Every Man Should Be In A Men’s Group! | The Way of The Confident Husband – Chuck Chapman, M.A.

Host: Welcome to the Recovering Nice Guy podcast. This is the place for nice guys who are ready to kick the habit of people pleasing and ditch those self sabotaging behaviors for good. Now here's your host, me, Chuck Chapman. If you're not in a men's group, your ability to recover and operate from your highest capacity diminishes exponentially. And I cannot tell you how important this one aspect is for recovering from your nice guy syndrome and becoming a man of integrity. On today's episode of the Recovering Nice Guy, I have someone who knows the power of men's work and finding your tribe. His name is Jason Lange and he's a coach who loves to help men in the context of group. We're going to dive deep into his story and we're going to talk about the aspects of men's embodiment work, shadow work, and why you need to be in a men's group. So let's give a warm welcome to Jason Lange. Jason, welcome to this podcast. I'm really excited to have you here. Couple questions for you though. What got you into this line of work?

Jason Lange: Yeah, well, unsurprisingly it's what I needed. So my journey with kind of men's work and personal growth and development started really, it started in my teenage years in that I was raised in a house, you know, kind of a typical American suburban white, you know, lower middle class, had my needs provided for me, but no real sense of interiority in my family. So no emotional connection, no ability to really talk about things, no leadership from my parents in that sense and you know, some forms of neglect. And as I really dug deep in my work around touch and connection when I was young, that point of that I became a teenager, you know, a young boy, hormones going through me and really interested in women and absolutely terrified I would get extraordinarily anxious in my body, had no idea how to talk to them, really wanted connection, but just did not know or feel comfortable to do it. And it was so painful that it led me on a growth of growth path of this. There's gotta be some other way I can be in my body cause this doesn't feel good. I feel bad in my presence most of the time. So that started for me a tour of first I got really kind of into things through the philosophical side and I studied this guy, Ken Wilber, and moved out to Boulder and got into growth and development, which I'm grateful for. But it was there I first got introduced to men's work, men's groups, shadow work and really Somatic and embodiment work and had some male facilitators, you know, work with me. And, you know, within 10 minutes I'm like on the floor crying like a little baby, saying, you know, touch me, hold me. And I was like, what the F is going on? Where did that come from? Um, and that just really led me in a, you know, in a path where I started just immersing myself in men's groups in the work, just for my own survival. Just like, I really want to feel better in my body. And I was a very late bloomer. I didn't have sex till I was 26 and my first relationships till my late 20s, so it was all very painful for me. Um, so I got into the work because I was just looking for a way out for myself of, you know, I gotta do something different here. And then I was pursuing a career in the creative arts and filmmaking, moved out to LA and left my first men's group when I moved. And, you know, two or three years into that, I was like, oh, this isn't going so well. I need, I, I, I need that support in my life. And so I kind of planted a flag, started one with a few friends and then just got so into it. You know, I was doing my thing, but always talking about men's work. And my men's group, people kept asking me, like, well, can I join? Like, do you have any space? And then we literally just met in a little therapist's office, so we didn't have space. And at some point I was like, well, no, but I'm gonna start leading one if you wanna, you know, drop in sometime. And that really started, you know, that was in like 2016. That was when I started to pivot to leading this stuff in addition to participating in it. It's kind of a long winded answer, but hopefully.

Host: That's great. That's, that's great. I appreciate that. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about embodiment work, because I think that's a term that we oftentimes hear but don't really understand what it means. What does embodiment, especially from the standpoint of the masculine, mean to you?

Jason Lange: Totally. So it's the ability to, in the moment, to directly connect to our felt body experience, which includes physical sensations. And in kind of the paradigm of how I work in the world, our emotions. Because our emotions actually start as physical sensations in our bodies. And one of the challenges we have as men is that pretty much for a lot of us from a very young age, we are Taught to get out of our bodies. And we are mostly rewarded for being disembodied. Oh, he's so tough. He works so hard. He can do 60 hours. He played so hard in the sports. He doesn't cry. You know, many of us raised with stop crying. Which essentially says, get out of your body. Don't trust those feelings. Override them with something else. And then, you know, the man box and the patriarchy and all these expectations of what us men are supposed to be in order to be considered a man basically involve us not feeling our bodies. And so we're rewarded in our careers in athletics, in the military, for being disconnected. So embodiment is the process of reconnecting to. To our body, to our. Which includes our heart and our sensations and our ability to just get out of our heads. You know, where a lot of us nice guys spend a lot of time ruminating.

Host: Right.

Jason Lange: To get into our bodies, which are always a lot more in the moment.

Host: Right, right. Yeah. That's what I'm always working with. My guys that I coach. You know, get out of your head, into your body, and start feeling the sensations in your body, because those sensations are telling you something. And you really. You can get a lot of information from that. You can learn a lot about yourself. And then I think one of the things that embodiment work's done for me is help me basically kind of reset my nervous system so I'm not as reactive in the moment because I'm slowing things down. I'm getting outta my head. Okay, what am I feeling in my body? What's going on with me right now?

Jason Lange: Yeah, it's so powerful to be able to come into the present moment. Right. And, like, the, you know, changes everything. We get paid more money, we are more attractive, we feel more relaxed when we have this capacity to kind of relax into our nervous system and just be present with whatever's there. And for a lot of guys I work with, Right. The challenge is we have all these feelings. We're never taught how to be with them or what to do with them or how to relate to them. So we either eject from our bodies or we try to get away from the feelings through jerking off, porn, booze, masturbation, weed, you name, you know, your addiction, whatever it is these days. But the. The idea is it takes us away from our feeling. And embodiment really is that practice of coming back in and being with it. And yeah, like you said, man, it's just a total game changer when we learn to regulate our nervous system and not need to get that regulation from outside ourselves.

Host: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's great. So what are some ways that you teach guys or coach guys of maybe some practices or what? The guy that's listening right now, who's never heard of embodiment work, what is maybe something that would help. Help him?

Jason Lange: Yeah. The. The simplest tool that everyone has access to, no matter their resource level, that I always say to start with is just the breath, right? And it's why breath work is so big these days. And in. In the men's work community, in the transformational community, is I say, you know, the breath system's really unique in our body in that most of our different systems, right? Our. Our nervous system, our circulatory system, they're. They're unconscious. They just. You're right. We're not having to think about pumping blood. It's just happening. Just boom, boom, boom. Our liver's doing its liver thing. Our pancreas is doing its pancreas thing. And you don't really have to do anything with that. Breath is so unique because it's the one system that is both. Just happens most of your day. It's just happening, and you're not thinking about it. But it's also where you can totally bring in consciousness and awareness. And so by starting with connecting to your breath in the moment. Anytime your attention is on your breath, your attention is in your body, and you are actually coming into the moment and coming into presence, as I say, because, you know, you're. You can't really think about your breath. Ten minutes ago, it's like, oh, I'm feeling my breath, so I'm right here. And that's really the process of embodiment. So I work a lot with men on just becoming aware of your breath. How shallow is it? How deep is it? How fast is it? Can you bring even more breath into the moment at just the most simple level that you can be doing in any conversation with anyone, anytime, all the way up to, you know, actual breath work practices where you're trying to kind of break some of that karmic patterning? Free breath work's a big one. Any kind of physical embodiment practice, right? It can be sports, it can be kundalini, yoga, it can be yoga, it can be qigong, tai chi. It can be going for a walk with your dog. It's just the process of bringing awareness to, can I connect to my body while I'm doing this thing, whatever that practice might be. And for a lot of us men, we tend to need pretty vigorous physical activity these days to offset how mental and computer focused and screen focused our time is. So, you know, I, I often just help guys. Like, you gotta be sweating multiple times a week. Like that's gonna do as much for you as anything else you can do in your relationships. Your career is just like, get in your body and sweat are two big ones. And then last one I'll often do with guys is just really help men slow down and start to identify and name their inner experience and their sensations in the moment by actually guiding them in often to what's emotional territory that's uncomfortable of just slowing down and noticing, oh, right before I got angry there, my belly tightened up. And if I really sit with that, I was fucking scared. Right. I was scared. And so helping men, like come right into that and so guys can start to practice that.

Host: Right.

Jason Lange: Notice the unconscious reactions in the body. Sweat a couple times a week and then become very aware of your breath. And if you're doing that, you are more conscious than like 98% of men on the planet.

Host: Right, right, right. Yeah. I often say, like, guys will have three emotions. Hungry, angry, horny, you know, and, you know, that's sort of the, the gamut of our, our emotions. And what we want to do is sort of broaden that and ask ourselves, you know, what's going on under this, you know, what's, what's under the anger? What's happening in my life that's causing me to feel this particular way, especially when it comes to, you know, being impulsive. I think one of the things that I, A lot of the nice guys I work with are impulsive, you know, and that impulsive behavior is just a reaction to an unconscious mind who isn't creating awareness in the moment. So I think that's, that's a big one for me, is helping me with my impulse control, you know, so not like on Amazon, buying something that, you know, one o' clock in the morning that I don't.

Jason Lange: Totally. Yeah, it's great to. Yeah, right. What is, what is that reaching outward for something. What are we really trying to avoid? Oftentimes underneath, oh, I feel a little lonely right now, or I feel scared that, you know, this new financial endeavor's not going well, or in a fight with my partner and it doesn't feel so good. So we reach outside ourselves to try to change that. Absolutely.

Host: Yeah. So how does that work with the, the men that you work with in, in terms of groups?

Jason Lange: Yeah, so I work a lot with men. One on One. But I'll tell you, Chuck, like, my sweet spot, my favorite spot to be is in the group. Just the. The potency of how fast transformation can happen and how, you know, as humans, we're. We're wired, right, to live in community, and we have mirror neurons. And this thing that I often say is, you know, what's so hard for a lot of us guys these days, particularly nice guys, is, you know, we grew up seeing the kind of macho jerk, the guy who is totally impulsive with his anger or takes advantage of women or just is an asshole, you know, frankly. Yeah, we see that, and we're like, I don't want to be that. And so we swing totally to the other side of the pendulum, right? If I want to be safe, I want to be sensitive. I want to be attuned. And then often we end up suffering and resentment and over commitments and not getting what we want. And so a lot of men see these two choices, and they're like, well, what am I supposed to do? What? You know, that doesn't work. That doesn't work. And what I love about men's group is it. It's a place where men can get an embodied, direct experience of what else is possible by often seeing other men.

Host: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Holding that energy of, wow, there's a man right now I'm with, and he's in his tears. He's fully in touch with his grief, and I still feel his power. He's not collapsed, he's not posturing. He's not defending. He's grounded. He's open. He's very connected to himself. Or same thing with anger, right? Wow. You know, anger was scary for me growing up. All I saw was explosive. But here's a man that's fierce. I can feel his protectors right here, and I can feel his heart, and I actually feel safe with his anger. Right.

Host: The.

Jason Lange: The power of group work is we. We get these embodied transmissions from other men. And as men, we can kind of call forth the best of each other. You know, it's. I like to say, in terms of sharpening each other. And, you know, one thing I'm more and more convinced about men's group is really what we get to do is guide each other even deeper into our direct experience in the moment other men can say, hey, I noticed you're saying that. And you kind of have a smile on your face. Like, what's going on with that? And you're like, oh, fuck, I wear this perma smile with me all the time. Even though I'M pissed off. And so a man's reflected something to us, and we get to experience ourselves in a different way. And then we get to maybe share that thing again, but without the smile. And we're like, fuck.

Host: Wow.

Jason Lange: That felt so much more vulnerable. I'm pissed about this. Pissed with my partner. So, men, we can really guide each other into our bodies to get clear about what we want and what we need and then through. But I find that the really safe place to do that. And then we bring the clarity of that back out into the world, into our relationships, into our jobs, into our families. Oh, here's what I need. It's a game changer when we. When we have that space.

Host: Yeah. Yeah. I found for myself that at the. At the beginning of doing some embodiment. Embodiment work, I was really resistant to the idea. You know, see these guys, like, you know, crying and weeping, and I'm like, oh, geez, I don't want to do that. That's. That's, like the opposite of what I want right now. And, you know, but once you break through that into just allowing yourself to experience it and be held in the safety with other men, it's really, really powerful. And I think that part of this process of the embodiment work is. Is learning to be vulnerable, specifically with other men. Because, like you said, my experience, at least growing up was, you know, men are dangerous men, you know, was taught essentially, don't be like other men. You know, be soft, be kind, be gentle, be nice. And so I spent the majority of my life trying to not be like other men. Instead, I was really connected with the feminine. And. And so doing this work in the beginning was really difficult, to kind of break through that embarrassment. Did you find any of that for yourself when you were starting this? Did it come naturally or were you able to.

Jason Lange: Huge edge for me in that. What was interesting was I've actually always been pretty lucky that I at least had, like, a little cohort of men around me. Even going back to, like, really mid high school, I. I found some nerds that I connected with, and we'd sit around a fire sometimes, and it was the closest thing. We didn't know what we were doing, but there was, like, a need. Um, but I was. You know, my edge was I was never the guy that, like, horseplayed, that had, like, the wrestling energy, that kind of mucking around with each other. And it was so edgy for me to start to get into men's environments and actually, like, touch and play with other Men like wrestle a little bit. It just was not installed in my nervous system from when I was young. And so doing that felt like super awkward most of the time when I first started doing it. I'm way more comfortable with it now. But there's just like, I just noticed that it's never the place my nervous system goes to by default. I can consciously go there by now, but it, it's. I'm always a little more withdrawn and then just in terms of, you know, opening to my body and my emotions. I mean, I've been doing this stuff 20 years and I still will be able to catch myself avoiding the ceiling or resisting, you know, going towards a grief or a frustration or, or something. And then spending such days, weeks and honestly, jug, sometimes months worth of energy to not have to feel something. And then I finally, through a men's group or through working with a co therapist, go there and I'm like, right, I just learned the same lesson again. I just spent three months avoiding that and it actually took two minutes to feel it in my body, right. And I wasted all that energy, created all that anxiety. So, you know, it's still a process for me to, to, to keep trusting that space again of, okay, just go right towards the feeling open, trust the men I'm with. And on the other side, I always feel more vital, more energized, more spacious, and more able to like, handle my life.

Host: That's why I like calling this a practice. You know, it's something that you, you practice. The more you practice, the better you get at it. Hopefully, like the times in between, you know, don't last quite as long and you've got some tools to be able to process through these emotions that get stuck inside of us, to be able to, like you said, embody them, process through them with a coach or a group and really a pretty short period of time and then move on. Which I think is also the magic of the men's work, the embodiment work and, and being in group with safe guys.

Jason Lange: Totally. There's a, there's a, you know, this gets a lot of the male mind excited, but there's an efficiency to it, right? It's like, oh yeah, like I can go in and I can really handle this in a way where it doesn't have to be something I'm, I'm walking with every day for the rest of my life. It's like I can go in and be with these emotions, get into my body, get connected to my, my power, my needs, rewards, my desires, then When I come back out of that, my behavior actually changes. Right. It's not a theoretical. I read a book. It's really good podcast. Now I understand my mom did this and I do this and that's why that. But the embodiment stuff I love is our nervous system has to go somewhere new, and then it becomes more able to respond consciously back. Right back in the world, back in the moment, like you said.

Host: Yeah, yeah. And one of the things I. I know about you is you do a lot of work with shadow work. So give me again, the guys listening doesn't actually have a. Any idea what shadow is or shadow work is. What's your interpretation of that? And how does that relate to the embodiment practice? And especially in group work, it's so great.

Jason Lange: Cause I've been, you know, I've been pretty heavy in the shadow work again the last couple years. And I'm. It's really interesting because I'm seeing, particularly with nice guys, how it can sometimes show up that, you know, there's a way we can attack nice guy syndrome just from a more cognitive place of, like I said, understanding. Oh, the boundaries. I have a hard time speaking up. But what I like about shadow work is it often, as I'm starting to say, I might. I might be creating a piece around this. It's. It like helps us get to the origin story, you know, kind of like the. The superhero story of what hard thing happened that created this whole productive mechanism in me and for shadow work. So really the idea of shadow work is anytime we have an emotional experience, right? Many people say this now, I'm not the first, but. Right. Emotion, energy in motion. Emotion is a meant to move through us. Like, literally, emotions are a biochemical response to the environment that are meant to prompt some kind of action, some kind of feeling, breathing, anger, boundaries, you know, leaving the space, whatever, for whatever reason, anytime that process is interrupted. Meaning it wasn't safe to feel that or to take that action or we had to stop ourselves. It doesn't go anywhere. It gets stuck in our bodies and we actually hold it in our tissues. Like, there's more and more research. Specifically, it seems like the fascia, which is, you know, this whole system in our body actually stores a lot of this emotional material. And as we store these emotions, like, they become little energetic kinks inside of us, right. Of unfelt feelings from a previous time. And the ramifications of that, Chuck, that I've been with a new metaphor I've been playing with is it's like, you Know, I live here in California, right, Where there's this crisis of forest fires. Cause there's literally a hundred years of dead wood built up on the forest floor. Unprocessed emotional material is like that. It's kindling that we never work through. It's material that never burned. So what happens is maybe I'm out in the world, someone cuts me off in traffic or is kind of ass at the bank. At the bank in what would normally be a little spark of anger. Like, ah, that kind of was really rude. That little spark ignites this whole buildup of unprocessed kindling. And suddenly I'm in a rage about this thing that's not often directly correlated to the actual moment, right? And so I'm layering all of my own processed material from the past onto the present, right? And so it explodes. It's like this pocket of energy. Shadow work is the. The process of starting to identify and actually bring forward that unprocessed material that, whether we know it or not, is often changing our behavior in the moment. Like for a lot of guys I work with, you know, you probably have heard this. I don't know why I keep doing this. Girlfriend says this, I know I should do something else, and I react this way, or it's the end of the day and I reach for the porn and I know it's not good. Why do I keep doing this? That is often a huge clue. There's some kind of unprocessed, unconscious shadow material meaning something that's impacting our nervous system and our choices that we can't see. You know, that we call it shadow because if you imagine the shadows behind me, every time I turn to look at, I'm like, what? But when we're in men's group or working with a coach like you, often we can see it, right? The other person's like, hey, you notice that thing right behind you? And you're like, what are you talking about? But then once we see comes into our consciousness and we can start to relate to that part of ourselves and instead of it running the show, we get to work with it. So that shadow work is often bringing forward these, as I say, processes that got interrupted often in our early childhood, but really in any formative moment and allowing them to move through our body to completion. And where the embodiment piece is so important is oftentimes it's not just a cognitive thing, right? We actually have to move our bodies. As I say these these days to my guys, you know, the three kind of Pillars of embodiment are breath, movement and sound.

Host: Right.

Jason Lange: Breath, movement and sound. And so embodiment often happens when you're, you're breathing deeply, you're moving your body and there's some kind of sound in what I find works best because a lot of shadow work is early trauma material is no words, just sounds.

Host: Right.

Jason Lange: When we're two years old, we don't know how to say, I'm pissed at you, I wanted the ice cream and you won't give it to me. It's just.

Host: Right.

Jason Lange: That's what the little been great. I'm raising a four year old and.

Host: Right.

Jason Lange: I'm getting to see like developmentally of like. Yeah. How useful it is of oh well, what, what would a three year old say? And that's often what we have to embody is what. Right. Three year olds only have their body. They don't have the whole frontal cortex and cognitive thing. So it's that process of bringing that energy through our body in a very safe container. So I particularly like to do it with other that something gets released in that material that was running us, now becomes available energy for us to put towards the things we want in our lives. Because anytime we've stopped a process, we've had to hold an immersion. There's an actual muscular to it. Right. Our body physically holds onto it in some way. Right. If you imagine you're deep in tears and someone's like, stop crying.

Host: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Your body stop breathing, you tighten up and that doesn't go away. So every day, everything we're doing, every meditation session, every time we approach a woman, there's a little bit of that tightening. That holding the shadow work helps us liberate that and reclaim that energy to be available in the moment.

Host: Yeah, yeah, I like that. And works really well with even like the, the neurobiology of our bodies. Because I think as you know, when we're younger, especially when we're younger, you know, we're constantly taking in information, you know, it's, it's being stored in, in our memory and the amygdala, you know, the part of the brain that's always searching for like, am I safe? Am I not safe? Right. And it says when this happened last time, okay, what happened? Okay, we shut down, you know, we closed off and that must have worked because we're alive. So just let's do the same thing that we did when we were five years old, right. And then as the more the human thoughtful, executive functioning brain you can look at and you go, that wasn't helpful because I didn't, you know, wasn't able to process through it. I wasn't able to have a conversation. Nothing changed in my life. And, and why, like, the embodiment work is allowing us to feel that, process it all the way through, like you were saying, and then rewrite the script so that the next time I'm confronted with something, the amygdala, instead of saying, this is how we responded when we were 3, 4, 5, this is how we responded as an adult. And this worked. So I think it's a really important piece of just kind of understanding yourself as well.

Jason Lange: And then we have more choice in how we want to respond in the moment. Right. We're able to move from that unconscious reaction to that conscious ability to respond. And I love what you just shared. That piece I did once that was like, in what I see and why I'm kind of like now into the origin stories of nice guys in a lot of ways is so just the simple idea of, you know, what protected us when we were young becomes the barrier to what we weren't as adults. So something happens. We put on the Iron man suit of armor to protect ourselves or have an adaptive strategy to our family system. And it worked, right? Because it did.

Host: Yeah.

Jason Lange: And often helps us.

Host: We're survived.

Jason Lange: Yeah, exactly. Survive that system. But then we're out in the world as adults, and it's actually preventing that next level of connection from happening. So we have to just very delicately and with honor, like, start to unwind that, that, that process of, wow, that was maybe the right choice then, but it's no longer sufficient for what I want now.

Host: Yeah, yeah, that's, yeah, just spot on and key. I love that. So, Jason, where can people find you? What, what, what kind of stuff are you doing? Where, where guys who are listening to this and either connect with you or. I know you've got a podcast. I know you've got a couple different programs. Where can people find more about you?

Jason Lange: Totally. Best way to stay up to date on me and everything I'm up to [email protected] so it's.men not.com and on there you can see podcasts. I, I, I run blogs. I do. I have a coaching program I run with a woman kind of about dating and relationships. A lot of nice guys do. I run a, specifically a shadow work men's group twice a year that involves a, a live retreat and is really the, the deepest offering I have at this point where we just go right to the heart, whatever that painful origin story is for each man. And then I do a Labor Day retreat as well for just kind of embodiment practices. That's super fun. So that's all on my website. You know, you can come check it out, do none of it or just hang out and, you know, soak up the vibes.

Host: For sure. Yeah. I'll put a link in the description to your website as well. So I just want to say thanks for coming on. This has been really, really good. I think this is going to help a lot of guys, especially guys who are maybe new to men's work and, and this kind of thing, to kind of get a better grasp of like what's embodiment work, what's shadow work. So I really appreciate your expertise and sharing that on, on this. My pleasure.

Jason Lange: Thanks for all the work you do for men. You're a huge advocate. Really, really thankful to know another brother like you on the journey. And let's do it again sometime.

Host: Yeah, we will. We will. If you liked today's episode, be sure to give it a thumbs up if you're watching it on YouTube, please, like subscribe. If you're listening to it on one of your favorite podcast platforms, be sure to give us a five star review. It's a that you can help other men who are looking for help. Also, be sure to check out the interview I did a while back with Travis Schreib on the art of dying complete. How to make sure you leave this planet in a little bit better condition than you found it. I'll put a link down below. You've been listening to the Nice Guy Recovery podcast with your host, Chuck Chapman. If you're looking to take your Nice Guy recovery deeper, be sure to check out www.chuckchapman.com to find out how you and I can squash your Nice Guy behaviors once and for all.