375: What does it mean to ‘be in your masculine’? | Dear Men

Jason Lange: Simultaneously, while a lot of us guys were seeing, you know, the results of just kind of shithead chauvinists, we're like, okay, we want to take off the gas. We don't want to be that. That guy simultaneously. A lot of, you know, again, in our case, we mostly work with heterosexual, but women who identify with the feminine have been kicking ass in the alpha, in the masculine, getting jobs, holding space, raising kids, doing. And so they're getting better at that. And men, men have been atrop.

Melanie Curtin: Hi everyone. I have a cool celebration before this episode. This is from a man who joined us, I think about two years ago and at the time was in a rocky place in his marriage, really unsure about what was going to happen or what should happen, and feeling, I would say, a bit out of control. And he did end up actually getting divorced during and after the course of the program, but feeling really good about it, feeling like it was a healthy decision for him. And here is his update. Life is going great. The blueprint I was building towards when we connected two years ago has come to fruition. My ex wife is stable and we are co parenting with little to no drama. The kids are doing great. They are still adjusting to two homes, but overall thriving. My dad is incredibly supportive and happy for me. My mom is still volatile, but her swings don't affect me anymore. And I meet her with love and understanding without falling into any cycles when she does or says insensitive or immature things. Finally, I've been dating the woman I mentioned for the past seven months and it has been going great. She is able to meet me emotionally, intellectually, sexually, and I feel incredibly safe with her and loved by her. We are having the kinds of depth of conversation to understand each other and in the few arguments we have had, we've been able to meet each other other and deepen our bond. So I don't know about you, but I find that incredibly uplifting and inspiring. Especially if you are a man out there kind of unsure about your relationship or struggling in your relationship. Just know that more is possible, whether that's within your current partnership or beyond. Even when it feels really bleak and dire and concerning. There is light and there is hope and there is guidance if you choose to receive that. But either way, things can change and they can change for the better. It is always possible. You are not stuck. Okay, without further ado, let's get into the episode. Hi everyone. Welcome back to another Jason episode. So happy to have you with us. We get all the fan mail about Jason episodes today. We're talking about what does it mean to be in your masculine? So this is a term that we have used sometimes and you might have read in other personal growth locations. And we wanted to break it down, and especially if you listened to our last episode about the three archetypes of men, then this is probably on your heart as well. And before we start, I just want to say that I will often use the language of alpha and omega instead of masculine and feminine because masculine and feminine come loaded up with a lot of other meanings and innuendos. So when we talk about alpha energy, that generally maps to masculine, and when we talk about omega, that generally maps to feminine. So, yeah, this is a sort of a hot topic in our community, an evergreen topic. And, and just curious, when you were starting this journey and you heard this phrase, what, what. What did you think of what does it mean to be in your masculine?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, I wasn't super clear. I guess I knew it was something I wanted to be in because I thought it would get me chicks. I mean, honestly, when I first heard about it, that's kind of what brought me into all of it. And then obviously, as I developed and matured, I saw the many ways these energies show up in our lives and that. I mean, for me, you know, in particular with my personality type, it was seeing my default being indirect. Indirectness is a challenge of mine sometimes in terms of. Yeah, just not being clear indirect with things. And as I started to see those, the connection between that, I definitely saw how I appreciated that or maybe admired or even got jealous sometimes of other men who just were very direct about things and then, lo and behold, tended to get more of what they wanted. Right. Because they were asking more and taking more risks. So, you know, this showed up in a lot of places for me, both in romance, but also very much in my career and interpersonal in terms of setting boundaries and asking for things I need. As I developed in the work, it was like, wow. Yeah, I like to think I am super in my masculine, but a lot of times I'm just more up in my head, which is not the same thing. Right. Ruminating, overthinking, things is very different than what we're going to be talking about here. And it is important to note, like you said, right, you can use masculine, feminine, alpha, omega, whatever. This is not determined by your biology. Right. Whether you're male or female or any other manifestation. We. We all have access to this. So you have a very powerful masculine. I have powerful masculine. My wife has a powerful masculine. Anybody has this capacity inside of us. And we're all using both capacities all the time, but the men we tend to work with, this is one that's atrophied often a lot, particularly when it comes to romance, leadership, sexuality, and being direct around emotions. So we'll kind of be covering a lot of that here today.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah, I. I really love this topic for lots of reasons, but one of them is that I feel like it's a little bit like I'm not obsessed with the Matrix, but a lot of people I know are really obsessed with the Matrix. And I do feel like there's a way that understanding Alpha and Omega energies and seeing how they map to the world and relationships and everything does feel like peeking behind the curtain and kind of seeing the fundamental workings of the atoms of the universe. You think that a lot of. A lot of things can be sort of demonstrated by Alpha and Omega. And I want to go over the basics of this before we jump in. So when we're talking about Alpha and Omega, you can think metaphorically of Alpha as the banks of the river and Omega as the water rushing through the banks of the river. So the banks are holding structure. They're providing containment. They're helping to contain the water. And then the water is flowing through and bringing water, life and interesting things to look at. And just water is dynamic, right? It's. It's beautiful, it's powerful. If the banks of the river were not there, then the water would spill over everywhere and you would have a delta or whatever, you know, a marsh, that kind of thing. And if there was no water in the banks, then it would be a dry bed. Right. So we need both energies. Both energies are elemental to life. And what. Yeah, what we often see in people is that they are more developed in one or the other, or they're underdeveloped in both. That's the truth. But I want to bring it, make it a little bit more concrete so that we're all kind of on the same page. So containment is. When you're holding structure, you're holding someone. So parents are in Alpha a lot of the time. They are holding structure for their child, especially if their child is small. Once children get older, that's a little bit different. You're going to be flowing back and forth more. But when you're holding structure, then you're helping to contain the big energies and the big feelings of this little person. And you're also corralling them right into brushing their teeth or going to bed. You're holding Alpha, you're holding a position of structure, and they are flowing in their interminable way, however the fuck they want to flow, right? They're just like all over the place and really uncontained, wildly uncontained, contained. And you are bringing structure, you're bringing containment to them. That's the dynamic that you have there in romantic relationships. I'm going to give a few examples of Alpha and Omega. One of the first times that I remember feeling in my Omega, feeling in my flow was I lived in New York City and I did a shoot. I guess you could call it a fashion shoot. I hesitate to use that word. But I was on a site and there was a photographer and he wanted to shoot some dancers. I was one of the dancers that was doing this shoot in midtown. And it was really fun. And I was like, why am I having such a great time? Because I get to, like, wear different clothes and flow in different clothes. And I'm being directed. I am being directed. So go here, do this, pose this way. Try that, you know? And I was allowed to bring my flow and my essence and experiment, but I was also. I was not holding the container. I was not holding the structure. I was not making the decisions. I was flowing within the decisions. And for me, I think in particular, and I think this is true for a lot of parentified children, children that were parentified growing up. There was a lot of me holding Alpha to track my mom, right? Like, how's she doing? What's going on? What. What do I do I need to do in order for her to be okay? So there was a lot of tracking, tracking, and that is Alpha. When you are vig. When you are tracking, then you're in alpha. When you're relaxing and letting go and flowing, then you're in Omega. And I'm. And I'm not. I just want to be clear that Alpha and Omega both have a light side and they both have a dark side. So the dark side of Omega is when you are wildly uncontained, right? As an adult, that's. That's not so good. If you're. If you're. If you can't your emotions into check. If you're just expressing and emoting and kind of putting your stuff out there, putting it on other people. If you don't have a sense of now is the time to contain, now is the time to flow. Ideally, what we want to see is both, right? We want to see the ability to contain and the ability to flow. And for a lot of people, either one or the other, like you Said is. Is a bit atrophied. So now I want to talk about relational moment of Alpha and Omega. So that I think the reason that stood out to me was because it was so delightful for me to just be in a space where I wasn't directing, I wasn't containing, I wasn't in charge, I wasn't making decisions. I was just like, this is awesome. I get to just be me, be the playful, flowy me, and someone appreciates it and I'm having a great time. Whereas most of the time in my life at the time, I was holding structure for myself or for others, and I wasn't really. I didn't really get to flow. So a few practical things about this in a relational context. You know, often in a relationship, whatever physiology, whatever biology you have, often there's going to be a partner that likes to flow more and a partner that likes to hold structure more. And it's not always the case, but it's very, very often the case. And there are. For the purpose of this discussion, we're going to talk about women in Alpha, or, sorry, women in Omega and men in Alpha, and the kind of chemistry that that can produce. This can happen in any relationship, in any constellation. It's not confined to this. And in a lot of queer relationships, you will see a dynamic like one person likes to hold Alpha and one person likes to hold Omega. And trust me, they have all the same issues as heterocouples. I know because I've worked with some of them, so it's not different. And. But one of the things about structure and flow is that if I, as a woman, so I've been in relationships where I felt like I had to hold the structure right? And I'm not necessarily talking about love relationships. We'll get there. But I'm thinking of, you know, friend relationships where I felt like I didn't really have a teammate in terms of advocating out in the world. So I'll give you one quick example. I had a friend, Paul, and every time we went to dinner or a meal, you know, when you approach the hostess stand or the host stand and someone goes up and says, here's how many people are in our party and all that, he would kind of hang back. So there was this sense of like, well, okay, if you're not gonna do it, then I'm gonna do it, right? If you're not gonna happen, you're not gonna create structure, then I am, because otherwise we're just gonna stand here. So I would do that part, and then if there was something wrong, like if something wasn't hot enough or if something was happening at the table, I noticed that he was, I would say, almost incapable of getting a server's attention. Like, hey, we're over here. We need. We need something, right? Waving your hand, you know, that kind of thing. And I think it's because he didn't want to bother anyone. He didn't want to take too much space. He didn't want to bother anyone. He didn't want to be. Be troublesome. And I was really frustrated by that because I think it's really different to. To be a. To be an asshole and to yell at a. Versus hey, this soup is really not hot. Would you mind sending it back and making it hot so that I can really enjoy it? That's, I think, a really good example of the difference between being aggressive and being assertive. So if you're passive, you just take what you got. You just take the soup, and it's tepid and it's bad. Or you said no cheese, and there's cheese, so you just accept it. You just allow it. That's passive aggressive is, I can't fucking believe there's cheese on this. I told you no cheese. That's aggressive. Assertive is, hey, excuse me. I think I ordered this without cheese. Would you mind sending it back and getting what I ordered? Thank you. That's assertive, and it's creating structure. And so relationally, what I found in relating with him was that I was tired, I didn't have support behind me, and I felt like if I needed something, I was gonna have to be the one to take care of it. And so there's a way that I wasn't fully relaxed when I was with him, particularly around. Around things like that. And that was true also of other. Other friend dynamics, other things going on in our lives that we were involved with. I felt like, well, I'm the. I have to be an Alpha. I have to hold Alpha all the time because he's not gonna do it. And so I'm. I'm. It felt like extra work for me or more. More. More things to track, more things to do. Even if he agreed with me in private, he wouldn't always speak up in public about things. And so I felt kind of alone. And then I can get into other examples of times that were better than that. But I just said a lot, and I'm sure you have many deep thoughts. So what's coming up for you?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, I think the main thing. I mean, this Happens all the time in my marriage. Right. The oftentimes, the friction points in what exhausts my wife, Violet, is when she feels like she's having to track something. So she's having to track it because she doesn't feel I'm tracking it. And there's a certain amount of all of that we have to do as people. But what we're pointing to is that for any of us, whether we identify as male or female or intersex or whatever place, we end up on the polarity side of things, um, that omega feminine part of all of us, it is exhausting to track. It's like it's going against its nature, in a sense. So we all have that part. And so when we're not. When for people that do tend to get more resourced by the omega, by the feminine, like, that's the place, let's say they recharge. If they're constantly having to dip into the masculine, into the alpha, it's actually fatiguing. And, you know, men, listeners of the show, you'll get it too. Right. What's one of the favorite activities for men to do is at the end of the day, turn on the TV and zone out. I don't have to track anything. Right. That's r. That's the part of us that gets fatigued with tracking and moving and, you know, making plans and executing and all that in. You know, part of what we're talking about here is, you know, alpha, masculine. You could also just say lead directive. Right? Lead and follow. It's a. It's a beautiful paradigm in dance. We all know. And it doesn't matter if you're male or female. We can each do either. But some of us prefer one over the other. Right. It's a great example. Doesn't have to do with your. Your birth sex or anything like that. You can become a great leader and you can become a great follower, and they're both equally challenging in very different ways. It's not like, oh, my God, feminine's got it so easy. No, try, you know, try following someone who's leading you and that you don't trust. It's super vulnerable. Or even if you do trust them. Right. But point of it being that alpha quality being in the masculine is essentially the part of us that's tracking what is happening right now. And where are we going? We being me, my partner, my family, whatever. Like, that's. It's like, okay, where are we and where are we going? It's kind of that simple. Where do we Want to be? Why do we want to be there? What needs to happen in order for us to get there. Right. David Data talks about this as the master of time and space, right? That's what you're tracking points in time, in space and what needs to happen to get there. And this is a capacity I think a lot of us so called nice guys shy away from because we don't want to seem dominating or domineering, right? Because we've had all these examples in the culture of chauvinist kind of stage one masculinity and what that does in the world. But you know, the point of this episode is there's baby and there's bathwater, right? And it's not about becoming dominating. And in the way you and I work with guys, you actually need both capacities. So, right, you gotta lead and you gotta listen. Sometimes you gotta listen a bit to then lead. But you're going back and forth with these really powerful things and you're constantly adjusting. Right? Good leadership. And you know, we talk a lot in our program about how this shows up in the bedroom. It's not, I come in with a step by step, multi point, down to the minute plan of how I'm going to make love to my partner. Because this is the right way to do it. You do that, it's not going to work so well. And guys, try that, right? Read the manuals, do the thing and okay, and then it's robotic and there's no connectivity in there. But instead it's, oh, I'm noticing the impulses in my body. I'm noticing how her body responds and you know, dancing in between surfing, as we often call it. I have to read her body, but I also have to direct right where I'm going with that. And this is really kind of what it means to be in our masculine. We're directing the moment towards something and if you don't know what it's going towards, you're not leading. This doesn't have to be big complicated stuff either, right? For, for men you never even have to speak this, right? You can be in your masculine in an intimate moment. Why? What is the intention? Why should we have sex right now? Why do I want to have sex with my partner? Super simple thing inside to set. Oh yeah, I want us to feel more connected or we need some more energy. Just setting that intention will completely transform the experience, right? To have a sense of, okay, why are we going in this way? Otherwise you're just kind of stumbling in. And that's the issue we see a lot of our men dealing with because simultaneously, while a lot of us guys were seeing, you know, the results of just kind of shithead chauvinists, we're like, okay, we want to take off the gas. We don't want to be that, that guy simultaneously. A lot of, you know, again, in our case, we mostly work with heterosexual, but women who identify with the feminine have been kicking ass in the alpha, in the masculine, getting jobs, holding space, raising kids, doing shit. And so they're getting better at that. And men, men have been atrophying at kind of so called being in the masculine. And so it's challenging. So we get guys coming to us who, who just, you know, one of the ways we really, I really see this show up, it certainly showed up for me, but is waiting. It's waiting, right? It's waiting for something to happen outside before I take action. Oh, I need to know she likes me before I try to grab her hand or whatever it might be. And when we're waiting, which is, you know, I've talked about this before, which is different than like resting and tracking. I can be totally still not taking action, but know what I'm looking for and why I'm looking for it and all that kind of stuff. It's very different than, I don't know. So I'm going to wait for someone else to take the lead. And that's the thing that gets really fatiguing for the, for the feminine part of all of us. And it's the kind of great bliss when we don't have to hold that. Right. In all kinds of arenas in life. Right. We have our retreat coming up next week and retreats are a great example of. Part of the joy of it is you literally just get your ass onto the site. Mel and I have a structure we are leading. You just get to give yourself over to the experience. And we all need that sometimes. And it can be quite rejuvenating. So as, as men, to be in our masculine means we're directing the moment from point A to point B. That doesn't even always have to look like some kind of aggressive action, so to speak. But we're providing a container in a context for the moment, which might be, hey, it seems like you're a little stressed out today. What's going on for you? I'm not going to fix it. I'm just creating a space for my partner to open up and share and move some of that energy. Right. So being in your masculine doesn't mean you always have to be calculating some problem solving thing. But it means you have to be creating a space and have an intention tied to it. And when you swirl that all together, it becomes, you know, quite profound. And it is one of the things that you can get really good at as a man, which again, isn't dominating, but it's about creating an experience. Hey, I'm going to pick you up here or yesterday was my wife's birthday. It was, okay, you need to be ready at this time. Bring these things. You're going to be going through an experience. And then she just got to come along. And it was quite, quite a bliss, right, to get to follow that. I'll pause there.

Melanie Curtin: I think that's such a good example. Jason, though, I think what, what part of what inspires me about polarity and, you know, conversations around polarity is when both partners understand it and can play with. Generates a lot of energy. It generates a lot of energy, a lot of joy. You know, I think that's such a great example of, of the birthday because, you know, you know, you know about this stuff. So what you didn't say was, hey, babe, what do you want to do for your birthday? You know her, you came up with an idea that was pretty creative and interesting and created the structure and invited her into it. There's nothing wrong per se, with saying, hey, what do you want to do for your birthday? But it's not as polarizing. That's the truth. That's the truth. Right. And it is also polarizing to say, here are the three things that I've come up with. Ideas. Some, also, some people don't like surprises. Men, women, non binary, doesn't matter. Some people don't like surprises, especially if they grew up in a house with too many bad kinds of surprises. So some people don't like that. But creating structure, there could be. Here are the three things I've come up with. Which of these feel the best to you? And that's another hack, right? When we're talking about polarity, we're talking about alpha and Omega. Alpha is consciousness. Alpha is thought. Alpha is structure. Omega is flow. Omega is feeling. Omega is beingness, not necessarily doingness. So it's sort of delightful for Omega to have lots of choices like, ooh, look at all of these different things. There's so much color, there's so much space. There's so much energy. There's so much life here. It's part of why, I think, part of why shopping is delightful too. Omega, it's not about spending money it's about, look at all these different options. There's so many different options. I love options. Options are great. And structure is. We're going to select this option, right? So I think there's something really lovely about the advanced stages of polarity, meaning we are both aware of these dynamics and we are facile. We are, we are capable of flowing with them, of being in and out of these roles and coming to different places. Because we both know about this. I also wanted to mention this thing about alpha and Omega and structure. You know, you mentioned it. I thought this was really brilliant. We all need places where we're in Omega. We all need places where we're in Omega. We all need places where we're in Alpha. We all need both. And omega is. Someone else is directing you. Someone else is holding the structure. This is part of why fitness classes are helpful. Someone else is telling you do this now, do this now, do this. Hold for 10 seconds. You're not coming up with that structure. I wanted to mention a few things about structure and couples. So one of the brilliant things I think that can be of a lot of service in relationship is when one or either partner really. But I think in this case we're sort of focusing on men. When you as a man can bring structure that is needed to help the relationship. And I'm going to be bring three concrete examples here. If food prep is a thing in your house and a lot of it is falling to one or one of you, one thing that you can do is the, what are they called? The, the, the food services where they, you get a box, it's like, here are the four meals. Here's everything you need for the four meals. Here are the instructions on the four meals. You don't have to think about it. You don't have to go to the grocery store, it arrives at your door. That would be an example of here's this thing that's going to hold Alpha for us so that we can be in Omega. And often that makes it easier for, for either partner to make dinner because they don't have to make all the decisions. They don't have to figure it out. See, that's the part about Alpha that we're trying to get across here is there's something about tracking, figuring it out, making decisions that, that act, that, that, that thing. That thing. You don't always have to do that as a couple. I'll give you another example. If you know cleaning is a thing in your house, you can think about getting a cleaner. Of course this is going to depend on your budget. But you're bringing in outside structure so that neither of you has to hold that alpha. And you're bringing in the structure and you're saying, here's the week that you know, here's the day of the week this person's going to come. Here are the hours. You can run that by your partner here. Three people that I've come up with, et cetera, coming with a suggestion, with a plan, things like that. Another is I had a couple that I was working with and they, they hired a honeymoon planner. So this person, they went to Italy and this person had a seven day itinerary and said, here are the trips you're going, day trips you're going on, here's the romantic dinner you're going on. And neither of them had to make decisions on their honeymoon. They didn't have to make any decisions. They both got to be in Omega and they had this incredible experience that was curated for them. And I thought to myself, oh man, that's the best investment they could have made on that honeymoon. Because I think part of the, part of what I think is often overlooked or missed is that part about decision making. Making decisions, making choices, creating structure takes something, right? It takes something. There's, there's, there is a cost to who picks the restaurant, putting in the address, driving there. Like all of that is Alpha. And if it keeps falling on one person, often what you're going to see is resentment. And my final example is bringing in the right mentor, bringing in the right mentor for either yourself or your, your couplehood. So you're you as a couple. I know several people, I would say, yourself included. Jason Hoop said, okay, we're in a place in our relationship where we're stuck. I don't really know what to do. You don't really know what to do. We've been trying for a while. It's time to bring someone else in that can hold Alpha so that the two of us can be held so that we are not trying to do it all ourselves. That's smart. That's an intelligent use of that energy. Because when you're trying to hold and fix and do, there's not really space for you to be able to relax into how you're really feeling or saying, I don't know, right? Or if I'd figured it out by now, then I wouldn't have to, you know, we wouldn't be here. So I think there's a lot of, there's a lot to be said for holding Alpha, being in your masculine does not mean doing everything. I think that's kind of what I wanted to impress is that is not what it means. It means being aware and conscious and bringing in the right structure. If you aren't going to be able to provide that. Any comments on that section?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean the. Here's my super esoteric cut, right? So again, Alpha and Omega, there's all these versions of that polarity we can talk about. One very simple manifestation we all are part of is life and death. So life tends to be associated more with the feminine. Growing more life, right? That's. Oh wow, that's a really rich. When you think of a feminine environment, there's a lot growing, there's lots of animals, there's life everywhere. Think of something like Antarctica or the middle of Death Valley. It's more of a masculine environment. There's less life, there's less movement. And so death tends to be more associated with the masculine in another way to put that again is fullness and emptiness, right? There's the content and then there's the non content point of this being, right? Emptiness, death. They're versions of less. The masculine is about less, less reduction. So anytime you're reducing options, you are leading. It's all it is. We could do a hundred things today, but what about this? Or this, right? You're bringing structure which reduces the options. I dump out a huge pile of pieces, could be anything. I give you the instruction manual. If you arrange it in this way, it's your tent, right? That's the masculine. That's structure in this sense. So it doesn't mean you always have to be doing the work, but sometimes you bring the structure to get the resources to make the thing happen. That's, that's so key, like you said. And our capacity to kind of reduce is the masculine. It's why all a lot of the work we do on retreat in our program. Stilling our bodies is more masculine practice. Moving our bodies is more of our Omega, our, our feminine practice. And, and so decision making is reducing choice and options. And the thing is again, now, when there's a version where I am making the decisions solely for my pleasure, that often feels like domination because I'm not considering you, your desires, your wants, your wellbeing, when I'm inclusive of that, sometimes balancing our desires, sometimes fully giving over to yours, whatever, that's a different kind of leadership that we're pointing to here. And when we're on the receiving end of that kind of leadership, all of us, whoever we Are that omega, that feminine? It feels like bliss. It just feels great, right? I get to feel this. One of my versions. I get to feel this is when I go see a good movie and within 10 or 20 minutes our get that sense of wow, I'm in the hands of someone who really knows what they're doing right now. Like, this is, this is masterful. I'm just gonna let go completely for the ride. And there's the moment that, you know, it's part of why I love cinema as a restorative practice of completely losing touch, right. Just not thinking about, just gone in in a great way, fully in the flow of whatever narrative. Literally they call it directing, right? A director, people, your body's going to be here, you're going to say this, this happens next, so that some kind of experience happens. That's really what we're talking about here. So that decisiveness is really important and it's really key. Decisiveness does not mean stubbornness. You can change, you can take in more information, you can come back and say, hey, I know, I was trying that and I realized I need to do this. That's all totally fine, but it's still directional. That's what being in your masculine is. It's providing the context and the direction in some capacity for the moment. And to the omega, to feminine, that feels really good. That's why it can be such a gift to bring it to a partner and to receive it from a partner sometimes as well. Most men we work with, they want to know their partner has the capacity, not all the time, but every now and then to be the one that just, hey, make a plan, right? I would love it if you just handled the next date and I get to just go along for the ride. And it's that kind of flexibility that becomes so key. And the good news is the better you get at one, the better you get at the other, I think. Right. And particularly when you're aware of these things. So being in your masculine actually takes a certain capacity of knowing how to surrender and be in your feminine too. Because then you value it in a different way, which means you're going to be able to in a better way. And so this is one of the great things we can do. And you know, men do it in different ways, but there's something different when we bring consciousness to it into our partner, right? Of like, why we're doing it. Oh, I'm doing this because I do want to bring this kind of bliss to my partner as a gift. And that willingness that decisiveness, that is the gift, the willingness to get it wrong is part of what makes it meaningful. Right. Of, like, yeah, I decided. I made a choice. I made a choice, and there's risk with that, which is sometimes why we're. I. I had been averse to it. Right. Well, I wonder. She doesn't like it, but then it's that waiting energy, and that's boring as fuck.

Melanie Curtin: You know, that's. So I used to write professionally, and I had this title. I don't think I ever wrote it. Maybe I did. It's called Sexiest Thing a Man Can Make. And I'll just give you the answer. Reservations. So I remember back in the day, I dated this guy, and I. I was having a hard time. I was, like, sick or something. I'd gone to urgent care. Anyway, I got out, and he picked me up. He was gonna pick me up, and he said, I've made us reservations at two places, and you get to pick which one we go to. And I was, like, blown away. I think I was in my 20s, and I don't think anyone had ever made reservations for me. I don't think a man had ever made reservations before. And I. I think it. I loved what you said about making a choice is vulnerable. Leading is vulnerable. What if she doesn't like it? What if I lead? I take a risk, and she doesn't like it. And I think that that fear of her not liking it is a big factor in why so many men, including our. Including our clients, don't make decisions or lead because of that fear. I was delighted. I was beyond delighted. It's. What, you know, like, decades later, I still think about that moment. I was like, wow, you made reservations at two different places. He's like, yeah, I can just cancel the other one. It's fine. I just. I felt really special. I felt really considered. And I think that this is kind of dynamic, right? Alpha and Omega, if you watch romantic comedies, if you watch movies, you will see this dynamic playing out. You will see it. And it's not because of the expensive car and all that other stuff. No, it's because he made a plan or he considered something that she enjoys, and he made a plan. You know, those are the most, I think, romantic moments of those movies or stories, really. It's not just movies, but stories is. Yeah. I thought about you. I thought about you, and I made a plan of some kind. Before we move on, I want to make sure that we touch on something that I think is important, which is holding Alpha around the Beginning of a relationship around the beginning stages, which is the difference between chasing and pursuing. So there's a subtle distinction between chasing and pursuing. And it has to do with locus of control. So what I've seen in a lot of our clients, especially when they show up, especially at the beginning of our work, is they're doing a lot of chasing. And chasing is there's this thing over there outside of me, and I'm following it, I'm following it. So I'm kind of like running over there. I'm chasing, I'm chasing this thing. It's over there, I'm chasing it. Like, if you can imagine a dog that's escaped on the street, you're chasing that dog. You were chasing the dog. The dog is, quote, in charge, meaning we gotta, gotta get to that dog before something bad happens. Pursuing is different. Pursuing is. I'm my. The locus of control is in me and I am making a choice to move towards this because I want to and I want. I want this. And there's a sense of. I don't know if I would use the word dignity, but there's some kind of sense of purpose. And also. What is the word? I guess containment. There is a sense of containment, meaning I'm going to pursue, I'm going to pursue again. And if I keep pursuing and there's not a response, I'm going to stop. I can stop. I am able to stop. I am able to put my attention on something else now. And that mindfulness, stillness, slowing down. You know, you mentioned the desert, Jason. In a lot of cultures around the world, Alpha energy is represented by the sun. Omega energy is represented by the moon. So there's something about that ability to stand firm, stand tall, be rooted. Stillness, slowness, consciousness. That's Alpha. And you'll notice that chasing doesn't feel very Alpha. There's a sense of motion, there's a sense of desperation sometimes. And there's a kind of, right, I'm going to be kind of breathing fast. That's different than moving towards something with intention, which is going to be slower and more deliberate. More consciousness, more consciousness. Consciousness is Alpha, flow is Omega. And you know, we've said this before, we'll say it again in a relational context. Whoever is breathing more deeply is holding Alpha, whether that's in a love relationship or a friendship or a mentor, mentee relationship or work dynamic. Whoever is holding Alpha is breathing more deeply. Whoever is breathing more deeply is holding Alpha because it creates that space that you were talking about. It creates a space and invites Others into that space. If you're in the car and you feel like her mood changed and you start breathing shallowly and you're all up in your head wondering what happened and that is not you holding alpha. If you breathe deeply and you relax your shoulders and you say, I noticed the energy just shifted, what's going on for you? You are holding alpha. So alpha is not dominating like you said, Jason, but it is bringing structure, it's bringing something to the table and inviting more to be expressed. And I think that's something that's often misunderstood about the dynamics is leading doesn't always mean we are going to do this. It is naming the moment. I noticed the energy just shifted. Naming the moment, that's very alpha, it's very consciousness based here is what's happening for us in this moment and then it's inviting the person. It could be your child, right? It could be your child. Doesn't have to be your woman partner. It could be your child, it could be your work colleague, it doesn't matter. I've noticed that. I've seen you around less, you've been less present or whatever, however you want to phrase it. I would love to hear what's going on for you. That's inviting the person forth. And what you'll notice about that is it's very direct. You know, like you said, Jason, there's a really big difference between actually naming the moment and inviting someone to speak into the moment. Then, oh God, I don't know what they're gonna say. I'm really nervous about it. I don't really wanna hear it or I'm scared, I'm really scared about what they could say. And I'm curious. You know, I would love to move into a little bit of how does a man develop his masculine? Because I think a lot of the men listening will want to know that, like how do you develop your alpha or your masculine? And I think that's a journey that you've that you can speak to because that, that default of waiting, I loved that you said that. That feels so true for so many of the men we've worked with. That that default of waiting doesn't have to stay true. That might have been the way you grew up or it might have been how you were in your 20 years of marriage. We work with a lot of guys who that's true for, but it doesn't have to stay that way. So how would you say that you as a man developed this capacity within yourself?

Jason Lange: Training, you know, it would be the main Thing and training in kind of two ways. Training my. Deepening my connection to my body and my awareness of, you know, your body's basically an antenna and it's giving us signals all the time that help us make decisions. And, you know, I've spewed this on so many, so many things at this point. Right. But it's great bit of research. That bundle of nerves, the vagal nerve, kind of the central column of our system, that connects our body to our brain, essentially. Right? They can. They've done the research. And if we consider that the information superhighway in our bodies only. Only 20% of the bandwidth of that is brain to body. 80% of the information is flowing body to brain. So if we're not in our bodies, we're missing out on 80% of the available information we could use to make. Make good, informed decisions, basically to get that sense of where am I right now, what is happening inside myself with the person I'm with in the environment, and then using that information to make an informed decision and plan. Right? Good leadership. That's why good leadership does involve a kind of listening. And so getting, getting into my body was a huge thing of just learning to trust those impulses, those senses in my. In my system of, I want to do this, right. I've told you, I've told about the kind of matrix moment I had right, in my late 20s when I finally started having some success with women. And I shit you not, it was, oh, my God, I literally just had to do the thing I wanted to do. So there was like an impulse of man, I want to touch her right now. And all I had to do was do that and then the evening would progress, right? And before that, I just didn't do that. So lo and behold, nothing happened, right? Because I was waiting, which meant she was being put in the lead. And for a lot of people, that doesn't feel great for a lot of women, right? So there's just being in your body for one, and then kind of one of the skills that allows for that. The other piece of training is training your awareness. Where is my awareness right now? So concentration practice is the most basic primal, masculine practice there is. My focus is here versus Woo. My focus is anywhere. I'm just. That's a different experience. It's actually quite delightful, right? To just follow your. Your joy and curiosity in that sense. That's a little different than what I'm talking about here of, oh, we're going there, right? You know, Burning Man's a great example of this, right? You get out into the. They call it the playa, where all the art is. And there's either, hey, we're trying to get there, and we gotta, like, navigate to get there, or there's, ooh, let's follow that sparkly thing that just got our attention. And they're both blissful, but they're different capacities. Right? Because if you only followed the sparkle thing, you would never get home to your camp. Right?

Melanie Curtin: That.

Jason Lange: That's kind of the. The truth of it. And so, again, coming forward, not waiting, learning to follow my impulse, speaking what I need. These were things I just had to start practicing. And, you know, as a coach, I had to. And a facilitator, I've had to grow into that as well. People pay you and I. This is. I'm going to sound crazy, but to tell them what to do. And so sometimes I had to learn, oh, actually, I'm not serving this person if I'm not being direct. And like, no, actually do this with your body right now. And they do the thing with their body and they have some kind of experience. It's not that I, you know, we're forcing people or dominating in that sense, but that's like part of the energy of having to lean into. And as a parent, I've had to get much better at that. Like, no, we're literally, I'm moving your body from here to there because this is what needs to happen right now. Even if you want this to happen, you got to get to school. And so part of my job is to keep the momentum and direction moving towards getting you out the door to school and surfing that wave, you know, of children and that a lot of parenting is. Is actually being in our alpha. And so, yeah, for me, it was really getting into my body, training my awareness to stay focused on the things I want to stay focused on. Really that simple, In a sense, which for most guys, what that ends up being is learning to put your attention somewhere else than your own stupid thoughts. And I say that in a loving way. Like, stupid in the sense most of our thoughts are garbage. You're not stupid. But there's just the right. We call it monkey mind for a reason. Just monkeys yammering away, spewing out stuff that when you really think about it, it's like, oh, that doesn't really make any sense. It's just what thoughts do. And when we learn to not necessarily pay attention to those or treat them as reality, that's a great masculine practice. Incapacity. And then just education Right. Learning about these different things and what decisiveness means and what leadership means and how it plays out in terms of polarity has been invaluable. And last thing I'll say, I've talked about this before too, is spending time with other men and getting to feel and see firsthand. Whoa, wow, whoa. Right? I remember I was with one of my teachers once and he had another person teaching with him, and that person kind of got a little dysregulated and was getting anxious and worried. I noticed I was getting anxious and worried and all this stuff. And he. He just. He just literally walked in and started guiding her body through the space of we're going to do this, and we're going to do this, we're going to do this. And she totally relaxed, just like, okay, this is just what needs to happen. I know you need this. I know you need this. And boom, the movement happened. Relaxed. And I was like, oh, shit. That was a deeply loving act of service in that moment. And seeing the many ways I often shied away from doing that of, oh, no, actually it's good to lean in and give some guidance to my romantic partners in in particular. That really started to change it for me and, you know, don't get it right all the time now. But yeah, much more capable of noticing and taking the action and not waiting again. Last thing I'll seal the deal with here is we talked about tracking is another way to think about this when we're tracking. It's part of why if you track a woman over time, something she said about something she liked or something, and then you bring it back in another moment. The. The bliss of that is, whoa, this is someone who is paying attention to me. I feel seen. Three weeks ago I mentioned I heard about that cute coffee shop, and now he just took me there. He remember, he tracked that over time. I was in his consciousness and awareness. And any of us, when we're tracked at that level, feels really good, right? It feels really good. Someone paid attention to me and held me in their awareness, which teaches me they find they want me to be around and value me. And that's one of the things we can get really good at as men. That doesn't mean you have to become savant when it comes to remembering things, but it does mean, hey, have a system, right? I got a little Apple Note. I open up and I dump stuff in like that throughout the year. Because then at the end of the year, it's like, okay, here's things I know are, you know, important to my partner that I could do pull from over time. It's about having that system to capture that. That's another example of structure. Doesn't mean you have to do everything all the time, but create a system to offload some of that. And turns out that's super masculine.

Melanie Curtin: That's a great example. I really like that. You know, I, you know, I, I think I've wanted to go to the butterfly pavilion for a long time here in la and I talked about it a few times and that would be an example of if I had my partner here and he wrote that down. We don't have to go right this minute. But now he's got a little list of like, oh, here are some options for special occasions. Or just. Yeah, just. I want her to feel special this weekend. Hey, we're doing something on Sunday. You can wear a dress. It's not athletic, but this is when I'm gonna pick you up. And I'm not telling you what it is. I happen to really like surprises, so that would be a great example for that. Um, I wanted to share a few sort of success stories from men that we're working with or we've worked with around this because I do think that there's. This is pretty life changing. If you haven't had this capacity to hold the masculine and then you develop this capacity, it really can serve a lot of people in your life. Not just your romantic partner, but other people as well, including yourself. I can't tell you how many men we've worked with who were like, wow, it's just easier. Things are just easier because I'm actually in my body. I think what you said was really, really, really important about the energy and the information from the body going to the brain rather than the other way around. There's so much awareness in our bodies that we're often not really using. And so, so couple of wins. There was one man who, when he showed up, I wouldn't say his marriage was on the rocks, but it wasn't going well and it felt difficult, felt like a slog and it felt like she had been doing a lot of omega work and he hadn't done his, his alpha work yet. And he, he'd done a lot of other kinds of personal growth, but they were all mind based. They were all heady, kind of heady. He hadn't done a lot of body, body based work yet. And that's, you know, something that, that you and I are big advocates of. And the shift that we witnessed in him over the Months that we worked together was pretty dramatic. And the ways that he was able to apply what he was learning. I remember. Yeah, he was just talking about the power of stillness, the power of holding space. So he sort of. He stopped chasing his wife's emotions, meaning, oh, she's having an emotion. Oh, my God, I gotta fix it. I gotta. He stopped doing that and he centered himself, got grounded, would breathe, just be with her in a much deeper and more Alpha way. And that really changed things, that helped her become regulated. And that's just one example. There were a lot of examples in their marriage, but it was. It was pretty extraordinary. And I remember him saying something like, I didn't. I didn't know it would be possible for our relationship to be this good. I didn't really know that that was possible. Another example is we have a client who is. It's kind of a long story, but he's got a woman that he's interested in. And it's been a little off and on. And anyway, I. It's a great example of that idea that you said about waiting versus being proactive and being the oak tree instead of the butterfly. So another analogy we'll use sometimes is that Alpha is the oak tree and Omega is the butterfly that's flitting around the oak tree. And a lot of times, again, like, if you're following the butterfly, you're going to be pretty all over the place. But if you're holding that position of. Of I like you, I want to be with you. You can have whatever feelings you have. You can be nervous. You can. You can say, no, I'm going to be fine. This is where I'm at. I would love to be with you. That is holding Alpha. It's putting a stake in the ground. It's saying, I'm here. You can be however you want to be, and I'm here. That is so attractive to Omega. That is so attractive to Omega. Like, here's where I'm at now. Where are you at? Like, whoa, it's so attractive. And that. That sense of, here's where I'm at. If I say, here's where I'm at, you're not gonna believe me. You can't fake this stuff. You have to actually be grounded. You have to actually be grounded in your body. You have to actually feel your feet on the ground. You have to feel your spine. You have to. You have to mean it. You can't fake being the one who's breathing more deeply. You have to actually be breathing more deeply. So I appreciated what you said about training and about actually getting yourself in environments where you were around other trustable men that were holding Alpha in this way. I think it's significant what you said about witnessing that moment where your mentor came in, kind of read the room, and actually physically guided his counterpart. Like, hey, we're gonna do this, and then we're gonna do this, and then we're gonna do this. And it calmed her. It helped her drop into her Alpha. Right? Actually. Okay, yeah, Great. This is the structure. It's gonna be okay. So as we start to wrap here, I'm wondering if you have any other sort of success stories that you wanna share or what you think a man can take away of. If a man is listening and he's like, yeah, I want to do this. I want to develop my masculine more. I can see how this would be of service to people in my life. What can he do?

Jason Lange: Work with us, for one. Come to retreat, do a program. It's the kind of thing that the more you do it, the easier it gets to get it. It's like a navigational system. And once you learn to see with it, it. It's like, oh, okay, I can. I can see how that shows up in my work, with my kids, with my partner. And so the more you do it, the better you get at doing it, in some sense, this idea of kind of being in the masculine, and the more you're around other people who can model it for you, the quicker it makes sense as well. Right? It's just, oh, okay, I get it. They could have done this and they did this, and whatever brought them to that decision, that's. That's the being in the masculine in a sense. But for a lot of guys, you know, it does just have to do with being willing to be vulnerable by making choices. Right? It's just. It is about direction, directiveness, decisiveness, and a willingness to pay attention and kind of come up with a plan. Even if that plan is, hey, rather than sitting around for the next 20 minutes, how about the three of us sit down and talk about what we'd like to experience this afternoon? Boom, that's it. You didn't actually have to come up with every single plan, but you created the structure to get the clarity to bring things forward for life to happen, right? For enjoyment to happen, for pleasure to happen, for connection to happen, for all of that to happen. So, you know, this can show up in all kinds of different ways. And it's awesome when it comes online, right? It's. It's actually quite a bit more fun too, in a lot of ways. Because then it's like, oh, wow, I have this capacity to create experiences for other people and what do I want to gift to them inside of that experience? And then it also gives you the language. The more you start being in your masculine to lead, to know how to ask for what you want when you don't want to be in the masculine. Right. Hey, actually, I totally love you. And what would be great tonight is if you just made a plan for us to go downtown. Right? Like, that's, that's awesome. Doesn't make you less of a man to ask for that at all. It makes you clear about what you want and need to be resourced. So practice, practice, practice getting into your body, making decisions, being clear, setting intentions, and, you know, being aware. These are all the different kind of skills and capacities that come together in this. And obviously, one last one we're not going to go into here, we've talked about before we work with men in our program. It's just having a sense of direction for your life. Right. So being in your masculine means, oh, I'm not just waiting for life to happen to me. I have a vision for my life. I may not know how to get there. I may not even be there, but I'm taking some steps to move toward it. And that purpose, whatever you want to call it, that is also highly masculine. And if you're just waiting for someone else to tell you what to do, you might be waiting a very long time.

Melanie Curtin: Yes. And I appreciated what you said about bringing structure to your life is also leading your life. So when you are taking a course or. Yeah. Going to a retreat or taking action in that way, putting yourself in a place where you're going to be guided, that is leading. That is leading your life. I also wanted to mention I will drop the episode the other polarity episodes we've done. So if this is intriguing to you, this conversation around Alpha and omega, we have done other episodes on the topic. I will drop those in the show notes. And if you are interested in our retreat, all of that information is also in the show notes. You can always go to evolutionary men and all of our work is there. And if you ever want to get me, I'[email protected]. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, dump, dump.