378: ‘It’s never been natural for me to reach out when I’m in the sh*t’ (ft. Jason Lange & Luke Adler) | Dear Men

Melanie Curtin: I'm alone. I have to do it all myself. If I fuck it up, there are consequences to me or me and my spouse or me and my family. Like all of the burden is on me versus I'm part of a circle. I have support. There's just. There's a shift in consciousness around that. It's really hard to say out loud, but it's. It's going back to something that we have that we've needed in. In humanity for a long time. This individualistic thing doesn't work. It's damaging. Hi everyone. I'm so in love with the celebration for this week. It's very exciting and a little steamy, so buckle up.

Jason Lange: Here we go. Jason Lange: Yeah, I think it goes right to the heart of so much of the masculine culture we're pushing back against in terms of, you know, things we've. You and I have talked about, Mel, Luke and I have talked about the rugged cowboy, Marlboro man, stoic. I don't need anybody. I'm tough as Nails culture that's pushed into a lot of us in terms of what a man is and that we internalize. Right? To be a man is to be invulnerable and tough and not need anyone. And so a lot of that gets ingrained in us and men. And then we couple that with. Many men, unless they happen to be lucky, have not been given the tools or training to name what's happening inside them. So they don't feel like they can even talk about it necessarily, because they don't know. Right. We do work with men around this all the time. Sometimes it takes work to just help them distinguish between a feeling in their body and an emotion or something outside of them. Right. And it's no fault of their own. It's just lack of training. And so we have this male culture, we have a lack of training. And then I think we have this other thing that, you know, I've also noticed in some of the groups Luke and I lead that men don't want to be a burden. A lot of these men don't want to be a burden and put their feelings on someone else. There's this sense that, oh, my God, if I'm sad and I talk to Luke, he's going to have to feel sad and I'm going to fucking ruin his day, and he's never going to want to connect with me again. And so we swirl those things around, and it is pretty endemic, right, that men just. I mean, I've been there, hold it all inside, don't share. I'm just going to figure it out. And that obviously has some pretty disastrous consequences for men. And like you said, you know, this has become even more apparent to me as you and I coach men. Mel and Luke and I lead groups together, and guys will literally be paying us money and go through some of the worst shit of their life. And we'll find out a week or two later that they. They just held it all inside. And it's like, oh, we're like, I'm literally here for you. I want you to reach out to me. And they still won't because of the habit and the momentum of everything I just talked about.

Melanie Curtin: I really appreciate you naming that fear of being a burden. And I think that's. I think there's a conscious layer to that and an unconscious layer to that. Right. The conscious layer is I don't. I don't want to be a burden. I don't want to be a bother. And then what you said I thought was pretty profound, which is there's a deeper fear that if I do open up and if I do share, this person will turn away from me. They'll turn away from me in the moment, and they'll turn away from me permanently. And that's not always conscious, but I do think that that's there, that there's this big fear of revealing and then the person just turning away and. Or, yeah, rejecting them, shaming them. There's some kind of fear of that. And that is, I think what you said was important about habit and sort of. It's a risk. It's a risk to reach out. It's always a risk to reach out. But it feels like a bigger risk to reach out when we're really in pain. Because it's like if I don't, if I'm not met here, I will be crushed versus if I'm kind of okay. And I reach out and they reject me or they aren't available. It's not crushing. But if I really, really need help and I reach out, the risk just feels monumentally high. So I appreciate that naming of the fear of being a burden, even though it's often the case that. That men will report, well, someone else reached out to me when they were in trouble, I wouldn't feel like they were a burden. Okay, well, then why is it different for you? Anything you want to add, Luke?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, that's the part that really was jumping out at me too, Melanie. And it's been circulating into my consciousness, Jason, just those last few days, this expression which I'll share, kind of like a mid success story, maybe non success story of someone who actually went through our program, Jason. And they did. Our program had a massive breakthrough, great connection with the group, and then our intention with Heart of Shadows, that the group could live on in perpetuity. And I'll explain a little bit about why that's important shortly. But the man came to me some months later and said I didn't want to continue with the group because I didn't want to keep burdening the men with my pain. And I was confused by that because I thought you. And I did a good job of saying, hey, this is a good thing. This is a healthy thing. We want to practice being vulnerable and getting support. And it took me a while to kind of comprehend what you're describing, Jason, is that the imprinting and conditioning of getting support is so ingrained in us in the west, and that the default, even after a totally transformative experience, is to go, well, it's still a burden, you know, I did Heart a shadow for 10 weeks. I opened up. I gave my best. I had a profound breakthrough. But I got to go back to being that stoic man who doesn't need other people and doesn't want to be a burden. I don't want to be that guy. And just like you guys said, it's such an honor to receive any human being, but particularly men, when they want to keep sharing. The one thing I want to highlight here, that really is why we do Heart of Shadow the way we do and why the work between the three of us is continuous. Our offering is just continuous in Pillars and Heart of Shadow and our other programs, is that the real transformation occurs by building trust with other men. And because our trust is broken in this culture around masculinity, safety, and compassion, it's. It's shattered. It's broken in the way we portray masculinity. It just takes time to build trust, you know, and when we get shattered as men, when we. When we hit really tough times, we just don't trust society. We don't trust culture. We didn't trust our fathers fully. We didn't get a message of that. There's always safety here to return to. I always like to say I've only known two men in my entire upbringing at this point that had fathers that were loving and present and caring. And it's so peculiar. These guys are just. They're so open, and they're so confident in their vulnerability, and it's so sexy to be around these guys. Just like I've. I could want to. I want to marry these men, you know, I want to be with them because they just exude such strength and safety. And that's because they had a dad that was just there, man, there, emotionally there, in all kinds of ways. So that's what really the mission the three of us are on is building that trust. And we know it takes time. It's taken me years to trust masculinity, you know, to break all of these habits, you know, and that's what it takes.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And this is something, you know, obviously longtime listeners know, I'm very passionate about men's groups. And you know, what I've been talking about lately is there's kind of three buckets that we need all of at different seasons of our life and they're kind of cross training. So there's a therapeutic relationship, coaching relationships. And then what we're pointing to here, group peer based relationships. And I think this has been a huge missing piece of, for men. And you know, you and I were, we were talking about this research study I came across that was like a retrospective of suicide attempts in Canada. And it was over 60% of the men had actually reached out to some kind of professional in the medical system or something. And usually one of two things happened. Either they, it slipped through the cracks like, or they didn't get what they needed. And I think part of what this is, is, you know, the beauty of a therapeutic relationship that we've often talked about is it's an explicit container about a certain direction of attunement. The therapist is attuning and holding space for you. And often what this allows for a lot of men is a safe attachment to start to form to someone who is co regulating them. I mean, kind of that simple really in helping Them understand and come to, okay, I have this place, I have this person that cares about me. Even if it's a so called paid relationship, it still establishes a directionality that a lot of men were missing if they didn't have kind of the best caregivers, let's just say. And you know, just to make this clear, it's been shocking to me as we've worked with hundreds of clients now, how sometimes they come in and share. They actually, they're. It's going the wrong direction. They come in and sometimes their therapist is dumping on them and I'm like, okay, that's a huge red flag. You got to get out of there. That's not what that relationship is about. And then we have coaching, which same thing. It tends to be more of a certain direction of attunement, but it's a little bit more outcome based in terms of where do you want to get? I mean, we literally call it a coach, right? The, the, the football player in high school isn't teaching the coach how to play better football. Right? The whole point is the coach can be on the sideline observing, give tips and strategies, give feedback, and that player can improve. And that's kind of what, you know, we often do in, in different contexts and it's useful and it's different than therapy. And they're not replacements for each other, they're cross training, as we often talk about. But what both of those miss is they're not peer relationships, meaning they don't have the mutuality of actually sometimes the attention is going this way, sometimes the attention is going that way. We're sharing who's attuning to who. And what's really potent about that is that allows for something that those other relationships don't in terms of what comes up in a family system and healing and peer healing. Because what you guys have been pointing to is so much of the wounding men carry comes from other boys and men when they were younger peers, not just authorities, comes from the guys in the locker room, the friend that took their girlfriend or stabbed him in the back, whatever that might be. And so a men's group becomes a place where we get to rewrite specifically that narrative and story that has a lot of guys again on guard of like, I don't want to share any of this because it could be ammo for attack. And the vulnerability we regularly see of men who have experienced that and then step in and trust courageously, like, hey, I'm going to bear it all here, here's all my stuff. And then it's held. I mean, we've literally seen men's bodies shake as. As that starts to rewire what's possible and things get released. And again, doesn't mean they're going to have that with every male relationship, but suddenly it's, oh, this is a possibility in male relationships. And then that peer thing just creates. I mean, it's such a medicine in its own right. Mel and I see it every week in our Pillars Call Luke. And I see it in the heart of shadow, where a man brings something forward that he think makes him uniquely damaged. And lo and behold, the whole group's like, yeah, I totally resonate with that. And they're like, what? And it's like, you can see their eyes bug out, like, holy shit. My story about this, what this was, was pretty wrong. And something immediately starts to relax. And in an odd way, it increases a sense of belonging where, hey, we're. We all got this. So I actually do belong here, right? It's this kind of unique thing that you don't get to. If you don't bring that stuff forward and have the kind of social media Instagram ideation that every other man's got it figured out except for me. That's why I could never share it, because they all got it figured out. And, you know, I still fall for that stuff all the time. And notice, like, wait a minute, where is that coming from? Right? And it is this deep male intrinsic thing. I think in a lot of ways that again, there's something so unique about the peers. And then, you know, what. What Luke and I call the masculine vortex, in a sense, which is this fancy word for just the. The momentum that starts to happen. And this is what's possible in a group that I think is much harder to do one on one, because there's not other people, is when one man brings forward the truth or a vulnerability or a cr. Courage, it actually inspires the other men who were like, oh, wow, when I saw you, like, just bring that, I was like, fuck, I can bring that too. And then they bring it. And then they actually start inspiring each other to come forward with their truth, their honesty, their vulnerability, their pain. And it creates this, like, momentum, this whirlpool of authenticity and truth and not having to hold on to shit. And it turns out on the other side of that, there's so much connection and realness and, like, real trustability that we see form between the men and certainly has formed between me, you know, as I've seen other men do it, of like, wow, okay, my story was totally wrong. Or this man I've had on this huge pedestal. Oh shit, you're still figuring it out too. And what that immediately does is it relaxes the part of me that feels like I should already have it figured out. Oh my God, this person I thought was so much farther ahead of me. Yes, they've made some strides, maybe in ways that I haven't. And they're still in process. So it's okay. I'm still in process. And there's just a, that we see kind of take over men in groups that I just don't think you can get from that kind of therapeutic or coaching relationship in the same exact way.

Melanie Curtin: I think you're right because when you have the therapeutic or one on one relationship, I'm thinking about even particularly shame. So I'm thinking about, for example, shame around credit card deb.

Jason Lange: Right.

Melanie Curtin: If someone has a lot of shame around something like debt, they're going to share that with their therapist and their therapist is going to say, oh yeah, I really hear you. You know, how does that make you feel? Et cetera. But it's really different than being in the room and saying, I've had this debt, I've had it for a long time. I feel like I'm fucking over my family. I don't know what I'm going to do about the future. And three other men in the room say, me too same, I'm right there with you. There is just something about that moment that cannot be replicated in a one on one relationship. It just can't. There's something about, about other people in the room having the same experience. It's part of, I think why 12 step groups are so valuable as well. Because when you're sitting in a circle and other people are going first. This is something I see in Pillars a lot in our program is that because our program has men joining at all times, we have men that are later on in the program and men that are earlier on. So the men that are earlier on, they don't have to go first, they don't have to bear their souls right away. They can just be part of the group and witness the other men sharing and being in process. And they get the experience of that so that they, they don't have to take the risk first, they don't have to go first. And there's something really important about that. Whereas in a one on one relationship, you, you gotta go first because you're it, you're the person in the room in the Chair. There's a. There's a certain, you know, power dynamic. There's a certain kind of relationship going on there that you set, you know, put wisely, Jason, of sort of not one dimensional. What's it called, One directional. Whereas in a peer group, and whether it's facilitated or not, but I think the ones that are facilitated often are the strongest containers because there's someone holding that space. There's something that happens where. When other men share their stories around shame, let's say, you know, talking about sexual shame or something, you know, I was with my girlfriend the other night and I couldn't get it up and I felt shame. And other men say, yep, I've had that experience. I've been there. It's awful. And there's just this, like you said, this dawning realization, Jason, of, oh, wow, I actually am not alone. And also, I can bring something like that to this group and I won't be humiliated. I won't be humiliated. There's such a fear of humiliation that I've picked up that I think is unique, like you said, Jason, to male culture, that doesn't show up the same way in female culture. It's not the same. It's just not. There's a certain kind of viciousness to the way that the patriarchy kind of exists around boys and young men. There's a vicious quality to, you have to be this way or we're gonna tear you down. Right. We're gonna hum, humiliate you. It's going to be awful. That I don't think exists the same way for girls and women growing up. And that's part of what I think these healing spaces are doing, is re. Reconstituting. Reinstituting a man's dignity and sense of self and that he is okay as he is with all of his flaws or whatever is going on, whatever he perceives his flaws to be. And he's genuinely not alone. There are other men in the room that have had a similar experience. And like you said, Jason, there's just something that relaxes when it's like, oh, okay, if these other men are going through this too, I. Maybe I'm okay. Maybe I've got a shot. You know, I can figure it out. Maybe it's not the end of the world or it doesn't disqualify me from connection because I think that's really what it is, is like you said, everyone else has got it figured out except me.

Jason Lange: Yeah. I really just want to name something here real quick of. For Any man that might be listening to this, a little skeptical right now, because another version of this I actually think your listeners probably get is the function of your podcast. Right. In terms of one thing Mel's been a champion of is creating safe spaces for men to talk about sexual abuse or physical abuse or emotional abuse where there's not a lot of. In. I know you've gotten feedback from listeners before of, wow, I, you know, I heard that and I feel okay sharing this with you now. Or I've. Right. We've. I've done hundreds of calls with guys at this point, and even my own story, it's like, oh, I heard you talking about da, da, da, da, da. And that's actually why I'm reaching out, because you talked about it. And in that I felt the courage that I could talk about it and that I'm not alone. And I think this is, you know, one of the reasons podcasts are such a in ramp for a lot of guys is it's the first space where they might have that experience of, oh, I'm not some up broken human being. There's actually other people out there like me. And then when we get into groups, it just deepens and accelerates to such a transformational level of. In fact, some of the very belonging we're most seeking comes from some of the ways we've experienced similar pain. And that's the thing that a lot of guys miss is one of the quickest ways. Sometimes too deep connection is to share your shame, is to share your fear, is to share your grief. And we see it time and time again on the other side of that. Whoa. Bonding like, wow, Like, I feel like I really know you now in a way that, you know, we've heard. How many guys, like, feel like, I got no guys better in this program in a couple weeks than men I've known for a decade. Right. Because that default culture keeps men up on the surface. But when we go below the surface, there's so much more connection there and just potency that even something like this podcast, I think, is a great example of lighting the way for men, as Luke and I say in Heart of Shadow, that every time a man comes forward to disrupt this kind of macho default culture, you're actually lighting the way and making it easier for the next man. And this is what we've seen in Heart of Shadow just completely rewire men's brains when we're like, so if you're ever in this space of, I don't want to share, I don't want to burden the guys. It's. Think about the times other men started to bring their pain forward. Did you feel burdened by that or were you glad they brought it forward and you got to serve them? And they're like, oh, my God, it was. Yeah, it was so fucking awesome. It was actually so inspiring. And then it's like, do you think the other guys feel that when it's you? And they're like, what? Wait, what? It just breaks their brain to realize, oh, one of the ways I can actually lead and support the other men in my group is by not holding back, but by coming forward. Because by me doing that, I might actually create the. The. The. The draft, the current for another man to step right in and come out of his hiding. And Luke and I in particular, see this. You know, we run chat groups that cohorts, and it's. It's. It's amazing. Particularly after the group, after the formal structure, sometimes it'll kind of get a little quiet, and then one guy will be the one. It's like, hey, here's this thing going on for me. And then all this energy comes back and the guys are like, oh, my God, it's been hard for me. I'm so glad you said that. And it all comes back and the connection is, like, remembered in that moment. But it takes a man to come forward, to often reignite that. Yeah. One other thing I want to touch on that. That is kind of in the background of this experience of when we collapse and we don't reach out. What's in the culture around this is something that's been with our society at least in the last couple hundred years, in the background the entire time. And that's this belief that there's not enough, there's not enough money, there's not enough love, there's not enough women. There's scarcity out there. And actually, we need to hang on to what's ours. And I'll be the arbiter of what I'm going to give to others. I'm going to give a little money here. I'll give a little attention here. But you know what? If I don't hold on, if I don't kind of adhere to what I have, then I'm not going to be okay. And so this is. This has been this background story in some ways of humanity. We just doubt. We doubt that tomorrow someone's going to be continuing to propitiate our businesses. Right. We all have this fear, is someone tomorrow going to buy our program? Is someone. Is My wife going to still love me tomorrow? You know, Are my kids going to still give a shit about Daddy tomorrow? That's just part of being human. But it's very much in the culture that we feel this vibration that, oh, shoot, I don't want to have a culture where we provide health care. I think everyone should figure that out for themselves. We should bootstrap it. We're all cowboys, and we need to figure this out by ourselves. And I need to bury my pain into the dirt and cry on the side of the river with my horse next to me. The irony of cowboy culture in America is that the government's been supporting cowboys for 60 years with endowments and money and supporting farms and. And dairies. And it's like, it's. It's in one respect that, you know, cowboy culture and marble culture, culture, do it alone. It's a romanticized idea, you know, particularly in the US you had pilgrims that came over, you know, and then they. And then they crossed the country, you know, in whack and wagon and horseback for fucking four months through harsh winters. But what we forget sometimes in this mythology of being a cowboy and burying it alone and you have to hold this is that we did all that together, you know, we fucking crossed the ocean together, you know, and yes, we did some shitty things when we came here and continue to do in certain ways, but the point is, the life that we created here in the west is something we had to do in community. And the myth, the lies that we like to pretend like we all did it by our fucking selves. And you know what? It's stupid and it's not real, and it's totally on full display in this country right now. What is masculinity? That's the fucking debate we're having right now. What is it? It's like, oh, masculinity is imposing my will on everything and doing what I want because there's not enough. And I'm going to invade and I'm going to take. I'm going to take from anything that's not, you know, I deem to be worthy, you know. And this is. This is just an idea. All it is, is an idea. And we forget there's always been. What's kept us together is this deeper idea, which is about love and community. And that's why when we go to a therapist, it's a good first step. It's a community of two, and we're sharing and we're open, and it's the beginning. But the ultimate step is A community as a group. And it's a group of men that every time it's like, sometimes I'm not surprised by this anymore, but. And I don't think either of you are, but every time we get in community, the goodwill and love of each other comes forward. And we just absolutely love caring for one another, lifting each other up, willing one another forward towards their brightest and most beautiful self. It just leaps out of our hearts and minds. When a man shares his depth, it's never a burden. The only place where we experience that is in social media bullshit culture, when you don't get intimate and you don't get personal and you don't get real and you have this sick, sick predilection to objectify one another because you simply don't know and aren't willing to get to. To give the generosity of heart, to listen. And so we. We recycle these tropes that are racist, that are demeaning, that are dehumanizing to other men and other people and other kind of subsets of our culture. And it's. It's a certain kind of laziness, and it's. It's a certain kind of emotional cowardice, you know, to. To sit in the circle and be willing to share, hey, I'm hurting as much as the next guy, you know, and it's a gift. You know, to do this work is a gift that we give ourselves, but really, more than that, it's a gift we give culture and society. You know, to me, this is the very, very highest form of activism. It's the most beautiful thing we can do in our lifetime, is to share and be loved and restore this deep sense of community and care that is the very best of who we are and the very best of any. Any corner of this planet, you know, and so this is. This is our mission. This is what we do.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah. And I. I think it's a really good point that you make about the. The bigger questions and the bigger, I would say, sort of spiritual shifts that are happening. And one of them, to me, feels very much like, how do we go from being an I to being a we? How do we do that? How do we shift an individualistic culture into a we culture? And I think that these groups that we run, these kinds of programs that we run, are examples of that, of how you cultivate a circle. I think about circles a lot. I've been thinking about circles a lot lately, that everyone needs to belong to at least two or three circles, different circles, which is sort of Another way of saying community. But I think what's unique about let's say Heart of Shadow as an example is that it's a, it's a curated group, right? It's a group of people opting in to saying yes, I want to do the deeper work because I want something to be different in my life. And there's a shift that happens of it's just about me to it's about us. It's about us. And there's a certain kind of dignity that's restored when there's that shared circuit, meaning I give to you and you give to me. So again, in a therapeutic relationship, you don't get that circuit, you don't get that restoration of self in the same way. Whereas in a group when you can provide to another person your gifts and it's received, that is incredibly restorative of self esteem and dignity. Wow, I can do this, I can support someone else, I can give my love and it makes a difference. And then you receive. So it's giving and receiving. There's something about that in a circle that is unique to that experience. And these small groups where we, we have that experience, I think then we take that out into the larger world and it's a, it's, it is, it's a shift in consciousness. It's a shift in I'm alone, I have to do it all myself. If I fuck it up, there are consequences to me or me and my spouse or me and my family. Like all of the burden is on me versus I'm part of a circle, I have support. There's just, there's a shift in consciousness around that. It's really hard to say out loud, but it's, it's going back to something that we have that we've needed in, in humanity for a long time. This individualistic thing doesn't work. It's damaging. But there's a shift in consciousness that needs to happen for us to get there. And I think these kinds of groups are part of that, that larger movement towards moving from I, how do we actually do that? And I think that part of the way that we do that is that we have to heal our relationship to a circle. We have to heal our relationship to a group. And I think that's really part of what things like Heart of Shadow help with. Where it's like, here's how we do that, right? It's held by people who know what they're doing, who are facilitating the group, who are helping the group hold each other. And I, I, you Know, it's not unique to our groups. There are other groups that do this I'm also passionate about. I would like to see more of these kinds of circles and spaces in schools for young people, tweens and teens to have them feel that sense of support and transformation. I think that's one of the most important parts of this whole equation is moving from I am alone to I, I belong.

Jason Lange: Yeah, there's something important I just want to name here because again, I'm going to kind of feel into the skeptics who might be of oh yeah, if I do that, you know, I'm just like becoming another npc following the crowd. I don't have. I'm losing my individualism. Yada yada yada, right. The, the groups we're talking about here. By joining the group, you actually become more yourself. This is such a key thing. It is not about becoming a clone and parrot in group think, but what it is, is it's about creating a safe space like in the best way for you to come into contact with your deepest truth. And one of the unique things, right, I'm all about every fucking kind of men's group, including local peer based groups that have transformed my life. And there's something unique in the groups we offer in Heart of Shadow and even pillars of presence in that because they're not necessarily geographically oriented, you are actually connecting with men outside of your network, outside of your day to day. And for a lot of men that is super fucking liberating because oh my God, so and so is actually married to so and so who I work. There's this extra pressure in fear they we often carry as men around where, where it'll get out. And there's something super liberating about oh, I can really just fucking show up as myself here, right? And here you don't have the context for who I am in my town or my community or whatever. You just see me as a human being and I get to show up in that. And that's one of the unique things that any group can cultivate. But for a lot of beginner guys, it's actually a huge relief when they step in and they're like, yeah, you don't actually know anyone in my world. And so I can share things here, whether that's from my family system, my workplace, or frankly for some guys, their deeply embedded religious community where it is extremely edgy for them to share something like I might be doubting my faith a little bit it or I don't understand this one piece and there's no room for that in a lot of those communities. But here, whether they lose their faith or refind it, they can at least explore it and get clear about their truth and where they're at. And that's such a potent thing, right? These good groups like Luke and I have talked about, I think I even mentioned it here, is like a good group actually inoculates us against the cultural field and group think because it's like, oh, instead of worrying about what all this bullshit online thinks about me, people who might judge me, that don't know me, what I care about is these eight other men who do know me. Theirs is who I want to listen to, the feedback of everything else. I can just relax then because people are judging some concept of me and not me. And that is a huge shift on for a lot of men, right? Because social media, all this stuff we're talking about, it drives us to this kind of parasocial, surface oriented image culture that, that, that just doubles down on all the challenges that men already have because of the reasons we've talked about. So if you're skeptical in this sense, it's not like you lose yourself in the we, the we a good we will actually strengthen your healthy eye. These things are not mutually exclusive and that's what we need a lot more of now in terms of. Also what we've started to see is, I've talked about this with both of you, you know, the, the atrophying of the ability to stay into contact with people who don't perfectly align with our values or worldview. Because online it becomes a very binary in group out, group thing because there's so many people. And part of the gift online is we do get to find people that are really aligned with us versus if I walk down my street here, there's a huge range of people, what they believe, their faith, all of that, that for me to be in community with them, as was the old times, there has to be a certain amount of staying connected to the human even if we don't perfectly align. And that's a really valuable capacity to cultivate now as a man. And I think is going to become even more important as more and more men in particular I think get addicted to the sycophancy of AI and the girl bot or the whatever that just tells you, no, it's not your fault this stuff is happening now. But in a good men's group, you know, it's not that you have to be with people who are, you're morally opposed to something around. But it's good if there is a little bit of difference. The shared value is we want to grow. We value transparency, vulnerability, honesty, kindness, all the other stuff becomes secondary to that. And the experience, you know, we've seen, and even Luke and I have had to step into, even Mel and I, of working with people who are like, yeah, you know, outside of this container, I probably wouldn't have found you in my life because we are pretty different on certain things. But doing this deep work, fuck, I'm glad I know you like. I actually feel honored to get to see things from your side and learning to stay in connection with you. Wow, that has made me a better man, a better leader, given me more capacity in the world and deepened my understanding in. That's another thing you get in groups that you don't necessarily get in the one on one.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah. And I want to talk about the results. I want to talk about the concrete results that we see in the men that do this kind of work, particularly in. In group versus the one on one. Because like I said, and maybe you two can briefly speak to this, but these dynamics that we're talking about, they show up in love relationships. They show up in family system. When I say family system, I mean if you're a dad right now, right, like in your family of origin, but also in your current family system, if you're in one, these dynamics are going to show up when you feel lonely in your life, when you feel like you're doing it alone or you don't feel as connected to your spouse as you used to. You know, this kind of thing is going to. It's going to show up. There are going to be. There's going to be an impact from this. And like I said, sometimes it's hiding in the background. I remember this one man came through our program and he said, wow, if I look back at, you know, the breakups that I've gone through and really all of the monumental things in my life, I didn't have any men around me. I didn't have any trustable men around me. So no wonder it was so hard. If I'd. He was sort of looking back and thinking, wow, if I'd had this group, if I'd had this circle, if I'd had this support at that time, I don't think I would have gone down for a year and a half after that breakup. You know, I don't think I would have been as crushed for as long. Right. Because I think there's a certain amount of Resilience that's built when you have support, when you don't feel alone. It's not that you never feel sad or anxious or upset, but what I've seen in our groups is that you feel sad or anxious or upset for way less time. It's just like the same thing as working out, right? You work out, you get better, you get stronger, you go for the run, you're still tired, but you're not tired for as long as you. You recover faster. So, yeah, I would love to hear just a few examples that you each have of the results that men have gotten from doing this kind of work in, whether it's their love relationship or other aspects of their lives. But I think especially love relationship or.

Jason Lange: Family system, two examples that really come to mind. First thing I want to say is that when a man experiences failure, stress, something bigger that knocks him down, the shame of that is so debilitating and could lead to the most extreme thinking around how to proceed with one's life, suicidal ideation, etc, And I've been intimate with this many, many times in working with men. So the two examples of men in a group, one is that man that we were working with got into a terrible divorce. I mean, the kind of shit you see in Hollywood stories that you just cringe, you're like, oh, fuck, that's bad. And the guy was so resourced by the group and by therapists and just. He had learned, like, he needs support around him and he started to share, you know, he's having these thoughts, he's in dark place. And the mobilization that occurred around this man, so heartening, it's so inspiring and, and just. It's almost hard to believe as a man who's grown up in a culture that, like you said, Jason just looks the other way or is kind of like pat on the back, have another sip of your Coors Light. You know, to see the, the best of men come forward to lift up a man like this and get him through the divorce and get him through, you know, these acute stages of, of mental health that are just very delicate, you know, and then get to a place where he's ready to date again and then, you know, starting to meet new people in this authentic way that feels safe, you know, it's so inspiring. The next story I'd like to share just quickly, my own story, which is before I got into this work, I was in a health crisis, but completely unaware of it, just, you know, just totally numb, dissociated to my health. And it took a year of the work before I could confront through the love of my group, which Jason was a part of, that I was in such a health crisis that I could actually see it for myself and have the loving accountability held and reflected to me to just make the smallest change, the smallest, tiny change, which to me just felt almost impossible. Like that lifting the heaviest stone. And I did. And that led to other small changes and other small changes. And of Melanie, that was totally impacting my marriage because as I was, as I was running myself ragged, I was running my wife ragged and my family ragged, having just impossible expectations of performance around, watching the children and making money. And my staff was totally run ragged by my standards of what I wanted. So for me it was very gradual change. But each little change to me felt, felt just monumental. You know, they were so massive to make these little shifts around my well being. And like a micro example is for me to go see a healthcare provider like a massage therapist or an acupuncturist. In the past, I would be worrying the entire session about how they were doing. You know, I was such so steeped in caregiver mentality, I was like, are they okay? Am I burdening them by bringing forward how tired I am? Like, they don't want to hear this, of course. I'm just utterly projecting my own burnout on them and how burdened I was. And you know, to be able to get a massage, get acupuncture and just let myself be cared for, let myself be pampered and let it in. It's a massive, massive breakthroughs. And I could go on and gush about how my life has been transformed, but. But it has been transformed over and over and over and over and over again. Just continues to be by the long term structure of my men's group, you know. And I have so many stories like this.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And I want to, I want to briefly talk about money and investment. So I think there's something interesting about when I look back at my own journey, I feel like I'm thriving now more than I ever have been. And I think that a large part of that is that I was willing to make investments in myself early on that I kind of frontloaded doing a lot of personal growth work in my 20s. And I probably invested, I mean, maybe a hundred thousand dollars total in myself over what, 20 years or whatever it's been. And, and I bring that up because, you know, we, the way that we look at money and investment, we often are looking at inaccurate things. So when I Hear your story, Luke. Part of what I hear is that you probably prevented huge health issues in your physical body and your mental health by investing in that kind of growth work when you did. If you hadn't done that, it's very likely that you would have ended up with pretty serious health challenges within the next 15 to 20 years. That would have been extremely expensive versus investing in this kind of thing. And I think we're seeing more and more how the body mind is one entity. That our physical and mental and emotional health is one is one thing rather than separate. But I, I wanted to kind of make that point that you were willing to invest in that personal growth. You were willing to take the workshops, work with the mentors, go to the places you know, attend the retreats, be part of the men's groups, et cetera. And that is part of what got you to where you are. You didn't do it alone. It wasn't possible for you to do that work alone. And, and then you maintained those structures and you maintained those networks and you, you continue on your personal growth journey. But I think I just wanted to name that there is an investment of time and energy and money in this process of transformation, and it's worth it. It's actually an outsized impact on the other side. It's. It's actually cheaper to do, to do this kind of work earlier on in your life than waiting till later on. And I think that's something that's often missed.

Jason Lange: Yeah, this is, I heard this great phrase which I think is somewhat aligned with this. It's, you know, take on your burden head on now, or you really will become a burden to others. Meaning when our health actually does fail as men and suddenly our family's having to take, like, physically take care of us, this is what happens with men if we don't go into it proactively. And as you know, I've been on my high horse lately saying, take responsibility for our pain. Right. And this is so key for guys. And, you know, this same study I've been talking about where they, they found out, right? Like, over 60% of men in Canada that had attempted suicide in this retrospective had reached out, right? In one of the problems there, when I say slip through the cracks was for a lot of men, because we don't have that internal language, what we're showing up with is, I'm in back pain when what's really going on is, I am so depressed, I feel so stuck and in so much pain in my life. I have no idea how to get out of it because I've got 40 grand in debt or I've got four kids, two of whom are in college and I hate my fucking job, but I cannot let go of it it. And so it shows up right in the body. And our medical system tends to just, well, here's the painkiller for that thing in your body. Or take this surgery. And part of what we're talking about is, no, there's something deeper going on here that a group can really help us metabolize and start to work. And you know, another kind of vignette of success I just want to point to. This is like literally hot off the presses and he's a, he's a long term client of all of ours. That's all I'll say. We had a one on one scheduled recently and it was a little late for it and so I pinged him. I was like, hey, you know, I'm ready. And then he finally came in and he was in a very challenged spot. Things were literally blowing up in his work and he was completely overwhelmed, Just completely overwhelmed. And we had maybe 15 minutes on the call together to just connect, to give him some space, to feel the overwhelm, to know that he's not alone, to remind him to use his group. And lo and behold, you know, because he wasn't actually available then, he had kind of forgotten about because of the chaos. We had a follow up call to actually do the session a few days later and he's like, yeah, you know, in retrospect, that was the moment I started to come down. That was the pivot it in my day. And then I was suddenly going into my day and I had resource and I had something I was bringing to the day like a force in a sense. And I'm not here to highlight me for that, but to highlight the power of connection, right? In oftentimes where us men get stuck is we crash down into dorsal vagal, shutdown, depression, freeze. I cannot move. I'm so fucking overwhelmed. Or we're totally stuck on eighth gear, Everything's about to blow up. Total anxiety. I'm literally about to explode. And connection is the thing that helps us shift out of both of those back into a place where we can take appropriate movement and take appropriate breath and our body can come back to ourselves. And the killer thing about a group, right, and we have seen this, is when it's just one person. Like even if you do, you got your one guy, right, or your spouse, what happens when they're not available but when you got a group and you put out the bat signal, someone is generally available. Out of eight, nine guys in a group, someone's like, I'm ready in 20. Let's do this. I'm here. Like, let's jump on. And that's a really unique power as well, in terms of sometimes these crises are so acute that literally just getting on a zoom, a phone, a FaceTime with someone and being like, I'm fucking freaking out right now. And they're like, yeah, I get it. Oh, my God, that sounds really intense. And I'm just going to be here with you. And it. Right. The shift happens. And that man can bring a level of agency back to his life, like this guy did. That can be the pivot. It can be the pivot moment. And it's just one of the cool things I've seen about a group. Even in Luke and I's group. Right. We're not all always available, but someone is usually able to get back pretty promptly. And it's one of those, again, it's just one of the superpowers you can bring into your life as a man to handle the inevitable stresses and intensities.

Melanie Curtin: Yes. And it's a high quality investment that you can make.

Jason Lange: Right.

Melanie Curtin: Getting into that kind of circle, maintaining that kind of circle, that's an investment in your health. It's an investment in your life. I want to cover a few more success stories that we've witnessed. One is a man who I would say had. I had. I would say already identified that he had some anxious attachment issues and that that's part of what had contributed to. I don't know how to say it, but contributed to relationship dynamics in his life, whether it was with an ex spouse or with his kids or things like that. And through the course of the work, and especially him exploring these dynamics around, you know, safety with us, with you and me, Jason, as mentors, and likely with you as well, Luke, of just kind of like, can I trust you? Will you be there? Do you care that I was upset by this thing that you said? You know, like that kind of testing and then actually being received in that being received, being cared for, being loved, being held, not kind of shamed or denigrated or put down or, you know, you're being difficult. We don't want you anymore. You don't belong here. Being received and said like, oh, tell me more. I want to hear. I'm really sorry that I didn't respond in the way that you needed, et cetera. He healed a lot in A pretty short amount of time. I mean, God, I think this man started working with us less than a year ago. And now he is in a relationship dynamic that's healthy where he's leading. He doesn't feel like he's on his back feet confused, or, you know, doesn't know what's going on. And they're having great sex. And a lot of those things are new for him. And. And I would say that there's another archetype similar to this of a man who's married, who comes to us, who also feels like he's on his back feet. I don't have control. I don't mean being controlling in a marriage, but just feeling like I'm kind of just at the mercy of. Of her mood, right? Whatever's going on with her, I'm sort of buffeted around by the weather of whatever's happening for her. And I don'. Really feel that connected to my kids. There's sort of things going on in the house I'm not really aware of. I'm kind of just here, and I'm confused, and I don't feel like I can really show up. But I'm terrified of being alone. So I cannot imagine leaving this relationship or shifting this dynamic. I don't know how to do this. I don't know what to do. And I would say that over and over, what we've seen with a lot of those men is that. That they've. Through the power of the healing, through the power of the group, through the power of the work, they come to a place of not sure what the word is. I want. I kind of want to say the word dignity, but that's not quite it. But just There's a certain sense of selfhood, of just, I am okay, and I will be okay. Whether this marriage survives or not, I am okay. And I have people now, right? I have my circle. I have support. And what I see with a lot of those men is that they often have the support of our group, which is digital and dispersed, often all around the country and honestly all around the world now. And I also am building local connections. I'm either deepening connections with the men that are already in my life or making new connections. And there's a shift in polarity that happens. You know, we talk about polarity a lot, and in a lot of those relationships, there's reverse polarity. So their spouse is holding alpha most of the time, they're holding omega. And then the polarity comes back where they're able to hold Themselves, they're able to hold space for themselves, and they're being held by a mentor or mentors and a group, and it just shifts the polarity so that they're. They no longer feel like I'm trapped, right. I can't leave because I'm so terrified of being alone. But I don't really feel in control of what's happening, so I just feel, like, anxious. Ultimately, the time it switches from being like that to, oh, here I am. I'm in myself. I can stand here and be here, and I can make choices from here, and maybe this marriage will work out and maybe it won't, but I'm okay. And that shift, that sense of straight up and downness, like a tree, I'm rooted, I'm grounded. I'm here. That is alpha. That is the masculine in all of us. That is power. It's not power over, but it's power within. Power within me. I am here. I am here. I am here. And that is inherently polarizing in the relationship. Right? And it's like, oh, sometimes. I mean, multiple times. We've seen relationships where the polarity flips. And now it's like, yeah, she is interested in doing the work. She does want to be involved. She, you know, it's the. It doesn't always work out. Sometimes those marriages don't work out, but sometimes they do. Sometimes they do. And the man has a different way of being of, I'm here. I want this. I want to be with you. I want this to work. I want my family. You know, I want this family. And if it doesn't work out, I'm going to be okay. And that cannot be faked. You cannot fake that. It's something that. That happens within you. And it. It's part of the experience, I think, of being held that helps you get there.

Jason Lange: Yeah, polarity work can't really work for men unless they're with other men. It's not something that they can learn from, from being exposed to just the kind of yin or feminine polarity. Because men put so much pressure on women to provide all of the emotional connection. There's this vanquishing inside of what you're talking about. Melanie, how do I be the tree? Okay, give me the book. Let me read David Data's book on how the way of the Superior man. Okay, David says this, so I'm going to do that. It's like, no, this is an energetic transmission. You have to experience it. And so the thing. That's why we call our program Heart of Shadow is that this is so strange to describe, but what's in the shadow, or what's hidden from men around healing and shadow work is the love, presence and care of the masculine. A lot of men have experienced the love, care, and presence of the feminine. And of course, that nutrient is just so beautiful and uplifting and healing. Right? But that's one side of the polarity. And to this day, I continue to experience new nuances of masculine presence, love, and care that I am just blown away by because they're in the shadow. I don't even know that they exist until I feel them again or not again until I feel them for the first time. Because I didn't grow up feeling them and experiencing them. I probably grew up with some of them. But what being in a men's group group, particularly a shadow work men's group, has showed me is the these depths of love and care that. That come from the masculine side. And as far as I know to this point in my work, there doesn't seem to be an end to that experience in the same way that there's no end to the feminine polarity. And so this is what I would offer you, men out there that are listening to is, and I don't mean this as a diminisher, but that you don't know the love that you're missing. It's hard to even imagine it. The only thing that our culture does when we hear something like that is, oh, that means I'm gay. That means I'm a fag, whatever. It's like, hopefully you can tell that's not what I mean. There's just a wellspring of care that can only come from other men, men. Just like there's a wellspring of care that can only come from women, from the feminine. You know, I don't mean to genderize this, but this is what's available, you know, in such work which you're pointing to, Melanie. And it can only really come in its full coloration and its full infusion from a group. We get the different flavors, the different ages, the different cultures, the different eras of masculinity. There's just so much to gain, you know, and it actually becomes pretty exciting because in the same way we can see feminine beauty everywhere if we look, we can also see masculine beauty everywhere if we look. And that's what we're really training into, is how to detect it, how to move towards it, how to onboard it, build structure around it. So we're just flowed into by masculine and feminine love care all the time and then that outflow from us becomes full. And then you have this self generative cycle, this looping of energy. And this is why in Heart of Shadow we say you're going to get your vitality back. This is how it happens. Jason Lange: That two spots left, so don't sleep on it.

Melanie Curtin: Excellent. Two spots left. And I. I also want to hear from you. So if, if something on this episode moved you or if you have a question or anything, you can always get [email protected] and I would also just issue an invitation for anyone out there that wants to see a certain episode on a certain topic. You can also text me or. Sorry, you can email me at the same. Because I want to hear from you. I want to know what you want to hear about. We are going to be doing more episodes on Polarity because I think that's something that we hear from you a lot. But if there are any other specific asks, then please reach out.

Jason Lange: T.