241: What if you’ve ticked the big boxes in life … but you’re still not happy? | Dear Men

Jason Lange: The work, as we've talked about before on this, which is just like the work of becoming a more whole, human, available, present person, which involves healing and growing and all these different things, right? It's walking out the farmhouse door in the wizard of Oz into the land of color. Like, oh, my God, there's so much here I was not even aware of. There's a whole different layer here, something I couldn't even imagine before. And it is that sense of vitality and aliveness that comes from being more engaged.

Melanie Curtin: Hey, everyone, just a quick note before we start the episode. I just really wanted to say thank you to everyone that is a patron of this podcast that has joined the Patreon. Really means a lot to me. I've been having some. Some family stuff going on and just kind of a challenging month, and it really warms my heart. I'm actually going to start to tear up a little bit, but it really warms my heart when I get a little email in my inbox that someone has joined the Patreon. It's. It's deeply meaningful to me. And it's not just about the money. It's about the feeling that you all are out there, that you are real people that exist, that care about this podcast and its continuation. And so thank you for paying it forward and making it possible for me to keep it open to everyone and not behind a paywall and able to be accessed by whoever needs it. So thank you for that. And for those who don't know yet, if you do join the patreon at a $10 level or more per month, you get access to a Q and A with me, a live Q and A with me on a monthly basis. We had the one in January, I want to say, about a week and a half ago, and then we'll have the one in February, right around Valentine's Day. So hope to see anyone that would like to join there and enjoy the episode. Hey, everyone, welcome back to another episode. This one is an interesting one because this is a pattern we've seen a little bit in our clients and something that I think, Jason, you've also seen in some of the men in your men's group and just general sort of pattern that exists in our culture that is a little subtle and not always easy to put your finger on, but it has to do with fulfillment, right? Whether you feel fully alive and fulfilled in your life or whether you feel a little bit, like, flat or there's just. You just know there's something more. You just know there's Something more. So today we're talking about men specifically, who've kind of ticked a lot of the boxes on life fulfillment. Right. Got the right job. My career's going well. Got the right house or apartment. Maybe even have a relationship. Relationship's going fine. Maybe have kids. Kids are fine. Things are sort of fine. And if it was a temperature, it would be tepid. It would be lukewarm. Like, it's pretty good. It's okay. It's okay. It's fine. We're getting by. And I don't mean getting by in terms of scraping by, but just. Just a feeling of being flat and not quite feeling fully engaged, fully alive, fully invested in life. And I'm wondering if you can, you know, share a little bit, Jason, about your own experience of this, and then maybe what you've seen in a lot of the guys coming through the door that are talking about this, what are the kinds of things that they're saying?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I think, you know, one way I've. I've seen this show up with men we've worked with. And just in general, in the, you know, hours and hours and hours of men's work I've been involved in from both sides of just, you know, the. The feeling of I'm kind of doing the things I'm supposed to do. That, like, I was told that, like, here's the. The. The escalator of life, I think, is a metaphor you've spoken about before. And I'm, like, I'm doing the thing. I went to school or I got education or I got a job, and then I maybe got a relationship. I got my own place. I got a house. Like, these are the things you're supposed to do step by step in life that our culture tells us. And then, yet there's this feeling of something's missing. Like, there's just. There's. There's, like, is this it? Like, is this it is a question I think a lot of men come to at some point of their lives. You know, in some sense, this is classically, maybe the cliche of the midlife crisis, but I think at this point, it shows up in all kinds of age ranges of, okay, like, I kind of got the things, but there's. There's something missing. Like, is. Is this it? Am I just going to go to work, watch games on the weekend and, like, you know, repeat forever? Or is there something more possible here that I can bring to my family, to my relationships, to my work, some kind of deeper sense of internal satisfaction or something? And so Where I've seen this show up sometimes is men don't. It is vague in a sense of like, I, I don't really know what to do next because I've done the things I'm supposed to do that they told me to do, but it's still like I don't feel fully alive. I don't feel. Sometimes it's even less about like external circumstances or success. But there's this feeling of like, I know I'm not living my full self. I know that. And so it's not a pain necessarily coming from outside in the world, it's a pain coming from inside. For a lot of the men I've witnessed of like, right, there's, there's got to be more. The years are flying by. Tick tock, tick tock, like, what else is possible?

Melanie Curtin: I really felt that on is this it? Right, that sense of is this it? And I do think that it's worth touching upon. The age question, right? How old are we? In which phase of our lives are we? Because I was watching this show on Netflix called 100 humans and it's very entertaining kind of social science show right up my alley. And one of the questions they had was in which decade of our lives are we the happiest? And this is their research question and they put people through different experiments to kind of come up with the answer. But one of the spoiler, one of the answers was when we're young and when we're old. So 20s and 60s were some of the demographics that were the happiest. And it's interesting because, you know, you were just talking about all the milestones, right? I got an education, I graduated, maybe I did well in school. We have a client like this, right? Like excelled in school, had it became a high powered, you know, it was in a high powered profession, is still in that profession actually. But achieved a lot, a lot of achievements along the way, right? I achieved this, I achieved that, I got the right job, I got the relationship. I've ticked about a bunch of boxes. And when you're in your teens, 20s, arguably even 30s, there's a sense of I'm still achieving, like I've, you know, I'm still going for the promotion, I'm still going for the homeownership thing or the graduate School or PhD or writing the book or getting into the relationship or advancing in the career, etc. And then there's a point and it does happen for a lot of people around midlife. And there's a point where it's like oh, I've done a lot of those things that I was. Like, you said that they told me to do that. The. The. The ephemeral. They. With a. I've done all the things that they told me to do, but I have this kind of nagging sense of emptiness, a little bit of emptiness and just like, kind of going through the motions. And again, not that anything's bad. It's not that there's something very, very wrong. Sort of like we were talking about, you know, lukewarm or tepid water. It's not that there's something wrong. It's just kind of blase. It's just sort of there. Whereas when you're in your 20s or when you're, you know, younger, and you're still. You haven't achieved those goals yet, you haven't graduated, you haven't gotten the job, you haven't gotten the promotion, there's a sense of. There's still a sense of, oh, well, once I get those things, then I'll feel fulfilled. Oh, well, once I get those things, then I'll feel the happiness that is sort of promised in our culture. And there's confusion and. And I think that's really where the. The crisis point can come for some folks. I like to personally think of it more as midlife reflection, but it is a crisis for a lot of people because there is this moment of shit. I've done all of these things. I'm supposed to feel different than I do, and then there can be some shame attached to that. Right. I know that I'm privileged. I know that I have more than enough to eat. I know that I have plenty of money in the bank. I know that I have. I'm lucky to have a relationship. I'm lucky to fill in the blank. So why do I have this nagging sense that there's more, that more is possible, and that it's somehow. I don't know how to get there. Like, I don't know how to do it. I feel a little bit at a loss. So, yeah, if you could just sort of share a little bit about your own experience of this. Have you ever had this. Your version of this? What was that like? And then. Yeah. Any other sort of common experiences that men have. Have shared with you on. On calls about, you know, the sort of, like. How do they put it? Like, things are fine, but what do they say? What did you say to yourself? And what do they say?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, my trajectory wasn't necessarily this trajectory as I did have, you know, my 20s and 30s were more struggle, as often listeners of this know. But I've certainly had the experience which I think most human beings have of goal or target in mind that I work really hard for and that I have this story and idea that once I hit it, everything's going to be different or I'm going to be happy or it's going to be relaxed. And then we get there and we're like, oh, this is what, you know, victory feels like, you know, like, you know, I mean, honestly, one way for me was because it was so hyped up for me for so long was even sexual, you know, as someone who didn't have it for a long time. And there was actually a point when I was in the middle of the experience when I first had sex, where I was like, oh, this is it. Like, it's awesome. And then my life was still waiting for me on the other side. You know, like, everything I hadn't dealt with or was stressed about or whatever was, was still there. And I think there's an element of that, that, that has certainly been with me in my life. And then for other men I talk to, I think it's. It's like a sense that there's an intuition from guys I speak to and then I think get them turned on to this work, that there's just more possible in that maybe what they had been taught was the definition of success. Maybe that needs to be called into question of, like, what does it actually mean to live a good life or a fulfilled life? And, you know, most of the research, as I'm sure you have even more background of, really points to relationships, like, and not just intimate relationships, but relationships with our friend, with our family, with our spouses, with our kids is like the thing that, you know, a large majority of people on their deathbed speak to. Like, I wish I had spent more time there. I wish I had invested more time. Or that's the thing I'm most grateful for. And that's a pretty different, you know, outcome in a lot of ways than what, at least here in the west, we're kind of fed by the capitalism system of what we're supposed to do and acquire and more and grow and bigger businesses and all that stuff. And so I've definitely worked with men and we've definitely worked with men that have kind of hit that threshold of like, well, what. What's next? Like, what do I do next? How do I experience more of life? How do I get some, like, real excitement about being alive to come back online? Like, some real vitality in that sense. And, you know, this is just one example. I'm just gonna frame this as, like, it's a beautiful thing. It's a cultural thing. It's awesome. You know, sports for men. A lot of men are super into sports, and I think there's actually something that. That points to underneath, that connects to here, is, like, when sports are happening, right when. And I'm not a huge sport guy, but I've gotten involved. You know, growing up in Chicago, it was a big deal and World Cups and all that kind of stuff. You know, when it's happening, you can see men actually present. They're, like, gripped, they're breathing. They're there. They're fully in the moment. What is happening right now matters. And I think that's enthralling to the nervous system in a lot of ways for a lot of men, particularly if they're not getting it anywhere else. That sense of, like, real aliveness and this kind of, like, matters here, that I think is the real thing. A lot of guys are seeking this feeling in my body of, like, I'm alive. It matters. I'm connected, I'm feeling, and I'm with other people.

Jason Lange: Absolutely. I love that. And, you know, it's the. The work, as we've talked about before on this, which is just like the work of becoming a more whole, human, available, present person, which involves healing and growing and all these different things, right? It's walking out the farmhouse door in the wizard of Oz into the land of color. Like, oh, my God, there's so much here I was not even aware of. There's a whole different layer here, something I couldn't even imagine before. And it is that sense of vitality and aliveness that comes from being more engaged, more vulnerable, more in our bodies, in the moment, and not just thinking about, as so many of us men do, what's next? What's next? How am I going to fix that problem? How am I going to do this thing? But actually being able to be present and, wow, this is a really good moment we're having, you know, with. With your wife, with your kid, with your friends, and being able to really, like, take that in, which is hard for a lot of men because we've not been trained to do it. And that, you know, I think what. What's been so powerful to me in seeing this work come through and start to reach men like this is it. It's like it's oftentimes sometimes it's a relationship or, you know, something going on, some tension in their marriage or something that'll kind of, like, evoke it for a man. But oftentimes it's not from the outside. It's an internal sense or intuition they have that there's. There's something more. There's something more about how I could be in the world right now or the type of experience I have. And it's not just accumulating more stuff or more success. It's how I'm actually showing up in those. In. In the moments. And, you know, in our kind of language, in my world, we really talk about that in terms of depth. It's bringing. It's being able to connect to more depth in our lives through relationships, through our presence in it, and through our orientation and direction to it. And, you know, I think how this shows up for the masculine part of all of us in a lot of ways is, you know, that feeling of, well, my life's going to end. And when it ends, is the feeling going to be, oh, I played full out, right? That was well spent. I gave it my all, right. Like, again, I think this ties into why men are so in the masculine, so enthralled by, like, sports movies and war movies, because there's that feeling at the end of like, I gave it everything I had, I didn't hold back in my life. I put it all out there on the table. And when we hit that point, that's actually like the, you know, in some sense the greatest masculine bliss of freedom of like I, I went for it, I gave it all. There was nothing else left on the table there. And I'm spent but like in a good way, like I'm, I'm well spent in this life. And I think when we don't have that, this is where we see men showing up. It's like there's this kind of just like flat crustiness in life of like, I just know I'm not giving it my all, whatever it is. There's just a sense that I know I'm not giving it my all and no one else can change that. That has to come from me stepping into something new, which in our world is this kind of depth work, is this growth work, is this transformational work of, okay, there's so many different things to, there's like a lifetime of, there's lifetimes of work for each of us in a lifetime. But it's just the fact that we're willing to plug into it and take a look below the surface of our lives that kicks things off and really starts to transform.

Melanie Curtin: And I kind of want to validate, I sort of want to validate this as an off, as authentic pain because I know for myself there is. I think many of you listening will be familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If you're not, it's the idea that we have certain basic fundamental needs that are on the bottom of the pyramid. So being fed, being housed, being warm enough, being physically safe, and then you go up the pyramid and then after that, you know, closeness in relationships, feeling safe and held emotionally. So not just physically, but emotionally, etc. And then you go up the pyramid and the top of the pyramid is self actualization. It's self actualization. There is an innate drive in human beings towards this. So I think that often I think myself personally, I have become more and more aware of how much privilege I hold in the world for a variety of reasons. And it's easy sometimes to say, well, I have enough, or I'm privileged in all these ways, therefore I should be happy. And I think what I want to say is if, if you're listening to this and this sounds familiar, your pain is also valid. This, this is a form of suffering. It's not the same as suffering on the bottom of the pyramid. It's not the same. But there is a sense of. It is real suffering. And we do talk to men who show up and they're like, I'm not sure what to do. I feel stuck. And I'm. And there's this particular pain, as we've described about. And I'm not sure what to do about it, because when, as we, you know, I think is pretty clear. But when you're. When you're dealing with things on the bottom of the pyramid, it's very clear. I want more money or I need safe housing, or it's very clear what the need is. It's immediate, it's present. And there is a sense of, once I get that, I will feel better. And it's true. You will feel better when you have safe housing. You will feel better when you, you know, aren't. When you aren't a refugee anymore. There are certain basic things and there's a sense of direction there, though. You know, where you want to go, you know what the goal is. This, what we're describing is more existential malaise. It's more of a, you know, they have all these words to describe it on we. Things like that, just feeling flat. And I guess I just want to validate that that is an actual, real experience of suffering. It is different, it's distinct from the other ones, but it is a real experience of suffering. And there is a vagueness to it of, well, how do I get. How do I get there? Or, you know, wherever there is, how do I progress? How do I get to the next thing? If I am not even really clear on what it is, because I have ticked off a lot of these boxes. So. So how do men get there? I have some thoughts, but I'd love to hear, and I think if you have any thing to share, too, because I think some of the men in your men's group have also shown up in this way. Showing up with this problem, I guess, is what I'm saying, of showing up with, you know, I've got a pretty great life. I've got a lot going on. I've, you know, I'm in a leadership position at work. I make a lot of money. I've got the relationship, I've got the house, you know, I've got the things. And I'm showing up here. I'm here for a reason. So how do they. How do they move forward?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, that's. It's a lifelong journey for One, but it starts with dropping in, getting more into themselves, into their lives. You know, this is where it's like an, you know, we use the term now men's work, which is really just an all encompassing term that kind of covers all the bases of therapeutic things, coaching things, growth things, challenge things, community, things that help deepen us and bring us into deeper alignment and more integrity with ourselves and how we're showing up moment to moment, help us get as clear and healed around our past and what brought us here as possible. So cleaning up old relationships, interactions, just cleaning up the past in general, you know, tidying up our lives, improving our relationships, bringing that emotional vulnerability to the relationships that matter most and actually talking to what matters, not just staying kind of on that like surface level, but being willing to kind of disrupt for the sake of deeper connection or love or whatever it may be. Service, like you said, is absolutely a piece of like learning. Okay, well how can I support others in getting to the place I'm at? Because. Right. It's one of the best places in the world we could be. Is a, is a global community right now. Was everybody had the privilege of self relax, organization being, you know, the, the deepest problem of like, oh, I don't have quite enough meaning in my life. That would be awesome. That is such a huge win for, for mankind and, or for humankind. We're not there yet though. So, you know, I would say there's. There's also a unique thing. I've witnessed that seeing another man come alive in his body or his emotional journey, it like starts a transference. So it's like it's getting in and being present to people to that are doing the work. And then suddenly we see a man deepen and open and something starts to stir in us. And that's why, you know, I'm endlessly trumpeting the power of group work and men's groups in general, because it's in seeing that, it's like, wow, you're alive and I come alive when you're alive. Like vitality and aliveness like this are infectious, right? Like there, there's a real energy to it. When you know, we've done live retreats or things and you really feel a group of men coming alive and all the little ways we hold ourselves back like that stuff starts to loosen and something else, something else more pure, more beautiful starts to come through, through the practices we lead, through the connections they're building with each other. So you know, I guess, long story short, get into community deeper than you. That's Step one, find people who are leading deep, meaningful lives and start spending time with them.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah, you mentioned service, and something that occurred to me was they did a social science research study about giving people money. So they, you know, had hundreds of people and they gave them $20. And to half of them, they just gave them $20. And they were like, congratulations, free money. And then they watched how they spent it, or I believe they might have even been instructed to spend this on yourself. Right? And so they would, you know, buy. Buy things or do something nice to themselves, whatever. And then they asked them about their happiness levels. And then the other group they gave the $20 to, they said, here's $20. The catch is you can't spend it on yourself. Just spend it on someone else. And so those people did things like, you know, paying for the people behind them in line, right? So here's $20 to the. To the barista or whoever it is. Like, pay for as many people behind me as you can. And then they rated. They, you know, asked those people how happy they were, and it was significantly different. I mean, it was significantly different. They were significant when they got to spend $20 on someone else. And an article that I wrote years ago for Inc.com is coming to mind, which was about Will Smith and his assertion that the number one thing that matters to him and that has made him happy is service. And he. He is sort of a mega example of achievement, right? He's achieved a lot and has a lot of the outer symbols of status in our culture. And he, you know, he had this comment in there about, you know, like, I've slept with a lot of people. I've done a lot of projects with incredible creative artists. I have. You know, he was listing off all the things he's done, and he said, and there have been points when I have felt empty and not excited. And he said, but when I am of service, when I am doing something for others, I feel that aliveness again. I feel that excitement. And the sages have told us this for centuries. This is in almost every single organized religion and belief system that service is paramount. And there's a quote about happiness and service that basically says, oh, God, how does it go? It's basically that I was looking for happiness my whole life, and then I started being of service, and I found happiness. And the elusive thing here is, I think a lot of us, when we think of the word service, we get a little bit up in our heads about, what does that mean? Does that mean I have to volunteer? Does it mean I have to be participating at a, you know, in a soup kitchen. It can be, it can be those things. It can also be, for example, starting a mentorship program or be being of service at your high power job. Right. We have a lot of people that are in high power jobs and we know that there's underrepresentation for a lot of groups in a lot of those professions. So mentoring young people coming up and specifically focusing on underrepresented groups, whatever those are, you know, most of us know exactly what they are in our, in our company or culture because they're not around. But focusing on something like that is an example. It's not necessarily outside of your sphere of influence, but it's something that you can do. And there's again a virtuous cycle around. You start doing it and you get a little bit of feedback from people like, hey, that really helped me, you know, you, you being a champion for me on this project because of the status you hold. I was able to get, I was able to get my foot in the door. This project that I'm really excited about, you know, I'm. Thank you. And that, that glow, that feeling, that glow feeling that you get from someone genuinely saying thank you is irreplaceable. You cannot buy that. It's. It can't be bought. It's. It's impossible. And when we have those feelings, in my experience, it inspires us to the next thing. So there's something there about the virtuous cycle of service and then being inspired into the next thing. And I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to this concept of service as distinct from the nice guy tendency to please and appease. What is the difference between being of service versus sort of doing things for people because they ask or trying to please people by doing things for them?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I think it's the inverse of, you know, what Glover calls the COVID contract. There's no conscious or not, there's no like, I need to get something back here. It's I. And what's really important here too is it, I think this type of service has to start from a type of abundance inside oneself, like a certain type of wholeness of just like, I can give this, I can give this, I can willingly choose to give this. Nice guy's stuff sometimes isn't really there. There's times we're giving and we actually can't. We're actually self harming in some capacity along the way. Financially time wise, energy wise, integrity wise, whatever that might be. I Think this type of service, it's not self harming, I think would be one way to put it. It's actually just growing the pie of wholeness, success and abundance. And it's really supporting other people. And it's ultimately, we do get something back. It nourishes us. Like we get tons back from working with our clients, right. And I get tons back from doing men's work. And that in itself is healing. It's just healing, you know, that, wow, I can help shift someone else's burden in a way. Like, I have the means to do that, even if that, that doesn't mean just writing a big check or something. Like where this ties into community is I see this showing up for, for those men that we're talking about coming into group and wow, my presence, being here, supporting this man as he's struggling with something actually matters. Like it actually matters. Sometimes that's, you know, life advice or things they can point them to. But sometimes it's just like, I'm here and I believe in you and that improves someone's life. And that is super restorative and generative. I've seen for so many men being able to step into this, like, you know, and for a lot of men, service I think then does start to tie into, you know, a deep thing for a lot of us, which is legacy. Like, what's, what's, what's the legacy? What's the world we're going to leave behind? Is it, you know, better than the one I came into? Have I done my part to try to move it that direction? I think that's a sweet place we can aim for, all of us. But in particular, I think that's an important one that keeps, literally keeps some of us men up at night of like, yeah, what, what is going to be my legacy?

Melanie Curtin: I think this ties into. I was reading a book called Essentialism and at its essence, it's about am I doing the right things in my life and am I doing them for the right reasons? And one of the practices that recommended, which I thought was powerful, was a quarterly off site retreat for you, your quarterly off site retreat. So, and the recommendation is to either go solo or to go with a spouse or a trusted friend, a very close person, where you're both in that inquiry and there are certain exercises. I'm not going to go into all the details, but it's, it's essentially the recommendation that on a very regular basis you're going through that inquiry of am I giving the right things in the right way, is my life meaningful? Is it meaningful? And if it's not, how can I make it more meaningful? And I don't think our culture supports that very well at all. And this whole question and what we're talking about, it's like we're not taught how to introspect. We're not taught. It's not valued. We don't. You know, in indigenous cultures, there are a lot of traditions around rites of passage and spending significant amounts of time in nature connecting to your inner guidance, your inner wisdom, learning how to listen deeply to that and then move from that place. And so young people are trained from a very early age. This is how you do that. This is why it matters. This is. We're going to do it again and again. And every year we go on a retreat altogether or we do this, you know, big experience, whether it's a hike or it's, you know, something that's. Usually it's in nature, sometimes it involves plant medicine. But there's a regular checking in of essentially connecting to your soul or your spirit, the deepest part of you, and trying to live your life in alignment with that. Whereas in our culture, we have no practices, we have no rituals, we have no training. There's this dearth, there's this lack of any guide, guidance around how to do that. And I think that that, you know, quarterly off site is. Is an example of trying to bring some of that back and asking the deeper questions. And I know for myself, even in the last year or so, I have felt that sense of sort of flat or empty or gray is the word that comes to mind. Just sort of. Yeah, tepid. Like, I'm not really going for it in. In ways that I could in my work. I'm not really going for it, you know, and. And in the past few months, I've gotten a lot more serious about clarity around that. Okay, what. What is my vision even. Even if it's risky, and I think that's something that needs to be brought into this conversation is emotional risk, the willingness to take emotional risks, the understanding of how to do, how to do that, how to. How to get there. And I think that's part of what's so valuable about the work and so valuable about getting into community and all of the things that we talk about. Because if you're really, really unfamiliar with. How do I even access that? Yeah, it's going to take you a while to figure it out in my world, because I've done a lot of this kind of work. I know how to do It. Right. Not. Not saying I do it perfectly, but I have a sense of. Yes, I've done meditations, I've done visualizations. I have a sense of where I want my life to go in. In that it would be the fullest expression of who I am. And it feels edgy, it feels risky. I know I'm on the right track. I literally know I'm on the right track because I'm nervous to share about it with people. That's how I know it's working. It's how I know it's the next place to go. Because it feels scary, it feels big, it feels edgy, it feels uncomfortable. Right. It's outside of my comfort zone. And I think that's. If you're not familiar with the work, if you're not doing that kind of work on a regular basis, it can feel deeply mysterious. Like I don't even know how to. I don't even know what my dream is. You know, we. We talked in the episode about the. The Nice Guy pattern. It's like, I don't really know what I want. I don't even really know what I want. So there is a way that all of this work stacks on top of. Of itself. A little bit like Maslow's hierarchy, right? If you're not in your body and you're not paying attention to your internal world, it's a lot harder to access your intuition or your. Your desire. It's like, it's. There's. There's some steps that are required in order to get there, and there's not really a shortcut around those.

Melanie Curtin: Yes. And I'm also thinking of another client who also has children and has stayed with his spouse. He has stayed with his spouse, but he has taken significantly more emotional risks with her. And they are experiencing renewed vitality, renewed closeness. It feels a little bit like they're on an adventure now, and they're getting to explore things as a team, whereas before, there was just a lot of fear and uncertainty and just. Yeah, sameness, blah, blahness. Not like I'm gonna walk out or leave, but I'm not getting my needs met. I'm not. It's just. It's not. It's sapping my energy rather than being a source of vitality and closeness. And I think that's the. That's the main thing that I just want to speak to in terms of what's available on the other side of this. If you really do lean in and you do the work is. It does change. There is. The more. The more is real. It's not. It's not this mirage, fake thing over there that you're like, well, maybe there isn't more. Maybe this is just. Maybe this is just how it is. If you're having that sense, maybe this is just how it is. Maybe this is the best. Best there is. It's not true if you. If you're having that sense, it's not true. And one of the, I think, bravest things that we can do as human beings is trust that, right? Trust that there is more. Trust that there. That there is something to grow for, something to go for, something to reach for that. That. That is possible. Because sometimes it can feel so elusive. It can feel so much like, maybe this is just how it's supposed to be. You know, maybe this is how I'm supposed to feel. Maybe this is. Maybe this is just it. Maybe this is just it. And I think that's. We have seen repeatedly that that's not the case. And it doesn't have to be. Doesn't have to look a certain way. It doesn't have to mean that you leave your job. It doesn't have to mean that you leave your marriage. And I think that the. There's something really important you just said that I want to highlight, which is this is of deep service to your children as well as you. If you are a father or a parent of some kind or a caregiver, your work directly impacts the children in your life. When you grow in this way, when you become more alive, when you start taking risks, you are role models, modeling, and you are showing your children how to live and how to thrive. And there's no way that you can do that without living it. You can't just tell them, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, you should thrive. But like, I'm okay over here in beige land with tepid water, you know? No, you have to actually do it to show them what's possible. So there's a virtuous cycle again around. And we've seen this repeatedly with our clients, how much they talk about, wow, yeah, this work has really affected me and my life. And I have a better relationship with my kid. I have a better relationship with my kid. And I think that they're growing in a different way because of what I'm up to. And that's very exciting to me because so much of what we do as human beings comes from our family of origin. We tend to repeat patterns until we get conscious but as we get conscious, we outgrow them, and we can actually provide something different to our kids than.

Jason Lange: What we got ourselves 100%. And it's. It is often some of the surprising or it's not surprising to us, but sometimes it's surprising to men who come into our program because, you know, we do orient towards kind of this idea of dating and relationships, but then underneath, there's actually quite a bit more. And we'll often get the wow. And my. My relationship with my son or daughter improved with my father or with my brother or with my best friend who I've known in a long time, but I've never actually had, like, a seriously deep conversation with. And we just did. Is feedback we'll commonly get as men kind of step into this work and into this path. And, you know, as we've been talking about this, a few things just emerged in my mind. I want to speak to that. You also named of like, okay, so I have this sensation there's got to be more like, what's next? So we've talked about service, importance of that community, spending time with others that see you and lead you into a place of depth and care about you. I would also say practice. And so this is kind of a big, big term. You could say practice, you could kind of say mastery. But there's something to. Whether it's martial arts working out. Yes, even a sport or an art or a creativity. There's something you're coming back to over and over with conscious intention that changes. It changes people, changes men. Like, it. It brings something alive because it demands a certain type of immediacy to notice even the subtleties of the difference between, oh, yeah, I approached that exercise really different yesterday than I did today or how I swing my golf shot. Like, there's like a real sensitivity that comes online that is core and foundational to, you know, almost all spiritual lineages and men's work is this idea of practice. Like, what's your practice? What are you doing? What are you coming back to over and over and over again to feel that nuance of subtlety and growth. Right. Which then in an odd way, by focusing on it in one area, it. It changes all of our other areas.

Melanie Curtin: That's.

Jason Lange: It's. That's some kind of holographic magic that I've certainly experienced myself and seen for a lot of men.

Jason Lange: Well, totally. This is in the world. Like, not to toot our own horn, but this is part of the, the deeper meaning of our program. The pillars of presence is that every man who takes on this work and embodies it out in the world becomes a place that others can gravitate to for depth, for meaning, for significance. And we do see it. We see our men doing it and, you know, changing lives around them. And it's super inspiring and it's incredibly powerful. And it's, it's part of that, that thrill of, you know, what I'm calling this energy of practice, which, you know, there's the physical, there's the embodiment stuff that we give guys a taster of and experience to kind of wake them up to. But practice in general just means, yeah, I could do something I couldn't do before. That includes emotional vulnerability, taking risks, leading, stepping into my life more fully. That's all part of kind of what happens for men and is the antidote, I think, to this, this kind of flatness, this something missing energy that we spoke to. And then there's one other thing that you already mentioned that I just do want to kind of tack on here of a time in nature. There's something to getting out into nature and reconnecting, even if it's a hike, but something even more special about retreats and getting out there that really changes our orientation, you know, certainly has with me of spending time in deserts and in forests and on rivers. And it's, it's actually like a time warp, you know, it's taking me into a different frequency of life that feels more alive and so much, you know, for better or worse, so much of what's happening in our world right now is pulling us away from that. It's more into this, you know, mediated screen energy, which is fast and constant and flow of information. So men learning to reprioritize, finding ways to do that. Now, one of the many reasons I love men's work is, hey, it turns out you can do all these things at once. You right, you can be serving other men, you can be getting community, you can be making male friends, you can be practicing, you can be spending time in a beautiful location in. In nature. And what I'll just kind of tack on is maybe the last part of this is, is healing. Just doing the work of healing ourselves in our lineage and our past and everything we've brought into this moment, our culture, the world, the earth, like that's all included in here. I think those, you know, five things that strikes me. That kind of service, community practice, nature and healing. That is the work. When we say the work, that's another frame for it. There's these giant buckets. But as men step into these buckets, I've come more alive myself. And I've seen countless other men suddenly just there, grateful to be waking up in the morning and like alive again. Not just that kind of icy dull crust or whatever that might be, but just suddenly there's.

Melanie Curtin: And the added bonus is that men who are fully there are hot, right. Masculine presence and consciousness. Presence. A man fully present and alive. And here is sexy as so bonus, you get hotter as you do the work and become so.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And even, even not in a sexual sense, you become more magnetic. Right. Like when I'm around men who are alive, I want to spend more time around men who are alive. Those men. Like there's like a. I want to. Yeah. Because it is infectious. There is like, okay, if I'm rolling with you, I'm not just rolling on autopilot. And that's really powerful for me in my life.

Melanie Curtin: That's a great point. So as we start to wrap up here, if you are interested in our program, you can go to evolutionary.men/training and check out our free training there. And if you have any comments, you can get me@dearmen podcastmail.com and if you want to support the podcast through our Patreon, you can find that just by Googling Dear Men podcast and Patreon and it should come up right away and we'll catch you next time. Sa.