All right, I had a blast on Melanie's podcast talking about emotional expression with my wife Violet. We got into something that's been a game changer in our relationship, this idea of three stages of emotional processing. Stage one is pure reactivity, stage two is that more spacious, let's talk it through approach, and stage three, which we spent a lot of time on, is where you bring full embodied energy but with consent and awareness.
I talked about how I'm naturally better at stage two, the processing style, but stage three is where I've really had to practice. The big shift for me has been learning that I don't need to fix or end the emotional energy. It's not about getting back to peace as fast as possible. It's about welcoming the full expression, riding the wave all the way through. When Violet threw a tantrum on the kitchen floor about the dishes after our daughter was born, that woke me up. She wasn't attacking me, she was just showing me the pain in her body, and that changed something for me.
The embodiment piece is huge here. Emotions live in the body first, before we can even name them. A two year old can feel rage or devastation before they have words for it. So working with breath, sound, and movement, that's how you actually move emotional energy instead of just thinking about it. And honestly, when that energy starts moving through the body, it gets erotic fast. There's just more aliveness there.
For guys listening, the big practice is getting comfortable with your own emotional energy first. Most of us were rewarded our whole lives for being disembodied, for pushing through, for achieving at the expense of our bodies. So we have zero practice feeling our own stuff, which means we're terrified when our partners feel theirs. Do your own work. Get into your body. Feel your own gunk. Then you won't be so afraid when she brings hers.
If you want help with this kind of relational work, or just learning to be more present and embodied as a man, check out what we're doing at evolutionarymen.com.
