work with both. But what's important is for there to be juice in a relationship, you kind of have to play with those energies. Doesn't always have to be the same, but you can. It's like notes on an instrument. And so, oddly enough, they're becoming even more important now that, okay, if we want to have a charged or erotic moment, I gotta know, for me, in a kind of more traditional setup, my wife is more feminine. If I want her to relax into her feminine, I have to be Able to ground into my masculine, right, which is a very different energy. It speaks differently, breathes differently, I hold my body differently, I lead differently. And then that impacts her nervous system. And so I work a lot with men on that kind of chain of training of how do we do that, right. How do we ground ourselves in our masculine. Then my other big piece is, like I said, one of the big things that will often prevent men from being present is it so uncomfortable to be in their bodies. They hold so much tension physically and emotionally that they just want to eject into their head all the time. So I do a lot of what I call shadow work, which is the process of getting deeply in touch with what's actually present in our system, which, unsurprisingly, you know, for a lot of men, traces back to, well, human beings in general, to stuff that happens pretty early in life, right? Intense emotional experiences. Some of them are big T trauma, some of them are little T trauma, but they're things that our nervous system holds on to when we don't know what to do with them. And every time we hold on to something, literally how our body does it is it tightens up. It, like, holds it. And so I work with a lot of men who, you know, particularly start to see it in your 30s, 40s, and 50s, the tension in the body becomes pretty apparent. Back issues, autoimmune issues, aches, pains. And that's not all powered by emotions, but it can be pretty incredible how much can be related to emotions. Where I'll go in, I'll do deep work with man. Maybe he'll be able to move a piece of grief or a piece of anger that he's literally never told anyone or been holding on to from decades. And on the other side of it, the body will actually transform around. His eyes will often soften, his voice will deepen, his breath will get deeper, his body will relax, and that natural presence will kind of come back online. So it's, it's kind of. Those are two of my primary channels. I work with a lot of men around.
Host: It sounds wonderful what you're doing. So we have a few more minutes. So I want to ask you, like, on a personal note, I always love to talk. I know you have a beautiful daughter, Ruby. Now, how I always like to hear when I have a podcast guest, a couple's love story. How did you two meet? You and Violet, your wife?
Jason Lange: Yeah, we have pretty epic story. I'll do the, the, the. The short term version of it. My wife had been dating a man that she, like, liked, but he was pretty sarcastic, as she says, and she's pretty sensitive, so it kind of just energetically wasn't working for her. And she wasn't sure what to do. And one night she fell asleep and had a dream. And this man approached her in the dream and put his hand on her heart and said, what are you doing with that? You know, she said that guy's name, Joe, at the time. What are you doing with Joe? Like, he's a 10 and you're a 100. And so she woke up laughing with this, like, warm feeling in her heart, like, okay, I think I need to break up with this guy.
Host: And.
Host: That's not quick, believe me. I marry people that get married within two months. Las Vegas. Right. But, you know, I think it's interesting because when you talk about dreams, not to get off on the subject, because I want you to share what's coming up, what you're doing with our community. Dreams do say a lot, and sometimes it's a subconscious and sometimes it's a message. So I do. I believe in that solely. So tell us what's coming up on the horizon that maybe my community might be interested in finding out, especially with you dealing with men, which I think is so necessary.
Jason Lange: Yeah. So I work with men in a variety of Ways men can work with me in this online kind of boot camp I have around cultivating masculine presence, learning how to generate polarity and become a leader in relationship. I do that online so guys can do it from anywhere in the world. And what's cool about that is you get training, coaching and community. The kind of magic trifecta I found it actually create change. And then I do live events as well, which is a really big thing for a lot of men to get into the room with other guys and get connected and do some deep work. So many men, particularly as they get older, it's one of the first things they let go of, is keeping their own main relationships alive with other men. And it's a source of just so much energy for us guys and power. And I really emphasize to men that, you know, you don't have to do everything alone in life. The lone wolf thing puts a lot of stress on you that you don't need to do. You're not tougher just because you're doing it alone. And getting connected with other men. And something like a live retreat, I have one coming up this Labor Day that tends to be very popular, is just an amazing way to kind of blast yourself open and have a different experience of yourself, your body, your life than often men have ever had before. And they're like, wow, I didn't know I could feel this way. So you can do the group program. You can do a live retreat with me if you're more into that shadow work stuff I was talking about. I lead a special group for that about twice a year as well, but that's kind of all on my website. There plenty of stuff to get started.
Host: Gosh, it sounds like you are busy and it sounds. And it sounds so necessary. Well, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show, going to share this all with the community. So everybody, you heard it here, and especially you men, you know, if maybe Jason might have touched a little bit on your feelings that you have maybe buried them and then they come to surface and you're thinking, you know, this might be something I need. Listen, go check out his website. I'm going to have that in my show notes. In the meantime, everybody stay healthy, happy and safe and remember to live and love with purpose. Have a great day, everyone.
