Here's the tension every man in relationship faces: you want to be there for your partner when she's upset, but the more you try to help, the more you both spiral. I had a great conversation with Melanie Curtin about this exact paradox, how our instinct to fix or absorb our partner's dysregulation actually makes everything worse. For me, this was huge to learn because my default was to either try to fix it immediately or just get completely swept up in her nervous system. If she wasn't okay, I wasn't okay. And that doesn't help anyone.
We talked about what dysregulation actually looks like, both for men and in relationship. Sometimes it's that manic, wound-up energy where you can't slow down. Sometimes it's complete shutdown where you're offline and frozen. For a lot of us, we learned early on that we're responsible for making everyone around us feel better, which creates this pattern where we collapse into our partner's emotional state instead of being able to witness and validate what they're experiencing.
The real work is learning to be separate enough that you don't get swallowed by their dysregulation, but still connected and attuned enough to be present with them. I think of it like bamboo, sturdy but flexible. The energy moves through you, but you're not moved off your center. Your partner needs to feel that you're impacted, that you're hearing them, but that you're not collapsing or running away.
Building this capacity has taken me years of therapy, men's work, somatic practices, all of it. Things like breathwork, ice baths, physical practices that intentionally stress your nervous system so you can learn to stay present. And a huge part of it has been working with Violet to build better systems together, to debrief after fights, to understand our patterns and catch things earlier.
Read Full Transcript Full episode text for reading and search
Jason Lange: And so that discomfort just gets stuck in the body, and I wouldn't know what to do with that or, you know, oh, my God, I'm going to call a woman tomorrow. I'm feeling dysregulated about that because I'm scared about how it's going to go. I mean, sometimes it was around work stuff, sometimes it was around dating stuff, sometimes it'd be around health, you know, for some of us.
Melanie Curtin: Hey, everyone. Just a quick celebration before we dive into this episode. Something that's been alive for me lately is thinking about the concept of resilience and being able to bounce back and progress and growth. And I thought this was a great celebration around that. And I think it's apropos for this week's episode. So this is one of our clients, and he says this has been a difficult week. I am in the initial stages of a divorce, and I received legal paperwork from my wife's lawyer that seemed to be attacking me personally and painting me in a bad light. When I saw this written down in black and white, I had tons of emotions swell up in inside me. I was breathing rapidly and had anxiety, fear, anger, and doubt, which I could feel in my chest. I was able to identify it, feel it, and accept it. I did feel panicky for a day, but those feelings subsided much more quickly than they would have in the past. The other good thing that came out of this experience was I was able to relate my feelings to three other people that I trust greatly. I opened up and expressed everything I was feeling and received their support. In the past, I never shared any of the bad things going on in my marriage with anyone because I didn't want to disrespect my wife and cause others to have bad feelings towards her. It felt good to express what I was feeling, and it felt good to be able to accept other people's love and support. No more stuffing everything down and living in isolation for me. End of message. I was deeply inspired by this message. It feels like a lot of growth, and to me, it's inspiring to witness that, opening up that, receiving that. You know, one of my favorite parts about the work that we do is the community that we cultivate and the support that we create space for. And I think this is just such a good example of an incident that might have, you know, taken this man down for days, weeks, you know, who knows how long in the past he was able to move through pretty quickly and actually share his truth with people that love him and accept him and are rooting for him. And I want that for everyone. I want that for everyone. I want everyone to have that kind of support network and to be a web and for all of us to be able to support each other in that way. So shout out to that man. I see you doing the work, I see you growing, I see you expanding and I'm excited for what's next for you. And if you are ever interested in coaching, if you're listening to this and you're interested, you can always go to Evolutionary Men for that. And if you want to support the podcast and get access to our live monthly Q&As, you can become a patron. Just go to, to Dear Men Patreon. Just Google, literally Dear Men Patreon. It'll come right up. And if you join at a ten dollar a month level or more, you will get access to those Q and A sessions. And I hope you enjoy this episode. You can always get me@dearman podcastmail.com hey everyone, welcome back to another episode. This is a Jason episode, which I know some of you go through the library and listen to all the Jason episodes. So shout out to you if that's true for this one. Today we're talking about how to stay grounded when she is dysregulated. And this is something that we've touched on before, but we wanted to do a whole episode on it because it's, it's come up lately. And there are kind of two categories that we are looking at. When she's dysregulated because of something going on in her life and when she's dysregulated because of something happening between the two of you. So for a lot of men, that's the biggest challenge is when she's upset or stressed or anxious about something happening between you versus something happening in her life. But we're going to talk about both of those today. And yeah, before we start that, Jason, I would just love to hear from you about what, you know, sort of what your experience was before, before doing the work around this, this what, what happened for you when your partner was dysregulated.
Jason Lange: I try to fix it. Right. So, and I mean, probably more important than that is when she would get dysregulated, I would get dysregulated. So it would cause me to spin out, lose my ground, and lose presence, really, because there was a sense of, wow, if she's not okay, I'm not okay. And lo and behold, that doesn't really help co regulate a partner. So if their dysregulation becomes our dysregulation. We actually have very little to offer back in that moment. And so, you know, whether it ends up in a fight or disconnection or just like kind of a shitty feeling, things can pretty quickly spiral from there when both partners kind of disintegrate into a pretty dysregulated place. And it was one of those things that, you know, also just very much showed up for me in terms of some of the many reasons I would avoid conflict. Because it's like, wow, if I bring up something uncomfortable and she gets uncomfortable, then I get uncomfortable, and I don't want to do that. And then, lo and behold, avoiding conflict often tends to create more conflict. My experience, a lesson many of us have had to learn time and time again. And it was just one of those things that, you know, it was a process to even learn when I was dysregulated, like, what that meant, you know, because early on, it just. It's just something that happened. Just was. It just was. And it wasn't until I got deeper into the work and started educating myself and seeing, oh, okay, this is what happens for me. And then here are the ways I tend to deal with that, right? Overeating food, born in masturbation, scrolling social media, zoning out to video games. You know, we all have something we tend to use in those. In those circumstances. And so in an odd way, the pathway to learning when I was dysregulated was to look at when I was doing those things. It's like, oh, what. What happened before that? And then it started to build an awareness of me, to just become far more aware of my internal system, which was the first step to being able to show up, you know, in a more grounded way for my partner over time.
Melanie Curtin: I really like that because that. And I'm realizing as we are getting into this episode, we should probably define terms a bit. What do we mean by regulated and dysregulated? Especially if you're newer to the podcast or this kind of work? When we're regulated, right, when we have a regulated nervous system, we feel relaxed, we feel grounded, we feel resourced. And when we are dysregulated, we feel stressed, anxious, out of control. Feel free to jump in here. I mean, dysregulated is. Is not.
Jason Lange: Yeah, the. The interesting thing about dysregulated is, you know, some of what we'll be talking about here comes from polyvagal theory, which is just theories of how our nervous system works. But you can be disreg dysregulated in both directions, meaning more of the kind of manic. I'm just, like, too wound up, ruminating panicky energy. I cannot slow my brain down. And I'm, like, worried. You can also be dysregulating that I'm totally shut down, I'm offline, I'm gone. I. I have no capacity to take action right now or be present in this moment. So dysregulation can look, you know, like different things, but the point really of it is we no longer have the capacity to shift our nervous system back to where it needs to be, which is often a little bit more in the middle. Sometimes we do want to get revved up. Sometimes we do want to slow down. Dysregulation is generally when we get stuck in one or the other. Right? We get stuck in anxiousness, and we do not know how to bring ourselves down into a parasympathetic state. Or we're totally dissociated or offline or just shut down, in a sense. And we don't know how to reactivate and engage to actually say a word to our partner or reach out in that moment. And so what we're talking about here is, you know, how do we help ourselves shift? And then how do we, you know, support a partner? Shifting in that sense? And there's a lot of things we can. We'll be talking about here today, about what that looks like. But the. It's. It's the ability to respond in some sense is. Is, you know, what regulating is. Okay, I'm stuck up here, and I know how to shift myself to somewhere else where I have even more agency in the moment. The ability to kind of step into the moment consciously rather than being stuck in this grounded, scared, panicked, angry or offline place. Right. Again, there's many ways this can show up.
Melanie Curtin: I'm glad that you mentioned that about dysregulation doesn't always look panicky. Sometimes it looks like disassociation. And if you. Often what we find is that people, human beings, tend to one or the other. We tend to, when we are dysregulated, feel one way or the other, meaning we tend to dissociate and become. Sometimes it can come across as cold or withdrawn or blank or. Or robotic. These might be words that you've heard or just the sensation of you're physically present, but you're not really here. Or it can be panicky, jittery, angry, reactive, you know, sort of hot and cold. You can kind of think of it as running hot or running cold. And I think it's important. Yeah. What you said about choice and how to mindfully be able to work with, with dysregulation is part of what we're talking here. But what I really loved about what you said was the first step is really just understanding what, what does it mean when I'm dysregulated? How do I know when I'm dysregulated? And for you, part of what helped you figure it out was the coping strategies that you had, which was your body trying to soothe itself. Right. Your, your, your body mind attempting to soothe and calm down would, was sometimes porn and masturbation or eating. Like you said, video games. You mentioned there's a lot of different ways that a lot of us self soothe and you use that as a clue. Oh, I'm self soothing. Let me kind of go back to what happened right before this. What was going on that, that triggered this state that I'm in now. And for some people it's really obvious what the event was that caused them to be dysregulated. But sometimes it's not as obvious. And I'm curious if you can share a little bit about that. And then I want to get into some of the questions because we have a bunch of answers from our men on this topic. But what was, as you started to get to know your coping strategies and we're looking back, what, what were often the events, the dysregulating events?
Jason Lange: Yeah. I mean sometimes they, whatever it was, would be exasperated by. I wasn't caring for myself, so I wasn't getting enough sleep, I hadn't been eating well, which kind of in some sense creates bigger tinderbox for dysregulation in my opinion. But a lot of times it was for me, you know, something happened in relationship and I didn't speak up or set a boundary or ask for what I really wanted. So then there's some kind of resentment or just something sticky about something that just happened where I'm like, actually why did I say yes to that? Or why didn't I bring that forward when I had the opportunity? And then sometimes it was also just the other direction where it was more about getting worked up about the future. Right. You know, anxiety, in a sense, it's just worrying about something that hasn't happened yet. And so, wow, I don't know how I'm going to pay rent in two weeks. And so that discomfort just gets stuck in the body and I wouldn't know what to do with that or you know, oh, my God, I'm going to call a woman tomorrow. I'm feeling dysregulated about that because I'm scared about how it's going to go. I mean, sometimes it was around work stuff, sometimes it was around dating stuff, sometimes it'd be around health. You know, for some of us, when I was more unhealthy in my. In my weight, right, that was dysregulating in a sense of like, ah, it doesn't feel good to be in my body and. And yet it doesn't feel. It would feel so bad that I would get dysregulated that I would eat right and I would just feed the whole cycle. Right. So it actually feed into itself. And then that would bring up shame and dysregulation of, ah, why do I keep doing this to myself? So there's lots of different ways, or for me, a big one that I certainly uncovered, particularly as I, as I went in my marriage with Violet, was when the feminine's mad at me. Like when. When the feminine is mad at me and it's like super dysregulating or it's not even the. The latest layer of that onion is not even mad at me. When the feminine is mad, that is like very uncomfortable traditionally for me. And that would cause all kinds of dysregulation and then ways I try to soothe myself.
Melanie Curtin: And that's incredibly common. I'm glad that you brought that up. So one of the questions that we asked our men was, before you grew in this area, what was it like for you when a woman was dysregulated around you? And one of the responses was, I felt like it was my fault and that I needed to fix something or save her from something, which is much like what you said. Another said, I didn't know what to do. My go to thing would be anything to help her calm down. I'll do anything. Another said, I wanted to walk away from my woman and the situation. And I think that's a good example of. This is one of the most important things that we are not taught, I think, in relationship is what we're talking about of how to stay grounded when a partner is dysregulated. And this is, you know, podcast generally for men who have sex with women. So that's what we're talking about today. But this is really true for both. Although I do think that there is often a dynamic of. It seems like in many relationships, there is a partner who tends to hold alpha and a partner who tends to hold Omega, which is polarity language. If you haven't listened to episodes on polarity, I recommend those. Alpha is what we are generally associate with masculine energy and Omega with feminine energy, but we all have both, so I do encourage you to listen to those podcasts. There's more to it than just this, but they're. In most relationships, it seems to me that there's often a partner who runs more Omega energy, and that person is usually more expressive and more emotional and more. Yeah, just expressive and emotional is probably how I would put it. And sometimes runs more intensity. Can. Can run more intensity. And then there's a partner who runs more Alpha energy. And it feels like this conversation is partly about how to hold oneself when the other person is not able to hold themselves, how to hold oneself ground and be that rock, be that stable place when the other is not in a stable place. And what you said, Jason, was really important, which is that I think for a lot of our guys and a lot of men in general, there is a learning process here. This is a skill that you can build. It's not static. It's not. Either you can do this or you can't. You can actually get better at this. And it's not something that we generally talk about. So being able to stay grounded and stay regulated when your partner is dysregulated is a major way of building polarity and a huge gift to give to that partner. So. And it's also just a lot, I think, a lot easier and more stabilizing for you, right, when you, you know, get the hang of this. And of course, it's always a work in progress, but this is an important segment, which is, what. What is it like? You know, before you grew. What was it like? And this, I thought, was really well said. He said, I was afraid of her emotions and terrified of upsetting her. It hit deeply, bringing all my insecurities and fears to the surface. I'd react defensively, like a cornered animal trying to protect and defend myself. I always felt like it was somehow my fault, and I struggled to create a safe space for either of us that I think says it really well, which is just that sense of, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. And I. I'm cornered, right? I have to. I have to do something to defend myself and to protect myself, because something bad is happening. And just that you can feel that sense of. I think for this person, it was probably more like panic. And then the response to that is where we see A lot of fights escalate, right? Of she's upset about something and, and he's, you know, she's upset. Let's say that he was late and now he's like, but there was traffic. I was doing. I, you know, I did everything I could to get here. And now she's even more angry because he's protecting and defending. And now it's gonna. It's gonna escalate. So I think there's also something really encouraging about interrupting that. And this discussion is really important in that because I think one of the. One of the most inspiring things that I've heard in the couples that I work with, as well as our. Our men, is as this comes more online, right. As the. Both partners really. But I'm going to focus on. On male partners today and people who are holding alpha. As those men start to understand themselves and know how to be grounded, the fights tend to be less, less volatile and less long. Right. They become a lot more efficient. So I think there's. There's a lot of. There's a lot of good to come out of this. But that. That is a very common phrase that you use where I would try to fix it, right? Like, before doing work on this, I would try to fix it. And also I felt like it was my fault. Felt like it was all. All my fault. And that was a word that came up again and again in the responses. And I'm wondering if you can, you know, speak to that a little bit about. It feels often like a lot of the men that we work with, it feels like it falls all on their shoulders or they have the sense that it all falls on them and that it's their fault if their partner is upset.
Jason Lange: Yeah, I think this one does tie a lot into shame for men that if something my partner isn't feeling well, it is my fault. And this is like straight to the core of a lot of nice guy syndrome for many men and how they were wired in their family system growing up. And there was often some enmeshment that if my parents not okay, I have to make them feel better, which is often, you know, like we've talked about. It's the. The directionality is reversed there at too young an age. And that will often kind of fall on the sword as it is. That's like, wow, it is my fault now. And now I'm responsible for fixing it. And if I don't fix it, that makes me even more of a piece of shit in a sense, and dysregulating it So a lot of guys do internalize this and it's their fault. Or, you know, I would say maybe just alongside that is maybe. I know it's not my fault, but I just cannot handle in my nervous system feeling what she's feeling in her nervous system. So I'm just uncomfortable that if she's sad I didn't cause that sadness. But, wow, if she's sad, for that to resonate in my body, I have to start to feel some sadness. And if I haven't dealt with that, I might just eject. Right. I'm just. Then I just. I gotta get her away from sadness because I don't want to be overwhelmed with grief myself around X, Y or Z. And we definitely see that a lot in. In relationships and even family systems and parenting. So I think it's both. Right. Guys absolutely will take it on of, oh, it's my fault and then sometimes just don't have the capacity to. To be present with that emotional content, even if it's not.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah, I'm really glad you spoke to that, because there's something that we have often shared in our work, which is that you can only meet someone else to the depth to which you've met yourself. And if you have unresolved stuff around grief or anger, let's say you're not going to be able to tolerate that in someone else. Whereas if you have done your work and you have touched those places and you have been held by others in those places, then you know what it is to work with that. And it's much easier for you to be present, to stay present, because that's really what a lot of this conversation is, is being present with her in those moments without taking on what she's taking on. And I think that's kind of the irony, right, Is like to. If you. Let's say you have touched deep grief and you have been with your grief and you have held that, and you know what that is. When she is experiencing grief, it's actually easier for you not to fall into it or want to avoid it. It's easier to just be with it, to just be present and be a witness. And that's really the word that jumped out at me was the word witness. I want to just call this, this, this out. And then we're going to go back. We asked the men, what is it like for you now when your woman is dysregulated? This is meaning after they've done the work? And he said, I spend a lot of time feeling my feet on the ground and breathing. I also feel her more than. I listen to every detail. It can still be uncomfortable, but I'm confident that what is happening in front of me is not for me to own, but rather to witness and provide a safe container for. And I think there's a fundamental shift that happens in understanding that your role is not to fix or solve. It's to witness and be a space for it to unfold what is happening for her to be fully expressed, to be fully felt. And that is a very different role. Right. Just being there and allowing it to come towards you is different than fixing it. And, you know, you're a parent to a young child, and I think there is something. There is a parallel that can be drawn here around when you're with a toddler and you've taken away a toy because it's not safe, let's say they are going to have a response. Right. They're going to have a reaction and it's not going to be pretty, and they're going to. They're going to throw a tantrum. We inherently understand that our job in that moment is not to immediately fix it, to give them the toy back that could choke them. Right. To fix the problem or solve what's going on. It's to be with them in their storm and to be grounded and stay grounded and present and loving and empathetic, but not to fix. And I think there's a. There's a parallel here around that, that the, The. The role as witness, as loving, compassionate, present witness, is A, only available if you've done your own work and you can actually be present to what's happening, and B, is inherently different than fixing or solving. It's not the same role. It's not the same. You're not thinking about how to do something or what, you know, how to fix her car. Right. She's upset. Like, it's not actually about that. It's about, oh, I'm here to hold the space. I'm here to witness and to be the banks of the river as she expresses. I'm curious if you can share a little about your own journey in this part of. Kind of coming to understand what that actually means.
Jason Lange: Yeah. You know, we've talked about this on the show before, and certainly with our clients of the big shift is when we, at least for me, when I stopped fearing my partner's emotional content, in a sense. And, you know, there's a couple of key things here that I think we'll be weaving in throughout the rest of the Episode of, you know, a big part of, you know, the Witness, in a sense, is there. There actually is a certain amount of differentiation. And this was the big part of growth for me that, oh, wow, her nervous system is not my nervous system. It, like, literally, sometimes I have to remember that. That if she's dysregulated right now, that doesn't mean I have to become dysregulated right now. It also doesn't mean I'm totally disconnected from her, though. And, you know, I think it really. Another way to think about the witnessing that Mel's talking about here is, you know, what I would kind of often call step one of co regulating a partner when they're dysregulated is just validating that what they're feeling in their body is true and okay. Right. Whatever you're experiencing right now is okay, and it's clearly true for you, which. Which is different from how you're interpreting the moment or whatever that we might argue about is. Is true. It's just like, wow, you know, it might be something as simple as I. I can tell this is really hard for you right now. Seems like you're really angry or really sad or, you know, whatever that is. So you're validating what they're feeling in their body. And that's almost always the first step before anything else, because then they're like, oh, okay, I don't have to be any different right now. Right? There's what you're feeling is okay, and you know, it's true. And that requires us both being separate from it, so we don't get swallowed into it, but also open and attuned to our partner enough to have a sense of what's going on for them, that we can reflect. You know, one of my teachers used to call this lucid empathy. So we're not fully collapsing into their nervous system. There's a lucidity, there's a consciousness. There's a little bit of a barrier there still. It's porous, though, right? We let a little bit in and we can feel. And that's a real skill I've had to develop over the years of being able to, okay, I. I can be connected to Violet, and I don't have to get swallowed into her nervous system or allow her nervous system to disregulate mine. And in fact, I'm a much better and useful husband and lover when I don't. Right. When I can keep a little spaciousness to really reflect to her what I'm seeing and validate it. And then from there, all kinds, other things become possible.
Melanie Curtin: I really love what you're speaking to because if you put it in terms of alpha and omega consciousness or alpha and omega concepts, alpha is consciousness, and omega is flow and consciousness. Just the simple act of stating what is so is powerful. So I. I'll give you a quick example from my life, a recent example. My partner said, it's okay that you're angry with me right now. And I felt my whole body relax. I felt loved and I felt seen, and he didn't fix anything. I think that's what I'm trying to point out is there's something inherently comforting about consciousness. In those moments of just naming what is so. And when Jason's using the word validating, it's saying, I see what is happening, and it's okay. It's okay that you're angry. It's okay that you're stressed. It's okay that you're upset. It makes sense that you feel this way, which is not the same as, you know, like you said, the interpretation of it. Right. It's not like I agree with you that I came home late to hurt you. Right. It's not. That's not what we're saying. What we're saying is it's okay that you're hurt right now. It's okay that you're angry with me right now. It's. It's not okay to hit. It's not okay to punch. It's kind of. Yeah. So when we come back to sort of the child example. Right. It's okay that you're angry right now. And we never hit people. We never throw things. Right. There's. There's an and there. And we're not condoning abuse. That's not what this is about. But within the. Within the boundaries of. Of normal relating, there is something deeply soothing about the witness stating what is so. And I really liked what you said, Jason, about staying connected and being differentiated. Staying connected and being differentiated. And I think that's really the art of this practice, is not being swallowed up by what's happening for her. Being able to stay grounded in your own body, mind, and your own self and stay connected. Because I do think that. That, you know, disassociation is. It is a response to, this is too much. This is too much for me. I can't handle what's happening right now. I'm going to go away. I might be physically present, but I can't handle it. And that's very different from actually being present, being in the Room and recognizing that I don't have to take that on. I don't, you know, my nervous system is different from hers. And that I'm curious. We're going to. The next question that we have here is kind of like, how did you get there? Like, how did you. How did you practice growing in this area? And we're going to hear from a couple of other men. But I'm. Can you speak a little bit to your own practice of how did you practice getting to that point? How did you practice growing in this area?
Jason Lange: Lots of inner work, I mean, therapy and men's work, I would say, would be the two big buckets that I did. So going in deep with therapists, particularly somatic ones, that help me become more sensitive to my own nervous system. So I could kind of, you know, in a sense, my spidey sense, could catch things before they got so big that I'd get overwhelmed. Like, oh, here's how my dysregulation first starts to sprinkle itself onto my system. Right? Like the very first sparkles, you could say. And becoming aware. That certainly empowered me to then, you know, be able to make more conscious choices. And then in men's work, right. A lot of which is based on stressing our nervous system in intentional ways so we can learn to stay grounded and present. As I say, no matter what's happening inside of ourselves or outside of ourselves. Can I just, again, kind of come back to myself and not get stuck in this freaked out phase and. And not get stuck in the totally shutdown and freeze phase? So there's, you know, physical practices that have to do with this. You know, something as simple as lifting weights to Kundalini yoga, to, you know, normal yoga breath work, ice baths. Right. All these things are about, wow, my nervous system is activated and can I kind of. Can I handle that? Can I not let it blow me out? And we just do that over. I just did that over and over and over, and I'm still doing that. It's not like I've mastered any of this. I still get blown out all the time. But has my capacity gone up? Yes. My ability to downshift when I'm overstimulated and my ability to upshift when I'm frozen to, you know, just literally move my body or get a word out of my mouth, and all of that takes practice. And, you know, really another way to think about therapy in men's work is that's where we get to practice doing these things, putting ourselves into situations that in Some sense get us activated so then we can practice moving, acting, sharing, connecting from that place of activation. So, you know, it's been a quite a journey for me. You know, we're talking decades of just staying at this, and there's no destination to get to. But it really does take that practice. Okay. And then, you know, last thing I'll share is building better and better systems with my partner, Violet, with my wife, to become more conscious of these processes so we can actually be allies for each other's nervous systems when we do get activated or frozen or whatever that might be. The great thing about having a, you know, a conscious partner is a sense. In a sense, is you get to bring this stuff forward. Hey, here's how I get triggered. Here's how I shut down. Here's how you can help me in those moments. And it becomes one of the great gifts of relationship, because we can't always catch ourselves. But sometimes my partner can point it out, and instead of being an enemy, and that can be my ally in that. And we've gotten way better at that over time as well.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah. Can you. Before we. I want to read a few of these responses about how men practiced growing. But since we're on this topic, can you give at least one concrete example of ways that you are allies in that way?
Jason Lange: Yeah. You know, it's another way to think about this maybe, is we now have the capacity to debrief when we do get dysregulated or we have a fight. Right. We often talk about rupture and repair on this. And so after that, now we're able to kind of track where I, you know, where each of us was at and kind of speak to our experience in that, which helps us then, in a sense, troubleshoot moving forward. How could we navigate that a little bit better? Right. Just here's, you know, in the couples program, Violet and I do, we. We talk about the couples dance. Right. To become aware of. Yeah. What is our pattern of dysregulation? I'm dysregulated, which triggers some kind of dysregulation in you, which triggers something back in me. And we quickly spiral down often. And we've had many conversations about that. Right. And she and I now call ours the. The wall in the grenade, which probably tells you a lot right there. You can probably guess on the wall. She's off in the grenade traditionally. But now that we know about that, we're both getting more sensitive to it. So lots of things happen before she drops the grenade. There's A lot of things happening in her, she's gotten better at becoming aware of and there's lots of things in her that I'm getting better at becoming aware of. So we have more agency to try to head things off at the pass in a sense in that often. Right. The antidote for these dysregulated fights for us is we're both needing something to co regulate with each other. So it's not waiting until it's too late. But ah, okay, this is where I need to come towards her a little bit or to do an extra load of dishes today. And then that whole thing doesn't have to happen in some sense. So we're able to talk about those things and you know, just ever, ever more subtly keep circling these patterns and becoming more and more aware of the nuances of them. So we have more and more ways and strategies we can deal with them. Which sometimes mean we have to take better care of ourselves and sometimes it means we have to take better care of each other.
Melanie Curtin: That's well said. I'm going to add a concrete example of my own. This is with a friend of mine, not a romantic partner, but a friend that I did a lot of, I would say a lot of attachment work with. And he and I had a pattern of. He was, he would definitely go into freeze and more dissociative states. And when we were in conflict or something had happened, he would just kind of go away and I'd be like, I don't want to feel like I'm the only one like adult in the room. Like I don't want to feel like I have to go to you all the time. Right. And so we had this and, and sometimes it would go on for days, right. This would, it would just be awful for days or more than days, like weeks. And we had a rupture at one point and we'd talked about a lot of this, like to your point, and he, I will never forget it. He crossed the room because he could feel like something bad had happened. He crossed the room and he said, would you like to go for a walk? And I, I, of course there was a part of me that wanted to push him away because I was angry, right. But I chose not to do that. I chose to say yes, that would be great. And I could feel his effort, I could feel him trying, I could feel him doing something new outside of his comfort zone to move us forward to, towards repair. And that ended up being one of our most efficient repairs. It was probably the most efficient repair we had had in years. Right. That, that, that point, you know, it was like 90 minutes start to finish. Right. The thing happened, we went for the walk. He shared what was on his heart, I shared what was on mine. And then we repaired. And that act of him coming towards me, you know, you mentioned that, right. Sometimes we need something from our partner, sometimes we need something ourselves. But that was such an act of generosity and love on his part. And I could tell it was an effort for him. I could tell it was hard. I could. An act of love. I'm uncomfortable. I don't really want to cross the room. I'm kind of scared. But I'm doing it because we've talked about this and I know that it's something that helps you, that you need in this moment. And I met that moment. Right. And that's what I think is possible in healthy relationships is I'm trying and you're trying. I'm trying and you're trying. We're both trying. We're both making the effort towards. And I guess I just want to say it explicitly here. If you're in a relationship where it feels like you're always the one making the effort and you're never getting anything back, that's a problem. We've got some other episodes on that. But in, in healthy relationship and like you said, conscious relationship, I think there is something really beautiful about becoming more skillful at. Becoming more skillful at repair. What does help you in those moments and what helps me and getting to know those. And I think that one of the things that happens with couples is that once the storm has passed, there's often a reluctance to debrief and to go back and say what happened and what's going on for you, what was going on for me, how we get through it. Because you don't want to go back into the crunchy feelings. But sometimes the debrief is helpful because you can actually expand on what worked and perhaps trim out some things that didn't or, you know, refine the process, things like that. And I think, you know, therapy, coaching, men's work, group work, all of these work together because it's often not. It's. It's not. It's never one thing. Right. It's a lot of these things happening at the same time. For a lot of couples, working with someone else, working with a couple's therapist can be a helpful part of the process. And meditation exercise. You know, I want to read some of these responses. Self care practices, doing breath work, doing trauma work, that is Also necessary. It's not just the relational aspects, right? It's not just we hire a coach. It's also I gotta do myself, my trauma work, right? I gotta really get in there. So I do want to read a few of these. This is in response to how did you practice growing in this area? And this man said, my growth has expanded in multiple ways. Through listening to podcasts like Dear Men and Evolutionary Men, participating in a men's group therapy, coaching self reflection, meditation and practicing self love. I've been working on understanding and accepting my insecurities. Physical activity, improved sleep and better nutrition have also had a positive impact. My partner and I focus on the small things as well, helping to regulate my nervous system and become more comfortable with others emotions. I'm also working on connecting with and understanding my inner child. In essence, I'm fully committed to doing the work. And there are other responses, but I think that one kind of encapsul, encapsulates a lot of what we're saying, which is how do you, how do you practice growing in this area? It's all of those things. It's all of those things and they all add up in different ways. I, I want to read this other one that I thought was really interesting, which is where does he talk? Oh, I, one of the other questions I said was, what advice would you give a man who's looking to grow in this area? And he said, he said, do the work. It's essential to cultivate your own Omega, your own feminine energy. If I don't work on balancing my own Omega energy, it risks resonating with hers, creating chaos and leaving us both feeling unheard and unhurt. My alpha energy can't come through if my Omega is stuck in my nervous system. Think of your alpha energy as the lightning rod during her storm. Her Omega is like the lightning. You need to ground that energy, that emotion. This is the difference between a man and a boy. I thought that was so poignant. This is the difference between a man and a boy. And I want to be really clear that we are not talking about self sacrifice. This is not self sacrifice. This is different. This is not just you sacrificing yourself and being the lightning rod and being a fry, you know, getting fried. Right? That's not what we're talking about. It's different when you cultivate this state. When you are able to be differentiated and present. You are not destroyed at the end of it. You're not destroyed. You're not. You haven't sacrificed your own beingness. It's a different, it's different than that. And I'm curious if you can share a little bit about that because I do think that there's a risk in what we're talking about of feeling like again, kind of like it's all on your shoulders or it's all up to you or you know, that somehow you're, you're sacrificing by, by playing this role. Can you, can you share about what, how is it different?
Jason Lange: Well, any good relationship, no matter your configuration of polarity, there's going to be reciprocity. So if you're always having to regulate her, that's not going to work out and be sustainable. But if you're allowed to sometimes be co regulated by her, then there's gonna be a fluid exchange. And you know, I think this ties into obviously what I focus on a lot and what we do in our program, which is also part of what allows you to be there is you gotta have places in your life like he's saying, to discharge your own emotional content and energy. Sometimes that's gonna be with your intimate partner, sometimes that's gonna be with a coach or therapist, sometimes that' be doing practices yourself. Sometimes that's going to be in something like a men's group. But part of what makes it not a sacrifice is you're allowed to do something and you have somewhere to put that somewhere in your life where it becomes, you know, self harming is when we're just containing, just containing, just containing, just containing, just containing. Just because that's what a man's supposed to do. That's what I'm supposed to do for my partner. And then you're going to burn yourself live, you know, or you're going to shut down or your body's going to start to freak out in a sense. And so there's reciprocity and there's, you know, through wisdom and often intention, creating systems larger than you so that you have places to discharge that content. And then ideally, as you're building that capacity, your partner is too. So you know, she's not having to have you co regulate her for everything A lot of the time. Sure. Because you're primary partners and that's one of the great gifts you can do for each other. But that she has some outlets as well. So that if she comes to you with something and you're like, and we're like as men, you know, actually I'm tapped out right now. I don't have. I love you so much and I don't really have the capacity to hold this with you right now without further harming myself. So I would love to come back to it in the future when I'm more resourced or how can I support you in finding another place right now to, you know, to. To be held in this? And that makes a big difference.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah, that reminds me of one of these shares. So I asked the men, what is it like for you now when your woman is dysregulated after right where you are, you've grown. There's this arc. And he said, the much more healthy, emotional relationship that I'm in now means that sometimes we can each reach out to our own support network. In comparison to other relationships I've had in my current one, we both have a much stronger support network that we lean on. We also have the ability to talk through issues with each other. But the transformation is such that we don't need to solve our problem, our partner's problem. At times, we do choose to work together on a concern. And this is so interesting because it ties in with this other. This other man's response where he said, one of the things that's different for me was often trying to work on solving my partner's problem, even when they didn't ask for my help. In the partnership I have now, we can ask for each other's help and then work together. This is very different from me trying to solve her problem on my own. The process looks more like a collaboration, where we're both putting an effort moving in the same direction, not me thinking, oh, I should do this to help relieve my partner's anxiety. So there's there, again, those words that kind of jump out. One of the words that jumped out was the word choice. That we. We have a choice around how we do this and who we reach out to and versus the. The melding, the merging, the, you know, codependent dynamics where there isn't a lot of awareness or consciousness. It's just. It's just trigger reaction, trigger reaction. You know, she's upset. I have to fix it. You know, it's. It's. There's more mindfulness. There's more awareness. There's more consciousness. And back to that question of, how did you practice growing in this area? One of the other men said, by doing my own inner work, breath work, my trauma work, embodiment work. And that is, in essence, you know, the core of what you and I teach and how we take men through the work that we do. We emphasize embodiment work. And this is part of why. Because it's the foundation. It's really the foundation of being able to hold ourselves as well as being able to hold an intimate partner. It's. It's everything. And I. I wanted to just touch on that example of being the lightning rod. There's a way that having intensity come towards us, you know, it's literally in our body. The capacity, the ability to breathe. When we say grounded, we actually mean grounded. So deep breath. Grounding. Feeling your feet, feet on the ground. That's part of what we're talking about. It's not just. It's not just holding, right? Like. Because when I imagine, like, holding, it's. It's kind of getting stuck in my body, right? I'm. I'm taking it in and I'm. I'm holding it. That's different from grounding it, which is. It's coming towards me, it's coming through me. It's going down into the earth. It's coming towards me. It's coming through me. It's going down into the earth. I'm here, I'm present. I am with what's happening, and it's not getting stuck in my stomach, in my back, in my shoulders, in my hips. You know, I'm not taking on this weight, but I am grounding the energy. I am welcoming what's here, and I'm validating what's here. I'm allowing what's here rather than I'm resisting what's here. I'm con. I'm trying to contain what's here. I'm telling her to keep your voice down. You know, there's other people around, or, you know, this isn't appropriate, or just you shouldn't feel that way, because I didn't mean it that way. That. That's very different than. Being present. Being present. And I think that's one of the things that is so important about the subtleties of this, is that I, as a woman, I can feel when you are with me, fully present, taking in what I'm saying, grounding what I'm saying. You don't have to say a lot. You don't have to say a lot. It's about how you are being. And I have been with men. I'm thinking particularly of one man that I was with years ago where I had some difficult feedback for him, and I could feel him really with me, and that relaxed me. As I was sharing, I felt more and more relaxed. I felt more and more unburdened and free, and I didn't need him to fix anything. I Just needed to share and feel heard and feel met. And I could feel how much the work that he had put in to himself, the ways that he had cultivated himself, showed up in that moment. And I felt deeply connected to him in a place that could have been. It could have been really awful. You know, it could have. It could have gone a really different way. And it was super efficient. It was another one of those things. I was like, wow, that was 35 minutes, and I feel totally different. And we're not fighting for days. You know, it's just like, okay, this can really work. And we both made some adjustments after that. And, you know, it's like, it's the most efficient way to do. To do all this stuff, but it takes work to get to that point, right? It's. It's like being able to lift something heavy is because you lifted a bunch of lighter weights that you worked up to that weight. That's how it works. It doesn't. You don't just lift the heavy weight overnight. You have to put in. Put in that work. Any comments about that before we move to the last question?
Jason Lange: Yeah, just. We've worked with this visualization before in our retreats, but another way to think about this is, you know, we talk about bamboo. It's this beautiful representation of what we're talking about here that it's. It's sturdy but flexible. And so this place we're talking about, guys, it is not. I'm holding space. I'm a pure, unmovable mountain, not impacted at all. That actually will often freak women out. That's something my wife and I had to work on, where she was like that. I don't feel anything from you. And that's actually dysregulating in itself. The. The energy here is. You want emotion to move through you, but for you to not be moved, right? So if you imagine a piece of bamboo, it's like it's still there. It's still rooted. The emotion is having an impact. It's swaying a little bit, but it's not totally rigid, right? So there's something moving through you, whether that's down into the earth, whether that's up into the sky, whether that's transmuting it back and reflecting it in some beautiful way to whoever you're with. It's not getting stuck in you. It is moving through you. But your core, your center is what's kind of anchored and rooted. I'm here with it, whatever it is, but I am being impacted by it. I think that's a important Piece that does tie into why, you know, as deep of men's work we often do with guys, some of that does involve our feminine, our omega work to be able to resonate just enough. Because if we're not being moved by it, it's not very useful. It doesn't often feel very safe to our partners if we're just a lump of stone that they're like, well, are you even. Do you even hear me? You know, like, it can be that extreme sometimes. So just the image there is. You want to imagine the energy is flowing through you, but that your core is steady. You're still rooted in the ground. You might be moving back and forth a little bit with that content, but that's actually a good thing. That's part of how a partner who's sharing can know that you are attuning to them. In a sense, if they can't feel you feeling anything, then they're not going to feel heard or witnessed or seen. What they want to feel is you feeling it, being impacted by it, but not collapsing and freezing or running away from it and not posturing and like pretending it's just not there or I'm not impacted at all. It's this beautiful middle ground that, you know, takes work to cultivate but is so doable.
Melanie Curtin: Yes. And the payoff. This, this man talked about the payoff. He said there is a payoff if you can be the calm before and during the storm, because most men cannot. And the ability to be calm sets you apart from the competition and as a way to cement your relationship. For some reason that really called to me was a way to cement your relationship. And then when, you know, in terms of the. The advice, what advice would you give to a man looking to grow in this area? This man said you can't truly be present with another until you have been and can be truly present with yourself. A lot of the. A lot of nice guys are focused on the relating with other components. But this work starts with you. Even if you are in a relationship, give yourself room to grow and center before focusing on your competency with another. So, yeah, there's a. A lot there. And I think one of the last things that I want to say is that it's. It's totally normal to. Healing is not linear. We don't just step up and up and up and up. It's often two steps forward, one step back, and that. That is normal. And our culture doesn't really make it normal. We live in a culture that tells us that things, you know, you should have a five year plan and you should be going up the ladder. And there's a. There's a certain linear quality to that. But in the work that I've done, in the witnessing that I've had, it's more of an art, it's more of a dance, it's more of a finding our way together. Not so much with everything just cleanly happening in line. So wherever you are, I think is what I'm trying to say, wherever you are, you can get to where you want to be. And it might not be linear. You know, there are certain healing modalities, certain mentors that we need at certain points in our journey, and those shift over time. And you are the arbiter of what you need, your intuition, your guidance, that is what is the most critical. Because your intuition will always take you to what is going to be best for you. And that doesn't always look like the logical or most rational choice. It's a feeling. It's in your body, mind. It's a sense. And we were just talking about this on our recent coaching call about how, you know, many of the men that we worked with have said, I just felt like it was time. I just knew it was time to reach out. I just felt the call. So I just want to honor that because I think it's really important, particularly in our culture that says we should make all decisions from our mind, that there is a deeper way of making decisions and choices. And that's part of what guides you to the right work for you at this time. And it is also part of what can guide you in these moments of intensity. So if you are interested in working with us, you can get us at Evolutionary men. And is there anything else that you would want to add?
Jason Lange: It takes practice. And it's okay to be messy and imperfect. Imperfect in. In doing it. And one thing I know I've certainly learned is it's a hell of a lot more fun to practice this with other people too. So whether it's joining a program or getting into a men's group or going on retreat, building this capacity itself can be relational and fun.
Melanie Curtin: That's a great place to end. Relational and fun. Sam.
