EP: 147: Men’s Mental & Emotional Health, Loneliness Epidemic, & Men’s Community w/ men’s coach Jason | Vulnerability Time

Host: Hello everyone. Welcome back to season nine of Vulnerability Time. It's so great to be here for another season, folks. Remember to share the podcast, subscribe, Follow the podcast. You never know whose life you're going to heal or change by just simply sharing the podcast. We're all in this together. We're all worthy and deserving of healing and deserving of love. So love someone today, including yourself, even if it's hard, even if you don't feel like it. Also, if you want some more healing, go and check out my books on Amazon. One's an interactive journal notebook and you can like interact with it. It's very like self awareness and you know, to learn yourself and others if you want to learn more about yourself. The other one's a really neat poetry book that I wrote some years back. So all that can be found in the episode description below. And with that being said, this is another episode of Vulnerability Time. I am your host and published author, Josias Abrielle. Alrighty folks. We love a pre recorded intro. I sneezed. Bless me. Okay, folks. Yes, we love a pre recorded intro. So today we're going to be talking about men's mental health and emotional health, the loneliness epidemic and how men can benefit from joining men's groups, right? But before we get into that, let us welcome Jason. Jason, welcome to the Vulnerability Time podcast.

Jason Lange: Yeah, so pumped to be here. Thanks for having me.

Host: Yes, Jason, so tell us a little bit about you before we jump into our topics. You know, any credentials, any work that you do, things like that, you know, tell us a little bit about that.

Jason Lange: So I'm a men's coach and men's guide. I support men both one on one in terms of private coaching and in particular through retreats and programs and facilitating and teaching men how to join men's groups through for their own health and well being and things. We'll get in here to today. So I've done a lot of training around embodiment and shadow work and healing and group dynamics in a sense of just helping, you know, men figure out how can we thrive in this day and age where, you know, we're being asked to be different than we've ever been before. And a lot of men are a little lost sometimes in terms of what does it even mean to be a man these days and women the right training and tools, turns out we can be awesome, awesome members of our communities and families. And vulnerability is certainly one of the big pieces of that that a lot of men just don't have a lot of practice in but can be completely transformative in their lives. Yes.

Host: How long have you been been doing this? How long have you been a men's coach?

Jason Lange: Yeah, so I've been coaching guys since about 2017, and I've been in the world of men's work and men's groups and both just for my own healing since about 2006. So it's been been a while for my own journey. And then I just got so into it, I was like, oh, hey, I want to help other guys now in the ways I was helped. And so every year I do both. I'm in the work for myself to grow and change as a man, and then I facilitate and support other men and doing the same.

Host: Awesome. Awesome. So what is. You mentioned the word journey. So what is your journey and your story behind, you know, men's mental health and emotional health? Why those topics?

Jason Lange: Sure, yeah. I mean, my journey really begins as a child, as a kid. So, you know, I'm a white guy, raised lower middle class here in the United States in the Midwest, and had a lot of privilege in all. My kind of basic security needs met for me. But one thing I quickly discovered as I started to grow and develop into a teenager in particular was my family had no real skill in emotional connection or presence. And frankly, even just physical touch and intimacy were things that were not part of my family. We kind of just lived in the same house, like robots in some sense. And, you know, my parents did the best they could to take care of me, but they hadn't been trained in some sense of how to create emotional safety and intimacy and whatnot. And I was very uncomfortable with any kind of physical touch. And so as I became, in my case, I'm heterosexual, I hit my teenage years, started getting interested in women and discovered, wow, I'm really uncomfortable in my body. I would get sweaty and clammy and kind of in my head and didn't know how to talk and was really uncomfortable with touch. And this kind of kicked off a journey for me as I saw friends around me getting into relationship and having experiences that made me realize, oh, something's. Something's a little different about how I kind of grew up in the world and I just didn't know how to talk about what was going on inside of me.

Host: So.

Jason Lange: So I was often feeling pretty numb and dissociated. My emotional vocabulary was pretty much good, bad, and fine. How you doing? I don't know. I'm okay. And I felt really, really lonely. Right. In my case, I was lucky. I Met some kind of so called nerdy friends in high school. And I had kind of a group of guys, but I didn't know how to talk about what was going on inside me. So this is a common thing I see with a lot of men I work with. Maybe we do have men around us, but we don't really know how to share what's going on. And so even though we just spent a couple hours with someone, we go home and we feel alone or our friends don't even know what's going on deeply inside of us. And in my case, I ended up being a pretty late bloomer. So I didn't really get into relationships or have sex till my mid to late 20s. And some of my closest male friends didn't know because I didn't know how to be vulnerable around it. I carried a lot of shame and I dealt with all the stress of that, like a lot of men, by numbing out. In my case, it was alcohol, it was porn and masturbation. Some men it's weed, some men, it's overworking, like, you name it. Us men aren't really equipped to understand our inner world, let alone how to talk about it and get support around it. So then we turn to substances often to try to regulate ourselves. And I was a prime example of that. So my journey, you know, I got exposed to men's work and men's groups and somatic therapy was learning to kind of come out of my shell and learn how to talk about my experience of what was going on inside me. And in particular with both other men. And in my case, again, women learn to be vulnerable, which is what really creates the deepest connection. And often that in itself is so healing for not just men, but any human being. The sense of, I'm, I'm seen, someone can see me right now and I'm accepted for who I am. And a lot of guys will, you know, brace up around that of, you know, you got to be tough, you got to be. And it just doesn't work, right? The part of why I'm so passionate about, right, this is, right, it's 80% of suicide deaths in the US are men. And it's, you know, three and a half to four times more likely for men. And social isolation is just stronger in men, partly because of how we're trained and cultured as young boys. Right? To be tough and don't share and don't be vulnerable. You'll get attacked, you'll get bullied. And with each generation, it's more and more Men are reporting having no close friends. And Covid and the pandemic accelerated. All of this work from home is accelerating all of this social media. Now AI chat bots, like, it's just going through the roof. Not a lot of us men, by default, have a harder time relating. And so men's groups and men's work and the things I'm passionate about are like, hey, actually, let's bust that old myth, and connected men. So men who feel connected socially do better. Their health outcomes are better, their educational outcomes are better, Financial outcomes are better. So to me, if I told you, hey, here's a pill you can take and you're going to live longer, you're going to make more money, you're going to have better relationships, most guys would be like, oh, yeah, totally, I'm going to do it. If I say, well, okay, now sit in front of another man and tell him what's not going well in your life. They're like, oh, no. And they, you know, run and hide. But it's the same outcome. And it's just we have all this cultural accumulation of beliefs around it that make it tougher for us guys to deal with this stuff.

Host: Right, right. You know, you mentioned.

Jason Lange: Somatic.

Host: Therapy and men's coaching in your journey. How did that come about? Did someone approach you with it? Did you Google it? What did that.

Jason Lange: Sure. Yeah.

Host: Like, how did you.

Jason Lange: In my case, I did get really lucky. You know, I became pretty aware, partly because of my pain around relationships that, like, hey, I don't know how to do this. There's got to be a better way. I was, like, depressed, lonely and sad and uncomfortable in my body. So, you know, I kind of came up just around the birth of the Internet. And for me, I first got into kind of philosophy, just trying to understand.

Host: Right.

Jason Lange: What happiness is and all that kind of stuff. And that led me on a journey that eventually got me into my first men's group. Right. I just happened to be around some guys, and we're like, hey, let's start a group. And in that group, the leader of it was a male coach, as a man who coached men. And I started working with him and, you know, about six months into working with him, we were doing some pretty deep work. And I had a huge emotional release, like a catharsis around some old wounding. And he was just, you know, so much credit to him. He was really sharp and really straight and honest. And he was like, hey, you know, this isn't really what I do. You know, coaching tends to be a Little more outcome, kind of forward focused, you know, emotional healing and trauma work is not my particular skill set. I want to keep working with you, but I'm thinking it'd be good for you to work with someone who's really trained in supporting you, getting more intimate with your nervous system. And just so happened, in his case, his wife was a somatic therapist. And so I started meeting with her and getting more in connection to my body and learning the signals of really all kinds of stuff was just a total game changer for me. And now I find they all work together really well. Somatic therapy, men's group coaching can just completely accelerate anyone's transformation.

Host: Yes, you know, very important to have our nervous system regulated and, you know, understood and recognized. Can you talk to us a little bit about the importance of that? Because even for me, you know, I always, you know, advocate for mental health, mental health, mental health. And I'm realizing also, nervous system health, nervous system health, got to regulate that nervous system. Yes, yes, the mental health goes far, but so does the nervous system because it's our second brain. You know, the nervous system remembers, impacts, it remembers for our survival. You know, it remembers, it remembers sensations we may forget, but the body keeps count, the body keeps score, the body remembers. So can you tell us about how important that is and go a little deeper into, you know, how the shift from the nervous system, the healing of the nervous system? Because I know we can talk about like, you know, mental health and stuff like that, and that can take us so far into the healing. But also, what about the nervous system? What did that look like for you?

Jason Lange: Yeah, it's so key. And this is where I do see a lot of men get trapped just focusing on their thoughts, right. Men, we love to think and ruminate, and there's a lot of great work around mindsets and shifting, that kind of stuff. But oftentimes, the types of distress a lot of men are in, we think we can think our way out of it. That's not the case. It actually ends up contributing more to rumination and worry or whatever that might be. And one of the hard lessons I've had to learn over and over is sometimes the fastest way to, to change your mental state is to change your physical state, your body state, right? So go for a walk, do a workout, take a nice long bath, these kinds of things, which are handling our nervous system a little bit more. And it's a complex thing, right? There's hormones involved, there's habit involved. But the idea is most of us these days Spend way too much time in sympathetic arousal, right? So it's that fight flight part of the nervous system that's like activated, vigilant, ready for threat, ready to move, to take action. We're constantly being bombarded by news, by social media. It's just there's a lot more than people ever had to deal with. And it's very fast moving, right? The thing about digital is fast, fast, fast, fast. New info, new info, new info. And that obviously creates a certain effect in our, in our bodies and in our nervous system. And so learning to downshift, particularly for a lot of men, into the parasympathetic rest and digest state is so key. And learning how to even shift between the two when we need to, right? Sometimes it's go time, sometimes it's recharge time. A lot of men get stuck in go time and then get so burnt out or overwhelmed they have to crash or take themselves down. And so taking care of our nervous system is literally, how much tension is there in my physical body, my muscles, my fascia, how much emotional content am I holding onto? Grief, sadness, fear, anger that I don't know how to express or be with. And this stuff adds up, right? Particularly I see it in a lot of guys I work with. I'm kind of in my early middle age now. You know, men come into the world, there's a certain amount of, you could say chi or energy on our credit cards. Just like, yeah, cool, I'm going to work hard, play hard, party hard. I don't need to sleep, I don't need to take care of my body. Start to hit your mid-30s and above, doesn't fly anymore, starts to catch up with men. Autoimmune disorders, depression, all kinds of things begin, and they're often related to these things. We're not taking care of our bodies and we're not expressing ourselves enough emotionally. We're holding on to this stuff and it takes energy, right? There's more and more research that shows that, you know, unprocessed emotional content, we, we hold it in our body by like locking it in our fascia and tightening things up and getting more rigid. And that has a huge cost for us in terms of injury and well, being that, that we can actually shift by getting into our bodies and handling our nervous systems and learning. Okay, it doesn't do me any good to be in this panicked fight, orf flight state all the time. I need to slow down. And lo and behold, one of the most powerful ways for human beings to do that, to shift into that parasympathetic rest and digest is through connection, Quite literally our whole. We have our vagal nerve, this huge bundle of nerves that go from the base of our brain to our body, wired to receive social signals. Making eye contact, facial expression, vocal tone. These are some of the fastest ways. You see, it's so obvious with babies and kids. Right? Get into the baby voice. How you doing? You okay? It's all right. And then you start humming. Baby calms down. As human beings, we're the same way. We need that FaceTime sometimes just to downregulate. So, again, it's kind of why I'm passionate about men's groups, because it turns out we can do a lot of things with the same container in terms of getting into our body, supporting each other, socially, co regulating our nervous systems. And the more regulated our nervous system is, the more we can just be present in the ways we want in our lives. Yeah.

Host: Wow. Oh, that was very beautifully said, Jason. Speaking of connection and how important it is and how we're wired for connection as humans. The loneliness epidemic. What is your take on that? Like, Because, I mean, that's. That's. That's something that's huge. And I'm glad that. I mean, of course, I see there's still stigma on saying the word lonely, but I'm glad I'm starting to hear it more because oftentimes, you know, I think acknowledge is power, and I think we got to acknowledge first. Sometimes we need to acknowledge first, depending because. Because, you know, we. There's. There's stigma, there's biases, you know, placed on multiple things and, you know. Yeah, yeah. So it's just like, you know, the. The. So the loneliness epidemic. I'm just glad I'm seeing that term, that concept talked about more. But what is your take on that? What do you know about it? Do you have any personal experience with it or just. What is your take, your soapbox about it? Because it needs to be told.

Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah. I've definitely, you know, experienced it before. Like I said, you know, I did have some male friends, particularly in my younger years, but it's very easy to be around people but still feel alone. Right. I can't. There's something I can't talk about is often the common thing within, because I'll be judged or shamed or whatever. And for some men, that's visceral. It's a real thing they experience as adolescence. Right. Bullying, ostracization, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. We learn not to be vulnerable, but that Same thing then carries through life, and it really damages men. And, you know, the. The. The masculine myth we're all sold around the macho guy, the tough guy. Essentially, what masculinity is for a large part of our culture is the opposite of what you're talking about. It's invulnerability.

Host: Oh.

Host: Right, exactly. I completely hear you. Yeah, it's, it's very. I know at least within the American society, we're very reactive than proactive. And so I'm. We're talking about the loneliness epidemic. That's because too much, it's a reaction to something. It's a reaction to things are okay, we're, we're starting to notice suicide rate increase. We're starting to notice this, we're starting to notice that. And now we're reacting to it. Yeah. So. But I'm very grateful though, that it's even being talked about in articles and things like that because, yeah, the loneliness epidemic, that, that is real. You know, I know we're taught in a very capitalist society, you know, capitalism, the system encourages individuality, Individuality, you know, toxic independence, you know, and I mean, individualism is killing. It's destroying us. It's really is. The social capital of America has declined, you know, so you're not like, so you're not going to see, you know, so for folks that don't know. So in sociology we have this concept called social capital. And it's basically what Jason's been saying. Groups, you know, clubs, you know, Human societal interaction, you know, it is declined heavily and we see a direct correlation with the introduction of technology, the decline of social capital. But so that's why when Jason mentioned also like social media, I was like, yep, it didn't make it better. It didn't make it better. It did not make it better. It worsened the social capital. And that's what's happening. Breaks my heart because humans need each other, you know, and one of my ex best friends, you know, we would always clash a lot because he has the mindset and I understand that's how he was raised, but he is that very, he wasn't taught masculinity in a healthy way. I'm, I'm, for me personally, I'm tired of using that word toxic masculinity. Why? Because I notice when I say that I am judging men on purpose, my intent was to judge men. Why? Because I've been through a lot of trauma with men, whatever. I mean, sorry, not whatever, but been through a lot of trauma with men, whatever. Why do I say whatever? But I've, you know, however, I have been healing and I'm at a place now where I generally want to just love men. Like I just want to love men. And because I did this thing where I was just like, you know, I need to see men as humans so I could love them, you know, because it's society says be a man, being a man, be everything but human. So I was like, I need to see men as human. And now I'm at a place in my healing journey where it's just like I want, I can see them and I'm working on seeing men as they are, meeting them where they're at and loving them, understanding that honestly it's not their fault. It really is not their fault. I feel like society didn't start with them, it started to them, you know, because once upon a time everybody was just a little kid who was learning and soaking in information and. But yes, anyways, the decline in social capital, right? And I just. Individualism, I just think is. Sorry, I didn't mean to get off topic but individualism is killing. It literally is killing. And you know, with the decline in social capital we see suicide rates go up. And like you said, Jason, you know, majority of suicides in America and in the UK are men. And in America there's more female born individuals than male born individuals. But men make up more than half, way over half of all suicides. And I'm not talking about intersex. Folks, folks, if you're intersex out there. I just don't know the statistics on intersex individuals. For those who don't know what intersex is, intersex are folks that are born both or born neither. I know we're not taught that in school, but there are folks that are out of the womb born with both sets of private parts or born neither or their hormones match. Both, anyways. But. Anyways. But yeah. So I just want to give recognition to those who are intersex. I recognize you. I see you. I just don't know the statistics just yet. And I don't want to, you know, speak too soon and get something wrong, but I did want to recognize and acknowledge you all. Yes, the loneliness epidemic, it's literally killing and it's destroying. And I'm not. I mean, I'm just really not a fan of that. You know, humans need each other. There's tons of research, psychology, biology that, you know, it's just states that humans need each other. And so me and my ex best friend would clash so much about how, you know, humans need each other because he was more so he doesn't need anybody. Individualism, you know, and then the unhealthy masculinity, you know, and I'm recognizing, you know, he was a product of his environment, his culture, his family. You know, there's multiple external factors because at the end of the day, he was once upon a time a kid as well that was taught these things. And then you have society that's a lot of times is not helping, but because it glorifies and glamorizes individualism. Oh, you don't need nobody. Just make money and get your own house, own this, own that. I was just like, you know what? Humans need each other. And the last thing, Jason, you know, it's something I told my ex best friend. I told him, I said, you know, it was like, you know, you and just society and I no shame towards you. I just noticed though, like, you know, this individualism, it's just. It's. It's not okay. You know, folks are dying and humans are just separating. And it bothers me. But I was like, you know, we need each other even if we don't want to recognize it. Like, I was like this. That house, that. That roof over your head. It took multiple hands to come together to build that. Like, humans need each other. And if you think we don't, then build our own houses, build our own cars. Bet you we won't do that. So it's like, yeah, we need each other. Even on those, in the ways that we don't even, you know, think about, like, it was just like, yeah, like this house that I'm in right now. Oh, multiple hands came together. So I'm. I'm personally not a fan of society currently, especially because, you know, society is glorifying independence to an unhealthy amount. And I feel like there's definitely different intersection. Intersectionalities depending on the. The type of boxes society wants to put people in. So men have, like, society has a different box for men. And so I'm sure there's things compounded on, you know, in that as well. But I know for me, Jason, I came up with the. I don't know if it's already a term because I never heard of it, but I came up with it to help me with my healing journey. I believe it was like, few years ago, four years ago, well, six years ago, when I came up with the term and said, you know, I'm experiencing toxic independence. Right. Like, I'm just like, for the life of me, I know based off research and stuff like that, like, I just had to learn about the body and the brain. You know, I had to learn. So I literally know from a research standpoint that humans need each other. However, for the life of me, I could not lean on someone. I could not. I could not. Even when I knew I needed to, I still couldn't. I could not until four years ago when my world got ripped underneath for me and I just had no choice but to lean on someone. But it did not happen on my own will at first.

Jason Lange: And so often the case with a lot of men I work with as well.

Host: Yes. And I was just trying to say.

Host: Of.

Jason Lange: Painful and awe inspiring at the same time it is where, you know, I'll get a guy to come into a group, I'll start a men's group or be in one and then just so happens within a couple of months it might be a cancer diagnosis, might be spouse or loved one dying, might be a loss of a job. Like major life challenges and stressors come in and they're like, oh my God, this would have been so different had this happened six months ago. But I got a team at my side that can help me through this and I can't imagine what it would have been like to go through this experience alone. So there is a way you can get out there and get ahead of it, guys, because you just never know what's going to come at you. And again, the idea is it's not that you have to stop being independent or self sufficient, but the truth is you're going to do better the more connected you are. Right. It actually, it's a connection is the medicine for stress almost always. As is belonging. Right. That toxic individualism, it creates depression as well because suddenly we don't feel like we're part of anything. We're not part of the planet, we're not part of a social community. So what does it matter if I'm here or not?

Host: Right?

Jason Lange: Right. But what I've seen, getting men connected to other men where their presence matters, getting men connected to nature where they quite literally get to feel, oh, it's not that us humans are at the top of this. We are part of a web and we influence it and influences us. Okay, I'm not alone at any given point in time. Right. Like literally I can go outside and feel that I'm part of a biological system does incredible things for men's well being when they feel like they belong. And when we don't have that, we do have that kind of toxic individual thing. And you know, to take it back to part of what you're talking about when you're in that depressed, toxic individual state, guess what? It's easier to control you and sell you. Then it's like, oh, just go buy this thing and you'll feel better.

Host: Exactly.

Jason Lange: It never works that way. So it, you know, again, it's kind of no one's fault. But this stuff is all swirled together. But as men, we do have a choice right now to say, you know what, we can do things differently. We have choice in terms of how the types of relationships we create with each other that then also then model that for other men.

Host: I love what you're saying. What I'm hearing is connection is not weakness. Connection does not make you less than connection makes you more.

Jason Lange: Boom. Right? These again. One of the central myths we often deconstruct here is the lone wolf, right? I'm the wolf who's out on my own. Don't eat anything. Guess what guys? In nature, the lone wolf is the one that was kicked out of the pack and it will die sooner. The wolf that are in the pack will live longer, healthier lives. And it's the same thing now. And so even if you're a guy who's just focused on performance and toughness, guess what? You're going to make more money, have better relationships and be able to achieve more in relationship. Even I joke with guys all the time. Most people have had the experience of, okay, go do a workout. Okay, yeah, cool. I push myself. I worked out great. Do that same workout with a buddy. You work out harder, right? You push each other. It's kind of fun. It's why we hire trainers, it's why sports teams work, right? We push ourselves more and that happens in every area of life. So the men I know who are serving the most in the world, creating the healthiest relationships, they're well connected in community in these ways. And so it has a lot of tangible outcomes too, even beyond just mental health and well being. But even if nothing else, you'll live longer the more connected to other people. You are. Yes.

Host: Very, very well. Beautifully said, Jason. Thank you for sharing that. Jason. So are there before we wrap up are do you have like a website or something you Know if so can you. It'll be in the episode description below, folks. But could you tell us a little bit about that?

Jason Lange: Yeah. Easiest way to kind of keep up with everything I do in terms of coaching retreats and all that is you can go to my website, Evolutionary Men, and I've got a podcast on there. I've got some writing on there. You can kind of get my vibe there. And then a couple times a year, I also run a program for men to experience a men's group. You can. It's virtual. You can just do it from home if you've never done it before. It's a great entry point and you can learn all about that by just going to men's group. Dot group. So men's dot group will take you right there. You can kind of learn about it. We talk about some of these stats and some of this bleak stuff and how you can very quickly start to shift that by just going deep with a couple of guys. And it's a. It's a beautiful, powerful introductory program where men can get a taste of what it means to connect in this new way with other men.

Host: Yes. Oh, beautiful. Okay, so that will be in the episode description below, folks. By the way, Jason, if you see me looking down every now and then, I'm just making sure it's still recording. Just making sure that the episode's still recording. Yes. Okay, so folks, go check that out. Share this podcast. Share this episode with someone. Doesn't have to be a man. Just share this with someone because they. It provides understanding for anyone. It provides understanding for anyone, you know, especially, you know, because someone might need to see these or might need to hear about these other reality that goes on behind the whole. Be society's man. You know, society's like, we're gonna put you in a box. And so it's just like, let's see what's inside that. Let's human inside that box and let's see what's going on in there. Let's understand. Let's get to the roots of things. So share this with anyone. Share this episode this. What Jason said, just what we talked about on this episode could change someone's life. So share it. It's all about growth, all about healing, all about love, all about togetherness. Let's do this together, folks. As the human species, we can. We're doing better. We can do better. And yeah, I. I was going to say something very, very beautiful, but I. To make this all. But anyways, it slipped my mind. But okay, folks. Well, with that being said, it has been another episode of vulnerability time. Stay tuned for whatever next episode will be. Alrighty bye folks. Jason.