I had a blast on Melanie's show talking about something that sounds so simple but is actually one of the most powerful practices a man can develop. Stillness. Not the fake, rigid kind where you're trying to hold it together, but the real, grounded presence that comes from actually being in your body and feeling what's happening around you.
We got into masculine and feminine polarity and why women are drawn to men who can just be still. I shared this visceral experience I had at a Five Guys watching a kid who literally could not stop moving while taking my order. The contrast hit me hard because I'm around deeply practiced men all the time now, and feeling that fidgety, anxious energy was like, whoa, I can't imagine what it's like to date that. It was a reminder that so much of our anxiety shows up as unconscious movement, all that self-referential touching and fidgeting when our energy is just stuck inside our own head.
The conversation went deep into how to actually cultivate this quality. Cold water therapy, meditation, sitting in nature without your phone, ritual hardship. Things that train your nervous system to regulate and drop into presence. We talked about James Bond and Bruce Lee as examples of men who move with intention, who are so still they just flow through whatever's happening. That's the capacity we're after.
The truth is, this stuff is powerful for dating. It'll help you magnetize women, yeah. But it'll also help everything else in your life. People will trust you more, you'll make more money, you'll show up differently in every area. And the practice is simple: start noticing who's fidgeting and who's not, who you feel calm around and who revs you up. Then work on becoming stiller than the people around you, especially women you're attracted to.
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Jason Lange: And the truth is, this stuff is fucking awesome for dating. Yeah, it'll totally get you laid. Just learning to be still, quite honestly. But it'll also help everything else in your life.
Melanie Curtin: All right, welcome back to another episode of Dear Men. And this is an episode that I have been thinking about for a while, partly because this is a skill that I feel like I have craved from the masculine in many ways. And it has been kind of like one of those make or break things in me deciding whether to date a man or not. And I like to give men, like my listeners, as much insight into the female experience as possible. So I'm really glad that we're doing this. And of course, welcome back to the podcast, Jason. Yeah, always glad to have you. Always. You're like a fan favorite. People love you. My listeners are always reaching out about the Jason episodes, so to speak. So, yeah, so today we're talking about a quality that the masculine can develop that the feminine craves, and that is stillness. And I have noticed that many people, men and women, are extremely anxious these days. I don't know whether people were always anxious. I don't. I really. I can't speak to other periods of time in history, but I feel like anxiety is rampant these days. And part of what I wanted to talk to you about, Jason, was do you think it's a double standard at all for me to be like, for me to want stillness from my man if I don't always cultivate it myself? Because. Okay, so short answer is no. Would love to hear more about that. And then we'd love to hear your personal journey on, like, cultivating stillness. And maybe you could also define for our listeners kind of what we mean by that.
Jason Lange: Yeah, well, this. I mean, this stems from a lot of what we've talked about on this podcast before around masculine energy and feminine energy and polarity and what causes chemistry and attraction between the two energies, which man or woman can have? I can cultivate my feminine. You can cultivate your masculine. Doesn't matter what type of physical body you were born in. That said, most women tend to be attracted to have a feminine essence and be attracted to masculine energy, and most men tend to have a masculine essence and be attracted to feminine energy. Not all, but the majority right now. It's changing over time as well. But, you know, this really stems from this idea of, like, what is masculine energy and what is feminine energy? And so masculine energy, like we've talked about before, is at its most primal sense, emptiness. It's. It's just the void it's nothing which manifests as rootedness, groundedness, slowness, presence, intentional moving and stillness is, is really kind of the culmination of a lot of that. And why a lot of masculine practice, which has driven the majority of most lineages of spirituality and growth in the last hundreds of years and beyond, really, we're starting to see a resurgence of some deep feminine practice. But most of what we consider spiritual practice has been masculine practice, which is epitomized by the person going into the cave and sitting in the dark and not moving in silence. And that's the greatest bliss in a lot of those traditions. And for a lot of men particularly that are oriented to the, to the masculine like this. So the thing about polarity is we're attracted to that which we are not. So very simply men, the masculine tends to be attracted to feminine energy, which is motion and vitality and movement and that which changes and range and expression and sparkles. And sparkles, exactly. You know, light adornment, thing, all of that. And so then it would stand that feminine energy is attracted to masculine energy, which would be lack of movement. This is just one simple way to put it. You know, like solidness, rootedness, moving slowly and with intention. And that manifests in some pretty extreme ways these days. You know, you and I, I've been talking to our guys on our weekly calls for our program about a very visceral experience I had of this. This was a couple months ago. I don't remember why I was there, but I think it was a Five guys. Is five guys the burger place that has like the really good fries and the potato sacks everywhere? Yeah. Okay. I don't remember where I was, but I was out of five guys and I hopped in there and there was a kid who was probably 19 taking my order and he literally could not stop moving while I was ordering. I mean, his is, the eye contact was everywhere. He was fidgeting in his place. He was kind of touching himself and he was, he was like a ball of motion.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah. And touching himself, not like touching himself sexually, but like touching his face, touching his shoulder, scratching his ear. Like little self referential movement that looks like touching, touching, touching, touching, touching, touching. Movement, movement, movement.
Jason Lange: And it was just striking to me, I think, because, you know, I live in a pretty great bubble these days of being. I mean, I'm in so many men's groups, I can't even count them of like deeply practiced men. And I've just spent the last two years in training with some of the most amazing teachers in this type of work there are. And I've gotten really used to like solid still men that look me in the eye and are just, boom, that's it. And so feeling the contrast of this other guy was like, I was like, whoa, I can't imagine being a woman and like trying to date that, like literally, like, what would that be? Like? It just, it hit my nervous system of like, wow, I, I kind of just want to get my order and be away from him. And so this is, this is super common though. And I think it's really, it dovetails into a lot of problems the masculine and men have of ironically, because we get caught in our head and kind of get sucked up into these thought loops that don't really go anywhere. It kind of, I kind of think it manifests in our body of making motions that don't really go anywhere and don't really serve any purpose. And it's a challenge if you've never done it before to, to practice, you know, stillness and just noticing what's arising in your body. And you know, my teacher John talks a lot about, in his view, and I tend to agree that there's a correlation between like how much you're self referentially touching yourself and fidgeting and how much you're thinking about yourself. So like quite literally all your energy is inside your little sphere. And so it's all just kind of moving in on itself versus like when our presence is wide and our gaze is deep and we're anchored into the earth and we're feeling the environment around us, our energy is out. It's actually out. We're like feeling out around us, including our own experience. But we're also like sourced into what's happening in the room.
Melanie Curtin: And you guys can't see Jason's body, but when he's talking about the self referential movement and the nervous energy, his shoulders are coming down and in, so it's a little bit more contracted. And when he's talking about the stillness, his shoulders naturally come up and out and there's actually more space in his chest. And I wanted to go back to something you said, Jason, about the thoughts and the thoughts of like thoughts of myself versus thoughts of other or of nothing, like lack of thought. Is that the thoughts of myself? I think that for men in the more anxious space, it's not like, you know, it's not like egoic thoughts necessarily. It's like, am I doing it right? Am I good enough? Is she think, does she think I'm funny? Is she gonna Text me back, will he. Will he want to hire me again? Should I. It's more like, you know, am I good enough? Loops of a lot of variety.
Jason Lange: Self referential.
Melanie Curtin: Self referential, but it's not self referential. And like, I'm so great. I'm so good. I just wanted to, like, tease that out because it's. It's in my experience working with men, there's. That is the distraction, is the, like, am I good enough? Yeah. Loop. That is when we. When you and I, most of the time, talk about a guy who's in his head, it seems like that's mostly what he's in his head about.
Jason Lange: Totally. Yeah.
Melanie Curtin: Am I good enough? Is when I'm doing good enough, is she gonna want to go out with me again? Is, you know, am I doing it right? It's not. Yeah.
Jason Lange: Again, the energies inside versus, you know, there's many antidotes to that, but one is just like, what's going on for her right now? I wonder how she's experiencing this moment. And then asking her. Yeah, like, quite literally, or noticing, wow, she has her hands on her shoulders. Maybe she's cold. Maybe I should offer her a jacket. Or I can tell, you know, she's having a hard time hearing me. Maybe I should suggest we move to another spot in the bar where it's easier to hear. You know, there's. There's all kinds of that information, but again, just kind of. It doesn't mean you don't think about yourself ever and aren't connected to yourself, because you definitely want that. But your energy is more out than instead of just being stuck. Stuck inside on this kind of endless loop that tends to amp itself up a lot. A lot of times I find.
Melanie Curtin: Did you have a journey yourself in terms of going from anxiety to more stillness?
Jason Lange: I did. Maybe not as extreme as some guys, because for those that know the Enneagram, I'm a nine. So there's a certain stillness to nines because on the outside, nothing moves on the inside. Yeah.
Melanie Curtin: The Enneagram is a personality type indicator style.
Jason Lange: Yeah.
Melanie Curtin: But a little bit more spiritually based for those who aren't. Aren't familiar.
Jason Lange: So I tend to not be super movement oriented in my life or expressive. But I definitely, you know, used to fidget and sweat a lot and not kind of be sure what to do with women. And I, you know, I can't say I do this all perfectly. I catch myself all the time now of like, oh, yeah, here I'm doing this thing, or my foot's Tapping, you know, these things come out all the time. So it's a practice to even just notice that, like, oh, yeah, I'm moving a lot of energy in my body. What's. What's going on right now? Is there a deeper feeling maybe I want to connect to? But it definitely got easier, I mean.
Melanie Curtin: But got easier to cultivate stillness.
Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, starting a meditation practice, incredibly important, I think for almost everybody, particularly the masculine, of being able to detach, literally, quite literally detach from your thoughts and just see that they're a thing and they're not necessarily real. And you can identify with the bigger space they emerge from, which tends to be stiller, calmer, less changing, and, you know, having a strong physical practice, doing any kind of movement practices like Qigong or Kundalini, all these things will help move energy through the body. And then being also just being more grounded in terms of having done a lot of deep inner work. So I think a lot of times what anxiety is, is unfelt stuff that has nowhere to go and doesn't know how to come out that's not even necessarily related to the current moment, but it's historical. That's, you know, that's a lot of the work we do with guys is we have certain patterns in our nervous system that are based on historical incidences that don't actually apply to what's happening in the moment. Or a bit too overreactive. Kind of almost like allergies you could think of, you know, like there's a. You get exposed to a little thing and your whole immune system goes crazy, even though it's totally okay. Sometimes we have these kind of feelings stuck in our bodies from past, past experiences or traumas that don't necessarily feel so good. And then if we haven't processed them, they kind of come out overreactive in the moment. And that can. That energy just comes out like all kinds of sideways directions.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah. This is something I wanted to touch on in terms of the anxiety that I have witnessed in a lot of men. And part of the reason that I'm doing this episode is that it's not attractive and it is. It's actually repellent. These things, the anxious energy especially that manifests in the movement, this, you know, fidgeting, like we're talking about. I'm thinking of two. I've had two men in my life that I can think of where they had the fidgeting thing and they used alcohol to self medicate. So whatever the anxiety was about, which I'm guessing childhood trauma for both of these people, it was like there was the trauma. It was never dealt with. There's a lot of just fear, rage and grief still stuck in their bodies and they don't have a way of processing it. And they aren't even necessarily aware that it's there. All they're aware of is I feel better when I drink alcohol. Alcohol calms me down.
Jason Lange: It's a depressant.
Melanie Curtin: It's a depressant. It calms me down. It helps me feel more connected to people. It fill in the blank. I don't know. Because that's not my medicine. I don't, you know. But I have witnessed this in multiple men. Two that I have dated and others that I have witnessed. And it's not attractive. Like neither the anxiety nor the alcohol. Self medication is attractive. And it's the kind of thing where I feel helpless as a woman dating these men to sort of bring up like, I don't want to be around you, I don't really want to have sex with you because of this anxiety. Because I feel a little bit like it's not my place or like I'm sitting in judgment of them or something. Something like that. And I don't want to fixate on something like the alcohol. Like I'm afraid that I will say I'm uncomfortable with all of the drinking and that what they will hear is if I stop drinking, she'll be okay. Because it's not about the drinking. It's not about the self medication. You can self medicate with porn, you can self medicate with alcohol. You can self medicate with Netflix. There's all kinds of ways to do it. It's about the underlying trauma. So I'm just sort of wondering as a man, like is there, were you, I'm curious, like, were you ever called out or called forth by the feminine in a way that felt good to you with respect to this kind of thing? Because it feels hard over here as a woman to even bring it up.
Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, I actually can't say I was ever called out by the feminine. All this change happened for me by being called out from the masculine for repeatedly consistently standing multiple times in front of other men and having them let me know, I trust you right now. I don't trust you right now. And here's why. And well, you know, actually thinking about it, that can. Those containers of work I was in did sometimes have co ed workshops. So there were times I was in front of women and I didn't necessarily dating relationship. Yeah, but, but I did get, you know, getting feedback from the. From women about. For me, it was never so much the motion stuff because that's just not how my anxiety came out. But certainly posture, I got tons of feedback around. Like, tuck your chin in, like, come, you know, shoulders back, like, arms to your side.
Melanie Curtin: Breathe.
Jason Lange: Yeah, totally breathe. I got lots of feedback around that. So I did get some feedback from the feminine in terms of intentional containers like that. And then I got way more from just. I mean, this is literally the work I've been doing for years of standing in front of men and getting that feedback about what feels good, what feels trustable. Because if it feels trustable to another man, it's going to feel trustable to the feminine.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah, so that's a really interesting. I just want to highlight that for a minute. I think cultivation of stillness, this ability to be still and solid and grounded, feels trustable to both men and women. My point that I want to make is, for women, it also makes you fuckable. Like, unless you're. Unless it's a gay man, he's not going to want to fuck you. Like, but for the feminine, if you're, you know, masculine and feminine, if you're looking to attract women. Stillness attracts women. Stillness attracts women. I'm thinking of. I went to this seminar and there was a dude there who I think he was helping. I think he was one of the helpers. And it was one of those, like, meet and greet type things, whatever. We were like all wandering around, getting drinks, getting settled, whatever. And this guy was sitting. I can't remember he was in a chair or not. I think he might have been on a meditation pillow. And he had his eyes open, but he was cultivating stillness. You could feel him cultivating stillness in the moment. And it was like a magnet. It was like a magnet. Like, I was aware of him in the room even when I wasn't looking at him.
Jason Lange: Totally.
Melanie Curtin: Like, I am an attuned feminine being. And I was like, I could feel him. That's story one. Story two. This is really funny. I was at this other event and there were like multiple speakers, right? This one dude, pretty, like advanced dude. Like, he's doing his. He's doing his work. He's cultivating stillness. Day on the daily. He did his speaking thing or whatever. And then he came to the back of the room where I was. And you could. And you could hear him breathing. Not in a. Not in an obnoxious way, but just like doing some deep breathing. And it was. I was like, very. I was very Attuned. There were a lot of attuned people there. It was kind of a heightened environment. And I remember standing there and, like, almost involuntarily, my body, like, turned towards him like a sunflower. Like, it felt like that. Like he was like a sun, and I was like a flower being. Like, oh. Like, that's like. That's very magnetic. It's like, I want to be around that. I want to be near that. I want to be with that. Like, stillness pulls us in. It pulls us in. And the fidgeting, the anxiety, the manifestation of all those thought loops repels the feminine, especially the attuned feminine, I think.
Jason Lange: And.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah, and so I think that has been something that I've really wanted to express to some men, but not known how to, without coming off as critical, because it's sort of like how you're being is repelling me. And that's a really harsh thing to hear. But it's also happening in the moment. It's. It's happening. It's like, I don't want to be around that. Actually being around you. I'm breathing less.
Jason Lange: Less.
Melanie Curtin: I feel less in my body. Like, I. Now I'm anxious. So it's.
Jason Lange: It's almost like that's. I. I would actually say give it. Give that feedback, because sometimes it takes that to wake men. The up of, like, oh, my God, I had no idea. How do I fix this? I don't know. Do I talk to. But without that feedback, you know, a lot of men don't even know. I mean, that kid, the kid in the Five Guys, you know, I didn't tell him, and he didn't know. He didn't know. He probably didn't have the language or the culture, the community around him for people to share the impact of his presence on them and how it revved them up and made them uncomfortable. So it's a really special thing when we do get that feedback. I think it's important for a lot of men, and it's. The only way we can grow, is we need that feedback now. It's definitely easier in a structured container if you're opted in with a bunch of other men. I actually think it's much easier to receive that feedback than you're on a hot date with someone and it's gonna hurt more guys. So, I mean, just be prepared, like, so you can kind of preempt some of that by getting into men's work first.
Melanie Curtin: Right? Well, that's part of why I'm bringing it up, because I think There are a lot of men who I really feel for and some of the guys that we work with, where they've gone for years or even decades, and no woman has ever said to them, this is what, this is what I'm experiencing. This is why I don't want to go on a second date with you. So all the men are experiencing is I can't seem to get women to come out with me, or if I do, they're not coming on second dates or it's only lasting this long, you know, yada yada. And this is fundamental to attraction for the feminine. And it's not something that, it's not really something you can hack. And I think that's part of why I have felt nervous to bring it up with men in the past. Because it's sort of like if you really want to address this, like, you gotta do trauma work, you gotta do men's work, you gotta really get in there. It's not something that you can just be like, oh well, you know, like, yes, of course a meditation practice is great, but you can't just do 10 minutes of meditation a day and expect it to do the trick. Like, it takes more than that. There's a reason that, for example, these men are self medicating with alcohol. Because the level of anxiety is so high that if they weren't self medicating, they would feel like they were going to explode. They would, you know, feel like maybe they'd hurt someone. I don't know exactly because I'm not in their skin. But I can imagine just wanting to jump out of my skin. Like there's so much anxious energy in my body. So since we're gonna start to wrap up here, what would you say are some steps if a man is listening and resonates with this? Like, yeah, I do, I do feel anxious a lot. I do like notice that I fidget, that I'm not, that I'm not rooted and grounded most of the time. What, you know, can those men do?
Jason Lange: All the things should be working out, should be working out hard, actually moving your body, getting more in, attuned with your body, allowing energy to flow through your body. If you've never been in any kind of deep therapy, you need to get a therapist to start working through any.
Melanie Curtin: Kind of old, especially somatic therapy, old.
Jason Lange: Programming in your system. Get into a men's group, get around other solid men who have the type of depth and presence that you're craving, where you notice the way they move.
Melanie Curtin: Role models.
Jason Lange: I mean, you can think of the example we use for this all the time, that I've probably talked about this before is James Bond. He's a great masculine archetype. He always moves with intention. You don't see James, oh my God, what do I do next? Never see that. Right. He calculates, he moves, he acts. It's almost like he's so still, he just flows through whatever's happening.
Melanie Curtin: Or Bruce Lee was another one.
Jason Lange: Bruce Lee.
Melanie Curtin: There was a mention of a scene where he ran into. He was moving with urgency. He ran into a room. He checked each door in the room. They were all locked. And then he just sat down and meditated.
Jason Lange: Yeah.
Melanie Curtin: Because there was nothing to do. There was nothing to do. So he just sat down and was still.
Jason Lange: Got more awareness. Yeah, that's really the thing. Meditation practice is really important for some guys. Sitting still for 10 minutes and not moving is one of the most difficult things. You know, it's one of the things we put our guys through. Yep. This is the lineage of Zen that the samurai trained in. Rinzai Zen, you sit down and you do not move. You use your will to not move. And that's. It's a powerful, powerful practice if you've never done it, to just rest and stillness. That's an incredibly powerful one. And then any. This is a harder one to explain, but we call it in the work we were doing, I've been doing ritual hardship. So doing really things that are really incredibly uncomfortable. Long hikes, Cold water therapy is really great place to experience in an easy way what stillness means. When your system dies down, regulates deep breath. Work is another area for that time in nature. If you go outside and you sit out in nature and you don't do anything, you know, you can walk, but you're not building, you're not listening to a podcast, you're not. Even better if you don't even move. You just sit still. In nature, you will so quickly drop down to a different wavelength of hearing the noises, feeling the breeze, it actually attunes you into a moment, into the moment. I find that it's just such a different speed. It's the polar opposite of phone fast. Email notification when you're outside, the sun's moving slowly, there's a breeze. It's just much easier to drop into that state. And working those edges in that way is really important. There's a theory that Wim Hof, who does some of my favorite breath work and cold water therapy, talks about that. Our brainstem, right, the reptilian brainstem. It's set up for nature. We contain these kind of primal animals inside us. And when we're out in nature, like I was talking about, there's actually so much stimulation to pay attention to at a really low level just for our safety. Like, is there something over here? Is there noise? What was that shape? What was that sound? It's almost like the background processes of your computer. It's kind of using up CPU cycles in a very normal, natural way. And when we're ripped out of that environment into our kind of day to day routines and the safety, or just safety, safety, safety, those extra CPU cycles have nothing to do. So they're like firing and they have nothing to do. So it often comes out as anxiety.
Melanie Curtin: Interesting.
Jason Lange: So like cold water therapy, really hard exercise, sitting in stillness and not moving, you know, all attributes that would have been incredibly important to the masculine. If you are out hunting, which is in, you know, a very intentional practice of mostly not moving and then suddenly moving with incredible precision when you need to.
Melanie Curtin: Good point.
Jason Lange: Right. Like that's in our DNA. It's kind of why it's sexy. It's what allows us to do, you know, provide, provide, provide. Exactly. But when we can find ways to work out that reptilian brain stem, in some sense it's like it gets exercised and then it just kind of chills back down to a normal state. But you have to do this stuff super intentionally, over and over and over to kind of keep it going. So there's, there's lots of strategies for that. But the, you know, one thing every guy can start doing right now is just start to notice as you move through your day. Start to notice who's fidgeting a lot, who's not, who you feel relaxed and safe around and just for whatever reason drawn to and who you don't, you will quickly find, you know, the difference between the two of. Oh yeah, wow. That's why I've been so drawn to that person. Like I just feel calm when I'm with them. I can feel them feeling the space relaxed in their body. And then there's other people who I can feel, you know, or ready for a cigarette or just kind of fidgeting, checking their phone, not making eye contact with me, moving through the space, totally unaware of how their movement is impacting others. And notice how that impacts you. Because even as men, we can feel the, the repercussions of this energy on us.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah.
Jason Lange: And the truth is, this stuff is fucking awesome for dating. Yeah, it'll totally get you laid. Just learning to be still quite Honestly. But it'll also help everything else in your life. You'll make more money, people will trust you more, you'll get promoted like all.
Melanie Curtin: Kinds of good things all the time with the men in our program that they might come in for success with women, but other aspects of their lives also improve. Because that stillness, that stillness helps with everything and being. Walking around as the healthy masculine in the world is attractive. Meaning it attracts opportunities to you. Attractive as an attraction beyond just the feminine. Just it is attractive. It attracts. It tends to attract the right things to you. So that it's not something you have to always strive for.
Jason Lange: Absolutely. And it's a simple practical technique. If you want to turn up the attraction with someone you're interested in and they have a feminine essence, become stiller than them.
Melanie Curtin: Yes.
Jason Lange: It's really that simple.
Melanie Curtin: Yes.
Jason Lange: Like if they're moving a little bit, you move even less.
Melanie Curtin: Yes.
Jason Lange: And what you'll find is there will be an energy that just generates between the two of you.
Melanie Curtin: She'll want to jump you. Hey guys, thanks for listening. Just again, a quick note. If you're interested in the course, you can find it at pleaseherinbed.com www.pleaseherinbed.com or at my site, melaniecurtain.com under Courses and have a very sexy.
