Just Fighting loneliness with Jason Lange | Just INwords

Host: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Justin words. It's the triple entendre. Find the joke. So throughout human history, we've been through a lot of pandemics. Recently, we've been through one, you know, the COVID 19 pandemic. It kind of us up in more ways than one. Now we're kind of going through another epidemic, as you would call. And that would be the loneliness epidemic. I think it would be. I think it's kind of a byproduct of what happened after the isolation of COVID But lucky for me, I'm not alone on this. I have my guest with me who's going to talk more about that. Jason, the floor is all yours.

Jason Lange: Yeah. Hey. I'm so excited to be here and appreciate everything you do on this show. And so, yeah, I'm a men's coach and group facilitator. So I work with men on just, you know, growing and changing their lives so they can feel more fulfilled and more alive and more connected, and is a big part of that. A large part of what I do is connect men to other men. And so I work with a lot of guys over of all kinds of ages and backgrounds, and there's definitely a theme of incredible amounts of isolation and loneliness that are really, really taking a toll, I think, particularly on men. You know, there's lots of research out there, but in general, women tend to be a little bit more relational and just kind of naturally gravitate towards having relationships and staying in touch with friends and family and colleagues and whatnot. Men, if we're not careful, we can tend to socially isolate, or a lot of us kind of fall for the trap we're fed in our culture of having to be the lone wolf, you know, the tough, rugged cowboy here, here in the states is kind of something we're fed is like the ideal. And the truth is that has a tremendous cost. And this tendency of men to isolate in some ways is then being intensified by everything you just spoke about. So we're just, you know, kind of in the midst slash, end of this ongoing COVID pandemic that led to tremendous amounts of isolation and the lockdowns and people having to socially distance, which took the few structures a lot of men did have and removed those. And then it tended to shift for some people, not all people, but shift their work to more work from home, you know, being able to work remotely out of the office. And then that's all in the context. You know, obviously it's different in different places around the world, but here, you know, where I am. Particularly in the States. A lot of the social structures that used to kind of give men somewhere to hang out are kind of falling apart, right? Like churches, social clubs, work, like I said. And so the consequence is there's a lot of men who don't have a lot of connections these days. You know, some of the reporting is that, you know, since 1984, it's, it's basically the number of people that say there's no one they can discuss important things with in their life tripled. And there's tons of stories in research that also show that, you know, over the age of like 30 in particular, men have a much harder time making new friendships and relationships. And why this is all important. And then, then I'll take a pause here is we are, as humans, we are social, relational creatures. We are actually wired to be in community. And we actually have something called the vagal nerve, right, which is this bundle of nerves that go right from the base of our, our brain and our spine all the way down through our body. And that collection of nerves is kind of what helps us regulate our body. So basically how we send our body the signal. It's okay, you're safe, you can relax, you're not under threat. And that vagal nerve is deeply entwined with social relating. So it actually links into our facial expressions and how we hear and see other people. And so when we don't have face to face connection, it's one of the things that contributes to our bodies being constantly in this state of high stress, fight or flight threat. And the research around that is. So this thing, this loneliness, this isolation, they have found to be as dangerous as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day as being morbidly obese. Like, it actually lowers life expectancy by a pretty significant amount. So when I, when we say there's an epidemic, like you mentioned, it's, it's a real thing. It doesn't, it's not just like, oh, I feel lonely. It's. It has an impact on people's livelihood.

Host: Oh, no, no, I'm not, I'm not. I do agree with everything you said. And then there's a couple things I want to touch upon. What, what, what you were saying. But I actually have a couple friends who admit that, like, men feel lonely. And I've seen it all over, like, all over the Internet. I've seen it in a lot of places, a lot of research, and I wanted to let you know, I want to ask you, do you think it's those mentalities that you mentioned? Lone wolf sigma, let's say the alpha male, quote unquote, so to speak. Or even the mentality in the States, that lonely cowboy. Do you think those things contribute to men not necessarily wanting to be lonely, but feel that they have to in order to feel like macho, for example?

Jason Lange: I think yes, 100%. I think, you know, there's a term we kind of usually use to categorize all those pressures that that man feel. It's called the man box. And it's this idea that to be a man, there's certain attributes you have to embody and you have to get squished into this box. And, you know, there's some cultural variation around the world, but there's some pretty universal truths to that. And one of them is, yeah, like, be tough, never show weakness. Other men are competition. They're not allies. Right. So a lot of men mostly experience other men as threat or as competition, and that weaves into this as well. And, you know, how many men first experience relating to other men, you know, let's say outside of childhood is through what I call triangulation, which is even when we're connecting, we're connecting by having our attention on a third thing. So you and I want to hang out, but we're watching a game or we're playing a sport or we're talking about cars. So our connection actually comes through this link of this third thing. And the trick with that, it's not that there's not a time and place with that, but you can be doing that and still feel quite lonely even if you're around people. Right. You can be around people but not feel connected to them. And for a lot of men, they only know how to relate through triangulation or have been modeled that or their experiences around other men were often not great. It's kind of that locker room. Who's the tough guy? The bravado, the machismo, the making funny if you show weakness or any kind of vulnerability. So men learn to kind of pull inside themselves so they won't be, you know, a threat or attacked by other men. And then that continues to spill over here. So, yeah, I think there's, you know, this is. You know, this is a loaded word. And we talk about it a lot, the patriarchy. Right. But it's just as damaging to men, this idea that a man has to be this, and if he's not, he's considered less of a man.

Host: Well, yeah, that. That makes sense. And there's a couple things you mentioned, like locker room talk. And all this and that it's funny because I know within my group of friends or even with like in any group of friends, there's only, there's always going to be that one guy who everyone picks on, but not necessarily to bully him, but like to make him stronger, to like get him to fight back or something. Do you think that's contributing to somewhat what we call like toxic masculinity or something? Or is that part of character development?

Jason Lange: I think that generally damages most men, then it supports them. So I, I do work, I work with a huge range of men. I've worked with a lot of men who have experienced that type of bullying from either peers or honestly in their families, from fathers, brothers, etc, and it does some pretty deep damage that takes a long time to unwind. Oftentimes there's, this is not about like treating each other soft or as victims. Right. I'm not advocating that, but there's a huge difference between like kind of knocking someone when they're feeling a little down and saying like, hey man, I see you're feeling really stuck or what you did right there, that wasn't cool, man. Like, I know you're better than that. Let's, let's figure this out, right? Where it's like, we're allies in this. I want you to be the best version of yourself. But that often doesn't come necessarily from the poking or prodding. It can come from accountability. So like inviting someone in to a challenge in their life and then helping to hold them accountable, I see that's a lot more effective for men long term than, than, than essentially shaming them. Like, you should be doing better than this. Da, da, da. It's more like, hey, I know you want to do better and I want to help you in that for sure.

Host: Sure. I think like constructive criticism always goes a longer way than just shaming someone for doing the wrong things. I read somewhere that when it comes to men friendships, and you mentioned the triangulation effect, they're always bonding through something, whereas women tend to just bond with each other. I also looked about, I, I also remember looking at men have like multiple friends that they do that they see at like different events like the gym, the church, let's say swimming or soccer, whatever activities you partake in. And those create those groups that they could then see the next time, like, hey, I'll see you next week, or I'll see you in two weeks, I'll see you tomorrow, whatever. And so do you think it would be better to have a smaller Group of friends to not have to relate or not to have to rely on an external factor, or how would you go about trying to eliminate that third factor? So you don't always look for something to do.

Host: All right, all right. That actually makes sense. And now that we. You mentioned the social box a couple times or the man box, and I want to know, do you think social media plays a part in men's loneliness? It's.

Jason Lange: Yeah, it's just accelerating and making it even more damaging in a lot of ways. It further accentuates the man box.

Host: Right.

Jason Lange: You go on something like instagram or social media. And just like in the way it distorts things for women, it often distorts things for men that, wow, men are supposed to look like this, right? We're all supposed to be cut and buff and working out 10 times a week. And like some of the influencers, not everybody looks like that. That creates pressure for men that, oh, I have to be doing that or I have to be earning a certain amount of money to be valuable or I have to have a certain amount of followers to be valuable in my life. Right. There's a whole generation of kids that are growing up like that. They're, you know, they've done research studies. It's like kids aren't saying like, I want to be a doctor or a lawyer or a policeman anymore. They're saying I want to be a YouTube influencer. Right. That's where the like cultural weight has gone. So we have that distorting things and then we also just have the fact that it actually contributes to the loneliness a lot of times. Because social media, more often than not, it's not that it's impossible, particularly in things like podcasts where it can be the positive version of this, but in social media it's often like empty calories of connection. It feels like we're connecting with people, but we're not actually getting anything nutritious out of that. And so people are left kind of feeling lonely and devoid, even though they're constantly like connecting, so to speak. It's not the same as that face to face, eye contact, attunement and connection that doesn't even have to be in person. Right. You and I are getting to experience it right now virtually. We're like right here with each other. And that does something that does something very different than I'm just seeing clips of you or reading your posts online. Here we can actually build some intimacy with each other and get to know each other. And that can be a positive. You know it. I still think the face to face in person is the like strongest dose of medicine. But the virtual there, it can be a positive if you use it in the right way.

Host: Well, no, I've heard someone say that if you have a great online connection, you get offline as quick as possible. However, I don't know how it's going to work on, on the computer, if you get my drift. Yeah, but when you talk about anti calories and online relationships, I do find it interesting because we have. You're going to look on social media and see a lot of people exp. Desp. Almost being desperate of the fact that they're lonely. They're looking for this, looking for that. Now hypothetically, if you were to contact them or see them in the street and ask them, hey, yo, you want to do something there? Is it just me or they won't want to talk about. Because it's almost as if social media became a place to vent. But then after that it's like don't talk to me. Whereas you wanted to talk about it, which is why you went to social media and not talk to me in person. Yeah.

Jason Lange: Well, I think another lens on this is for some people, social media is safer than actual interpersonal connecting and relating. Because right. When you think about social media generally it's one way communication. So I'm putting it out and then yeah, people can comment and whatnot, but it's very easy to not respond to that or ignore that. So it's a way to kind of put yourself out there but not have to get receive necessarily in the same way. And connecting in person.

Host: Right.

Jason Lange: Takes something more. Right. Because you never know how the person's going to respond. Right. It might be positive, might be negative, there might be challenges, there might be friction between us, but it's part of being human. Right. Learning to connect with people who don't exactly think and feel the same way as us all the time. Which social media tends to create those bubbles where we follow people who reflect how we think and feel. And then it just, you know, gets more and more intense where we get into these filter bubbles. Whereas in the real world you start connecting with people, you're like, oh wow. There's a lot of people who feel and experience the world a lot differently than me. And I think that muscle of, you know, connecting in real life, it is something that is atrophying in our, in the world. Right. People aren't as comfortable doing it and we need to practice it. And there's more and more work, you know, in things like men's groups that I lead of. Do you actually practice getting connected, being face to face with people again and learning to, to really be with each other.

Host: So if we step out of social media for a minute and just take the first part of it, which is society, what are some of the societal pressures that perhaps make men want to rebel against society and go through all those mental gymnastics you talked about, like the lonely, the lonely wolf and things like that?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean the pressure is, in a lot of ways it's what we decide as a society. A man has to be to be a man. Right. There's this kind of loose cultural decision we've made that, you know, thankfully is starting to change, but it's still pretty deep. And it's definitely deeper in some groups and countries and populations than others.

Host: But. Whoa.

Jason Lange: So men, men want to feel like they're successful, right? They want to feel like they're winning and achieving and moving towards something in life. And so the only script a lot of men are given is this kind of idea of the tough lone wolf in the man box that does whatever it takes to achieve and often in the process actually hurts his body. Right. In a lot of places in the world, men are rewarded for being disembodied. So being disconnected from our bodies. Right. He works really hard, he's really tough, he keeps going no matter what. Men who are sent to war, men who are elite athletes, oftentimes the cost of that is the well being of our bodies. Right? That is something that men's bodies in their own way have been disposable on the planet most of the time, right? It's we send off the boys to war. It's the men that do a lot of the dangerous jobs in many cultures that people die from, like, that are toxic or chemical or whatnot. And so there's this pressure to succeed by not being in your body as a man kind of globally in a lot of ways that we're really, I think, waking up to, hey, we need to change this. It's not that, you know, um, men have it harder than women. We just have different challenges per se. And one of them is that, yeah, we're rewarded for not being in our bodies. And then when we're not in our bodies, it's harder to connect. And when it's harder to connect, we feel lonely. And that leads to all the consequences we've been talking about.

Host: True, true. Now if, let's say two people have the same problem, actually, matter of fact, what are some of the things you teach in your courses for men to break down that barrier and help them reach out to other lonely men?

Jason Lange: Yeah. For one is the experience of feeling safe with other men. Just that, hey, we can create a way to connect here where you can actually be yourself and not be shamed or made fun of for revealing your truth. And in the work I lead, I actually teach that, you know, real strength comes from vulnerability. It comes from the willingness to put yourself out there even when it's scary or share something, even when it's scary or feel something, even when it's challenging you know, I often say to the kind of more typical guy, you know, who's more afraid, the man who's willing to feel his emotions or the man who's scared to. And a lot of men are scared to feel their emotions in their body because they think it's going to look weak or they'll feel overwhelmed by grief or sadness or anger. And so what I help do is create a culture where we reformat that. We say, hey, real men feel everything. We are deeply open to the world and feeling the challenges in ourself and in it, and that takes real strength, but it makes us available to impact the world in different ways. So it's, you know, this process of. It's something men have to unlearn. And, you know, it takes a little bit of filtering. Like, I can't necessarily just take every man off the street and make them drop right into this. You kind of have to be ready at a certain point to, like, take some risks. And some men who have had some wounding from other men takes a little longer for them to build trust with guys. But this is why I tend to focus on getting men into men's groups where over time, you can reformat and kind of build these relationships with other men and have this realization, wow, there's actually a way to be in the world where men are my allies. They're not my competition.

Host: Good point, good point. Now, I don't know if you. I'm actually. I'm actually writing a book called Sports Psychology. And it's where I take the rules and gameplay of sports and attribute it to real life, not real life, psychological, like, ideas. And one thing I've known, one thing I know is that it's a. It's a martial art. It's kung fu, actually. Kung fu apparently is using your opponent's force against them, right? They. They put something out and you return it on them. And so if, let's say, men are gonna vocalize how they feel to either other men or other women, do you think the. The thing that they fear is them using that against them? Maybe that's why they open up.

Jason Lange: Sure, sometimes people will use it against you. Right. So part of the delicacy of this process is you have to find the right people who are ready to be real and be deep and that you can trust. But the trick is we often don't know who that is until we've tried. So that's what makes this leading with vulnerability thing so important. And where men can really start to lead the way is don't wait, go first. Right. So if you're meeting up with a buddy, sit down, slow things down. Like, hey, man, I'm wondering, like, what's really going on with you in your life? What's hard right now? What feels good right now? Where do you get. Where do you feel lonely? Right. And you can. Here's where I do. Right. You can kind of go first and then you can ask them and. And see if they meet you in that. But the truth is, yeah, some people, you know, will use it against you, and you have to be careful and then. But in that process, you're going to learn.

Host: Wow.

Jason Lange: I probably don't want to continue being in relationship with this person. I'd rather invest myself in people that are going to support me.

Host: Fair enough. Fair enough. Now, what are some of the things that you either, you know or you've seen that women do that men don't that help them connect more deeply?

Jason Lange: Yeah. A lot of times women just, whether it's biology or cultural, they're more comfortable expressing their emotions, and they're more likely to connect just to relate to female friends, to stay in touch. Right. How's it going for you? Oh, it's going well. Oh, I'm feeling this or I'm feeling that. There's. There are a lot more. Oftentimes they're a lot more comfortable just revealing themselves and frankly, taking care of themselves. Asking for help. Right. A lot of women are a lot more comfortable just asking for help. Like, hey, I had a really hard day. Would you mind chatting for a couple minutes? Some men, where I work with men, they will pay me to be their coach, and they still won't reach out when they're having a really hard time. Right. I'm like, you're literally paying me for this. And still, that programming can be so deeply ingrained in us to not reach out, to not show when we're struggling, to just kind of hide or pretend like it's otherwise. So I think there's a. There's a lot of factors there. But, yeah, for. For many women, they're just kind of raised in a way that's more relational. And, you know, even something like texting, you know, I. I see, you know, my wife and me, we text very differently. Right. She's kind of like got a continuous flow with certain friends going on, whereas I'll, you know, even though I do this stuff, oftentimes I'm just contacting someone if I need to organize something or like, you know, occasionally I'll ask them what's Up. But I get a lot of those needs met from my men's groups and so some of these are just, you know, habits we have to unlearn as men.

Host: No, no, I do agree and lucky for me, actually I have, I actually have a couple friends who have been friends with for over a decade and there's actually two people in particular. One of them actually I, I hope they both listen to this episode because I, I give them a shout out actually. So both of them I met in elementary school. One of them, we've been friends like ever since we were like five, six years old. The other person, we were friends at the same time. However, he left for another school. I never really got talk to him. However, we met back again at a pool and we've been talking ever since. Point being is that sometimes, like you said, connection can be hard and we don't really keep, we can't keep in contact all the time. But it's interesting because if we didn't. No, it's interesting because sometimes you don't necessarily need to keep in contact all the time, but you can't let too much time pass by or else it's just going to disappear, right?

Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah, there's a dance there, right? I mean, when you've created a certain depth of connection with certain friends, I think it does build some resilience in that relationship. Meaning you can dip in out of kind of day to day connection and just come back to it. It's like, wow. It's like, you know, we never left, you know, certain friends that you go through or deals with or spend a lot of time with. And so it's easy to kind of reconnect there. But there is also something to, you know, when it's been so long, you've just missed so much of each other's lives, it's kind of impossible to catch up on it. All right. There's just like, there's so much. I don't even know where to start.

Host: Right.

Jason Lange: If you haven't seen a friend in a while. So, you know, there was a big story. I can't remember the name right now, but I think it was maybe last year. It was a great New York Times article about the power of the 7 minute phone call that sometimes people are afraid to reach out to people because like, oh, we have so much to catch up on. It's going to be like, you know, an hour talk and I don't have time for an hour to catch up with all my friends. But that, yeah, even just a seven Minute phone call with someone you have affinity with that you want to keep the relationship alive, you can actually really do a lot to rejuvenate that and keep the energy going in those short times. And particularly then, if you focus on, you know, really connecting as deeply as possible. Right. It's easy to kind of just stay in the surface level of things. How's your day? Da da da, da da. But you can, in seven minutes, you can actually go really deep. Like, what's been the hardest thing you've experienced in the last year?

Host: Right.

Jason Lange: And you each take two minutes answering that, and that's going to have a very different quality of connection to it than just the kind of surface level stuff we often stay with. So there's tools where we can bring more depth to the connections we have, no matter how much time we're spending with that person. And that's really powerful.

Host: Okay. Okay. In that same book of sports psychology I was mentioning earlier, I do actually have a swimming chapter. And it's funny that you mentioned deep because, like, water could be deep and like, staying on the surface where you could float, you probably have more control over the. You have more control over the conversation, but the deeper you go, the less more control you have. At some point, you literally can't touch the floor, so you have to swim in order to navigate the conversation. But I want to know, in your opinion, how do we not maybe. How do we stop this epidemic?

Jason Lange: Yeah. Well, you know, my particular medicine that I feel and part of my mission is that I think every man should be in a men's group, right? An intentional group of five to 10 other men you meet with semi regularly, once, twice a month, if not more, where the practice is, we're going to get together and we're going to get real and talk about what's most important in our lives. And it doesn't take much. You know, I've been in one for. I've been in groups for, you know, 20 years, and my most consistent ones just we meet every other Monday for two hours, eight of us, and it's changed my life. And it was tremendously helpful for me during the pandemic because I was able to keep those connections alive. You know, we met online for a little bit and then we met in backyards. But there was a consistency to us connecting with each other. So I didn't feel nearly as impacted as some people did and some people in my communities. And that I know because I had regularity, right? I had that keep going. And even outside of a pandemic you know, I'm a, I'm a father, I'm a, a business owner, I'm married. Like, life gets busy. It's hard to keep up with lots of friends. But I know every two weeks I'm going to see the men most important to me in my life and get really real with them. And that is tremendously valuable to me and efficient. So men getting into these intentional men's groups I think is one of the most powerful ways that we can kind of rewrite the narrative on this loneliness epidemic.

Host: I agree, I agree. Now, for those who, let's say those who don't necessarily have like the money to spend on a men's group or therapy whatnot, and have like a decent circle of friends that they hang out with once every, I guess, week or whatever, how could we shift the narrative from that so called locker room talk or those very superficial conversations to get real with those boys that you so care about?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I, I think that's a great, a great frame there. And part of why I'm so passionate about men's groups is, yes, there's ways to join guided ones with like a facilitator like me or a program. But the real power of men's groups is they can be decentralized. All you need to start a men's group is you and two other men. And you make the conscious decision that, hey, at a certain time and place we're going to meet up. And the intention behind that is to get real with each other about our lives. So we're not going to just float into the surface of complaining about things or what's going on in culture, what the latest sports game was. But we're each going to have a little bit of time to share what's most important in our lives right now, where we're feeling challenged, where we need support. And it doesn't take much more than that, right? Other than the intention, putting the intention out there with at least two other guys and then meeting regularly and continuing to build that intimacy with each other so you don't, you know, there's lots of ways and techniques you can, you can learn to deepen that. Like some of the connection techniques like I talked about of just a sentence stem, like, what's the hardest thing that's happened to you in this last two months? Right. That's going to create more connection than some of the more generic things we float to. So it's really just feel into your, your social group, feel into what two men you think might be most open to this or a couple men. And then you ask them. You make the invitation. That's where each man gets to be a leader here of, hey, here's what I'm thinking. Here's what I'd love to do. I'd love to invite you to, to join me in this and let's try it out, right? You can just give it a whirl once and see how did that feel for the group? A lot of times, once men experience a space like this, they're like, yeah, that was really useful for me. I want to do it again. And they'll start to prioritize that in their schedule of like, yeah, I want to. I want to meet every other week. Or some men meet every week. So you, you can start a men's group, you know, just by setting a time and place and an intention.

Host: I have a great intention right now, and that is going to be to tell you you've been a great guest on the show. And I'm, I'm going to just say that I've enjoyed talking to you and, yeah, you've been great. So thank you. Thanks for having a good time.

Jason Lange: Yeah, it's been a total pleasure to be here. What a cool show. And thanks so much for being such a good interviewer.

Host: Hey, everyone. So glad that you made it to the end of the episode. Now, on whatever streaming platform you get your podcasts, don't forget to rate and share the episodes. If you're on Spotify, you could do the same thing. But also, don't forget to answer the poll of the episode, which is at the bottom if you scroll down. And as psychologist Tim Larry once said, turn on, tune in, drop out. That means whenever my podcast drops, turn on your favorite streaming platform, tune in to Justin ws, and when the episode is done, drop out. Hope to hear from you next time.