Men’s Mental Health Redefined | Health Fact

Host (Health Fact): Hi everyone. Welcome to Health Fact Podcast. My name is Wale and today's guest is Jason. Jason is a passionate advocate for men's work and personal growth. After years of struggling with loneliness, disconnection and relationship, Jason found transformation through men's group and now is on a mission to help men redefine what it means to show up, connect and live with purpose. The first question on the list here is, what first led you into men's work in your 20s?

Jason Lange: Yeah, absolutely. I got into men's work in my 20s because it was the work I needed to do to heal and grow as a man. So the environment I was raised in, pretty privileged, white guy, lower middle class in the United States, had all my basic security, food, shelter, all those needs met. But as I grew older, particularly into adolescence and teenage years, realized the one thing my family did not know how to do was connect both emotionally and physically. We rarely ever touched each other in terms of hugs, embraces, comfort, and we did not know how to talk about what was going on inside. We were just kind of a family of people living in the same house. And as I got out into the world, that caused a lot of trouble for me. It caused a lot of pain for me in trying to build relationships, in my case with women, but even sometimes with other men. And I noticed and found that I was just often very depressed, anxious, numbed out in my body and didn't feel good. And I medicated myself through porn and masturbation and really eating in a lot of ways. And it was so painful that I realized, hey, there's got to be a better way to be in the world where I don't wake up dreading the day. And so that kick started a journey for me to figure out how to transform and grow. And it really all culminated for me in my mid-20s when I got into men's groups and I did my first somatic or body based healing work. And in particular I was working with an older male coach therapist who used a modality I'd never used before that basically within like 5, 10 minutes of talking to him. And in this men's group, I was on my back, I had my hands shooting up into the air and I was bawling, just crying, full body, saying, hold me, hold me, hold me. And did not understand what happened until afterwards when I realized, wow, I was very neglected as a kid when it came to touch and connection. And it turns out that neglect meant this little boy was running around the world trying to connect with adults. And that wasn't Working so well. So that began a journey of learning about what I was feeling inside my body, which is a ch challenge for so many men, and then getting linked up with other men who could support me in that, which radically changed my life. So much so that at one point I decided, wow, this has healed me. I want to bring this to other guys. And that's why I'm so passionate about leading men's groups in particular these days.

Host (Health Fact): You mentioned struggling with loneliness. What did that period of your life look like?

Jason Lange: Yeah, for me, I sometimes tell a story that I would often feel it the most on Saturday mornings. Saturday mornings I would wake up in my 20s, and I would not understand what people were doing. I was so lonely because during the week I would work, I would see people at work. You know, evenings, particularly on the weekend, I did have friends. We'd kind of go out. But Saturday mornings would hit and I would feel so lonely. And in my mind, I would think, oh, this is the time where people spend with their lovers, their significant others. And my life was full of those moments of not knowing how to connect and create the types of relationships that I want. Luckily for me, through men's work, I at least started building some very deep relationships with men. But it was always boundaried, in a sense, until I got older, and that even my early relationships with men, I was so locked up in myself that I couldn't even always share with them what was actually going on in my life. So I would kind of hang out with people, but then when I'd get home, I'd feel quite lonely because I wouldn't be able to talk about my feelings. And like I said, for me, I mostly medicated that through food and masturbation were the ways I tried to just distract myself. And ultimately those things didn't work. So getting into a men's group was really the first step in terms of creating a lot deeper connection in my life and learning how to get into my body and take really control over the direction of what I was feeling and what I was wanting.

Host (Health Fact): Okay. Why do you think so many men feel lost or disconnected today?

Jason Lange: Yeah, it's a great, great question. And it's a very real problem that's just growing, I would say, over time. Excuse me. So essentially, there's kind of a journey that I think a lot of men get dragged along by our culture and what we call this, you know, it's a heavy word. A lot of people don't like it, but we call it the patriarchy. We could call it the man box. But it's really the culture of what are the expectations of what it means to be a man that are put on us from a young age. And from a young age, we can see it, right? Even in the difference between how boys and girls are parented. Little girl falls down, maybe gets hurt. Parents quickly attuned to her to try to comfort her. Oftentimes, little boy falls down instead of comfort. Boy gets, hey, get back up. You're okay, you're tough, you're fine. Get back out there. And what that message sends to little boys early on is, hey, whatever's happening in your body, ignore it. Override it with your head. Then boys get put in school, and one of the differences between male and female bodies is young male bodies need to move, right? They're like little pinballs. They're very kinetic, have a lot of energy. And so there's this urge in little boys to move, to learn through play and horseplay and extreme kind of physical horsing around and whatnot. But in school, they're taught, nope, don't do that. Sit still, be quiet. And what that teaches a little boy, again, is, hey, what's happening in your body? Ignore that. Override it with your head. Then we get into adolescence where the pressure starts to come from other men and boys. We get into the locker room, we get into our teenage years, and we quickly learn to stay in the in group means we have to play it cool, right? Don't share any vulnerability, don't share any weakness. Go along with the crowd. What that teaches us, boys, is what's going on inside your body, your heart, your emotions. Ignore it, play it cool. And we get out into the workforce where men tend to be mostly rewarded for being providers and how hard they can work and how much money they can make. And so we have some perverse incentives, at least in our culture here, of, oh, yeah, wow, he works 80 hours a week and he sleeps under his desk. That's great. But that comes the expense of his relationships, his body, his emotions. So swirl this all together. And from a very young age, boys and men are taught not to how to be in their bodies, which is important for what you asked, because then emotion, emotionality, feelings, they always start as sensations in the body. So if we're not in our bodies, we're not going to be able to connect and understand what we're feeling. If we can't connect and understand what we're feeling, like I did as a kid, we can't share it with other people and create connection in Relationship. So all this swirls together and there's this kind of, you know, belief that a real man is an invulnerable man who doesn't need help from anyone and just does it all himself. That puts a lot of social pressure on men. And then last piece is a lot of men are taught when they do connect to other men, to connect through what I call triangulation, which means me and you, the other man, we get our connection from each other by putting our attention on some third thing, a sporting game, an activity. We're literally looking at something else. We're not necessarily looking. We're talking about each other. So for a lot of men these days, like, I often had the experience when I was young, loneliness doesn't just mean I have no friends. Loneliness means the men I connect with, we don't actually talk about what's happening. And so I might spend a whole weekend with guys, but get home and feel lonely because none of them know my wife's about to leave me or I just lost my job, or I have a big medical crisis because men aren't taught to connect emotionally and relationally. So what it does is it leaves men in this very isolated place. And the stats are pretty bleak, right, compared to previous generations. They did this poll in the 90s, and it was 3% of men had less than 3 close relationships within the last decade. That's bumped up to nearly 15% of men don't have any close friendships. And I would say argue it's probably even higher now post Covid in the. In a lot of the changes we've seen in our social structures. And then, you know, depending on where you are in the world, things are moving towards more work from home. A lot of social structures and places to meet and have community are kind of breaking down. So men are isolated and they're lonely. And this is causing, I would say, a drive to much higher suicide rates for men. Men are three and a half to four times more likely to commit suicide than women in most developed nations. And I would trace this all to the fact that men don't know how to connect.

Host (Health Fact): Okay, how traditional ideas of masculinity contributed to these struggles.

Jason Lange: Yeah, great question. Like I said, it's all right there in this term we use called the man box. The man box is this kind of cultural belief that holds up pretty, pretty well across the planet, which is okay. To be considered a man. There are these attributes you need to embody literally inside this box. And if you check those, check those off, you're considered a man. And if you don't, you're not considered a man. And first and foremost, the most important one is be invulnerable, right? Don't show weakness, don't cry, don't have emotions, be tough. Providing is more important than anything else in the world. A big one that hits a lot of guys I work with strangely is if sex is available to you, take it. If you don't, you're less of a man. And we can go down the list of all these different attributes. And the interesting thing about these is they don't just come from men. Right? There was a research study a couple years ago, it was really interesting, where they asked both men and women what marks the transition from a girl, girl to becoming a woman and a boy to becoming a man. And both men and women answered this. For girls, what they tended to point to was physiology changes in their body, right? Their menstrual cycle started, their body changed shape, they became a mature woman now. But here's the important thing. For boys and men, it was not the same. Instead of it being based on how mature a boy's body was, it was based on how is he showing up in his community life and world. It was based on his behavior. And so men tend to be judged in a slightly different way, right? In that there's an expectation on our behavior that really signifies culturally whether or not we're a man. And the bind this puts guys in is for a long time, men have only had a couple of choices for how to be in the world. There's the kind of old school, what I would call stoic, the man who just kind of stays quiet, doesn't share what's happening inside, gets his job done, but is often suffering emotionally and sometimes even physically because he can't talk about anything. Then there's the kind of traditional macho guy who's all bluster and power and domination and just goes and gets what he wants, frankly, takes what he wants. But we've all seen plenty examples of what that man can do in the world when he's disconnected from his heart and the ways he can abuse the environment, children, women, other men, etc. And then a more recent development over the last decades is the so called nice guy, the guy who sees the macho jerk and says, no, no, no, no, I don't want to be that. I don't want to cause harm to others. I don't want to make other people feel unsafe. So what he does is he disconnects from himself and puts other People's needs and priorities above his own. But then he doesn't know how to set boundaries. He doesn't know how to ask for what he wants. And he, in some ways, becomes a bit of a pushover in life. And none of those lead to a satisfying life for men. And so these old school def masculinity are being confronted with. They don't work in this world or culture anymore. And there has not been enough of a model for what the healthy version is. So in the vacuum of that, we've seen the emergence of kind of the red pill culture, the, hey, let's just go back to how it was 50, 60 years ago. But those guys are just selling snake oil because there's no going back. The world only evolves forward. And so instead, what we're being asked to step into as men is to become more integrated, to, yes, be grounded and in our bodies, calm, regulated, and very much connected to our power, our capacity to create change in the world. But here's the key. We're also being asked to marry that to an attuned, sensitive, open and relational heart that can actually feel and connect and express and receive in a safe way. And for so many men, it's been an either or. Either you have balls or you have heart. But what we're being asked to evolve into as mental health is a combination of both. To be in touch with our power, our balls and our sensitivity, our care, our concern, and our heart. And the challenge for a lot of men is until they've spent time around a guy who embodies that, they don't know what it looks like. That's once again, one of the many reasons I strongly recommend guys get into men's circles and men's groups, because that's one of the places where you can experience firsthand what an integrated, conscious, powerful man looks like.

Host (Health Fact): Okay. What happens inside the men's group that make it so impactful?

Jason Lange: Yeah, so the thing about men's groups is there's very. There's many different kinds, but I'll speak from a very high level of the kind I work with. And essentially in a men's group, you get a couple of things first, and this is a big one for guys. One of the most important things we can do in a men's group is learn to slow each other down and help men connect to their direction. Felt body experience. Sounds complicated, but it's really simple. Often us men, we will talk about what's happening in our life like a report, but we will not actually slow down and feel what the impact of that on us is. So one of the primary things that can happen in a men's group is the other men can hold space for you and guide you into connecting to what you're actually feeling in your life. That might be anger, shame, fear, disgust. There's so many different things. But these emotions, when we're not feeling them, tend to run our lives unconsciously. So in a men's group, when we learn to slow down and actually connect to them, it liberates an incredible amount of energy and power in our lives. So we learn to get into our bodies and actually know what we're feeling and be able to share that. Now, the other things we get are support. And support just means we do our best in life. But no matter who you are as a man, there's times you're going to be knocked off your center and overwhelmed or stressed. Now, what a lot of men tend to do in those moments is they withdraw into themselves even more. But the nature of the human nervous system is one of the primary ways we regulate our nervous system. We literally send the signal to our nervous system, to our body, you're safe, you're okay, you can come out of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn is through connection to other people. And so in a men's group, we can get connected when we're feeling overwhelmed. Other men can literally hold space for us to be able to feel those feelings. And that support helps us come back to ourselves and find our center again so that we can then go back into our lives in better shape with more energy and motivation and power. We also, in a men's group, will get accountability. Something so key for men, the masculine men. We grow through challenge and feedback, right? So we try something and then we get reflected to us, where did it hit the mark and where did it not hit the mark? Without that feedback, we can often just drift. So a men's group can bring accountability and challenge, right? Where the other men we're spending time with, us who know us, know our wounds, know our history, know our patterning, and know what we want the most in life. They're going to point out to us when we're off track, when we're showing up in a way that isn't a representation of who we really want to be. I call that this the spinach in the teeth moment, right? I'm walking through my day, I come up to you, and you're like, hey, Jason, wow. Do you realize you got a big piece of spinach in your teeth? You kind of look like an idiot, man. And I go, oh, my God. So embarrassed. I do have spinach in my teeth, and I cleaned it out, right? But then this is the important moment that happens in a men's group. I look at you and I say, thank you. Thank you for telling me that, because I just went through my whole day, and no one else told me that. But you told me the hard truth. Because you care about me now. I trust you more. Therapist Terry Real calls this carefrontation. We confront each other out of care, to help each other become the best versions of ourselves. So you swirl that all into a men's group, and essentially what we're doing is we're getting together, we're getting into our bodies, and then we're dropping in and sharing what's going on in our lives and how we feel about it. Where are we in pain? Where are we stressed out? Where are we in challenge? What kind of help do we need? Where are we celebrating? Where are things going? Right? We get to do both sides of the equation here in a group. And when we feel stuck and don't know how to move forward, that's when our group can really carry us and help us make a plan for growing faster with each other. So there's infinite varieties to how this can happen in a men's group, but that's kind of the essential backbone underneath where we learn to. To get into our bodies, feel, and connect. And when we do that, what I've seen over the hundreds of groups I've led is men come away with two things. A deep sense of purpose and a deep sense of belonging. Purpose, meaning, wow, it really matters whether or not I show up to this group. My presence matters to these men and belonging, because I also get that sense of. And I belong here. These guys want me here. I'm part of something. And when men have those two things, their lives really open up in incredible ways.

Host (Health Fact): Beautiful response. What rule does vulnerability play in stronger relationships?

Jason Lange: Yeah. So vulnerability, you know, for a lot of guys, it gets a bad rap. They think, oh, my God, vulnerability, Does that mean I have to cry and be weak? And, you know, excuse my language, but in the. In the lower men's culture, say, yeah, you know, don't be a pussy. What vulnerability really is is courage. It means sharing or saying the thing that's scary because you do not know what's going to happen. And this is so important, Right? I get a lot of guys that come to me because they want help in relationships or dating, and they show up and they Say things like, hey, I want to be confident, right? With women, I want to feel confident. Oftentimes, what men really mean by that is I want to be sure of the outcome so I don't have to feel uncomfortable if it doesn't go my way. I want to guarantee, right? That's not what I train men in. I train men in vulnerability and courage. Vulnerability I define as three things. Authenticity plus risk plus softness. So authenticity means sharing what's real, right? Saying what's actually true. Risk means, and it's risky because I do not know how it's going to be received by the other person. And softness just means rather than being rigid and postured or closed, I literally soften the front of my body. Soft belly, soft heart. I'm open and receptive to what happens. And when men learn to lead from this courageous and vulnerable place, they're able to create connection and make meaningful change in their lives in very powerful ways. Because the trick is, on the outside, vulnerability is what people think confidence is, right? That guy's so confident, he just went for it, right? He just says his mind, he just goes for things, right? Vulnerability on the outside looks like confidence, but on the inside, it's always a little bit scary. And I teach this, like I said again, to men in relationship in particular, because whether it's your first date or your 30th wedding anniversary, there's going to be parts in your most significant relationships, romantic or not, where you have to share something that feels scary to say because you do not know how the other person is going to receive it. Your capacity to do that as a man can make you an extremely rarefied, conscious man these days. When you learn the language of leading through vulnerability. Because what starts to happen is as you create the space and lead vulnerably, what you'll find is other people will match you in it. This is one of the new real ways men can lead in the world, is we go first with vulnerability. Whether that's our best friend we've known for 20 years, or whether that's a romantic partner or anyone else in life, we take the chance to share the scary, vulnerable thing. And in doing that, a couple of things happen. Or more likely, to get that kind of energy back, which creates deep connection. And we're also going to find out who in our life is not down to connect in that way, does not want to be vulnerable. And that's a very powerful way to clarify what relationships you actually want to invest in in your life.

Host (Health Fact): For someone hesitant to join a group, what Will you say to them, yeah,

Jason Lange: it's one of the most important investments you can make in your life as a man. I would say I like to frame this, this. I'm using a little bit of a metaphor. You can think of a men's group as shock absorbers for your life. What I mean by that is it's not going to make life magically easier, but what it's going to do is give you a place to navigate the ups and downs and bumps of your life far more smoothly. And many men, this is very confronting for guys, especially the tough guys who say, I don't need anyone, right? I'm tough, I can do it all by myself. I don't care who you are as a man, at some point in your life, your body is going to fail you and you are not going to be able to just push through. That can come from illness, accident, or the one that's coming for us all old age. And at that moment when your body fails you, you're going to quickly find, what kind of support network do I have around me to care for me when I can't care for myself. The mistake many men make is they wait until the emergency and the crisis happens to have to form those relationships. Then you have a double crisis. You have the actual. And now you have to find people you trust to help you. One of the best things you can do as men right now is don't wait. Start investing and building in those relationships now. So when the emergency hits, guess what? You already got a team at your side. And this doesn't have to just be big life threatening stuff, right? One of my stories I often tell was one of the men's groups I was in. About a decade ago, my wife and I moved and it took a lot longer than I thought to, you know, pack up the moving truck. And by the time we got to the place we were moving to, it was like 9 o' clock at night. It was very late. And I was like, oh my God, we're going to be here till one in the morning. And my wife was pissed, right? She did not want to be up till one in the morning in a new neighborhood moving in. So what did I do? I hit the guys in my men's group, hey, SOS emergency. I need bodies here immediately to help me unload this truck. Within 25 minutes I had four other bodies. What would have taken me hours to unload took about 30 minutes flat. That it's a great example of the type of network we can have around us. So Finding a men's group is one of the best things you can do to make sure you're creating a healthy, sustainable life. Moving towards the things you want to move towards, it will make you more powerful. You'll have better relationships, you'll feel better in your body. And here's a big shocker. A lot of guys are surprised. By staying it long enough, you will make more money. People will trust you more when you're part of a powerful, healthy men's group. And when people trust you, guess what? They want to give you money. One of the amazing things in the world. So there's literally an endless list of the positives of being in a men's group and what this kind of social connection can bring us. Tying it back to vulnerability, you gotta be willing to go for it and push against the default kind of lone wolf macho man culture and say, you know what? It's not weakness to need connection. It's not weakness to ask for help. It's actually going to help me get more done right here in the, in the States, we kind of valorize kind of the highest functioning people as what we call our Navy Seals. Right, right. The most elite soldiers we have. And guess what? They're not individuals. They're trained as a team. Because a team is more effective than a solo person.

Host (Health Fact): Okay, what is one simple step men can take today to feel more connected and grounded.

Jason Lange: Absolutely. So this is a simple one. In a sense, in that men's group is awesome. But even before that, all it takes is going a little bit deeper in one relationship. So once again, leading with courage, leading with vulnerability, be the one who goes first. All men, I know generally when they slow down and think about it, can often think about one other man in their life that for whatever reason, they just have an intuitive sense they feel connected to, that they could go deeper with. And one thing you can immediately do is reach out to that man. Grab a coffee, grab a beer, go for a hike, whatever it is, get on the phone with him. And don't just default to talking about politics, sports, culture, etc. Go deep. Be the one to go first, say, hey, I want to share what's going on in my life with you. What's working, what's not working, what I'm wanting, what I'm not wanting, where I'm in pain, what I'm ashamed of, what I'm scared of. And then you share first, and then you create the space for the other man to share. What about you? What's going on in your life? And I guarantee if you do that, you will feel more connected to yourself and this other man. I've had many men tell me, oh, my God, I went out with my buddy. I've known him for 25 years. And last night we went deeper in 40 minutes than we have in our entire relationship because we went under the surface. We talked about what's actually going on inside of us. And you don't need to pay anyone to do any programs or anything to do that. You just gotta reach out to someone and create the space.

Host (Health Fact): What do you want our listeners to take home from this interview?

Jason Lange: Yeah, great. Like I said, don't do it alone. You will get more of what you want as a man by getting into a men's group. You will learn to be in your body. You will have more social capital. It is night and day what happens. And I've worked with, like I said, hundreds of men's groups, thousands of men at this point. And the experience I've seen over and over again. So when they get into a good group and they get connected to guys, it's like plugging into an enormous fuel source of energy they didn't even know they were missing. They look back and they see, wow, I was running on fumes there. How did I do things before without the support of a group? Again, it doesn't solve your problems, but it helps you recover from the challenges of life. And connection is really the most potent medicine we have as men. Connection, again, just meaning that sense of being grounded, present with someone face to face where they see you. You don't have to hide anything and they don't judge you. That's it. It's so simple, but so many men live without it, and it has massive impact on our health. Right? Loneliness. Not having this, they've shown in research, is as deadly as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. It increases the risk of premature death by almost 30%. So if you want to live longer and live better, get connected to other men again. You can reach out to a buddy or get into a men's group. Start a men's group and your life will shift and get better. I know mine did.

Host (Health Fact): Jason, you came well prepared for this interview. This has been such an honest and meaningful conversation. Your work is helping men show up in healthier, more connected ways. And that impact reaches far beyond the individual. Thank you for sharing your story and insight with us. I really appreciate your time in this. This meeting. Thank you so much for coming.

Jason Lange: Yeah, thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it.

Host (Health Fact): Hi, everyone. Welcome to Health Fact podcast. My name is Wale and today's guest is Jason. Jason is a passionate advocate for men's work and personal growth. After years of struggling with loneliness, disconnection and relationship, Jackson found transformation through men's group and now is on a mission to help me redefine what it means to show up, connect and live with purpose. The first question on the list here is, what first led you into men's work in your 20s?

Jason Lange: Yeah, absolutely. I got into men's work in my 20s because it was the work I needed to do to heal and grow as a man. So the environment I was raised in, pretty privileged, white guy, lower middle class in the United States, had all my basic security, food, shelter, all those needs met. But as I grew older, particularly into adolescence and teenage years, realized the one thing my family did not know how to do was connect both emotionally and physically. We rarely ever touched each other in terms of hugs, embraces, comfort, and we did not know how to talk about what was going on inside. We were just kind of a family of people living in the same house. And as I got out into the world, that caused a lot of trouble for me. It caused a lot of pain for me in trying to build relationships, in my case with women, but even sometimes with other men. And I noticed and found that I was just often very depressed, anxious, numbed out in my body and didn't feel good. And I medicated myself through porn and masturbation and really eating in a lot of ways. And it was so painful that I realized, hey, there's got to be a better way to be in the world where I don't wake up dreading the day. And so that kick started a journey for me to figure out how to transform and grow. And it really all culminated for me in my mid-20s when I got into men's groups and I did my first somatic or body based healing work. And in particular I was working with an older male coach therapist who used a modality I'd never used before that basically within like 5, 10 minutes of talking, talking to him. And in this men's group, I was on my back, I had my hands shooting up into the air and I was bawling, just crying, full body, saying, hold me, hold me, hold me. And did not understand what happened until afterwards when I realized, wow, I was very neglected as a kid when it came to touch and connection. And it turns out that neglect meant this little boy was running around the world trying to connect with adults and that wasn't working so well. So that began a journey of learning about what I was feeling inside my, which is a challenge for so many men, and then getting linked up with other men who could support me in that, which radically changed my life. So much so that at one point I decided, wow, this has healed me. I want to bring this to other guys. And that's why I'm so passionate about leading men's groups in particular these days.

Host (Health Fact): You mentioned struggling with loneliness. What did that period of your life look like?

Jason Lange: Yeah, for me, I sometimes tell a story that I would often feel it the most on Saturday mornings. Saturday mornings I would wake up, wake up in my 20s, and I would not understand what people were doing. I was so lonely because during the week I would work, I would see people at work. You know, evenings, particularly on the weekend, I did have friends. We'd kind of go out. But Saturday mornings would hit and I would feel so lonely. And in my mind I would think, oh, this is the time where people spend with their lovers, their significant others. And my life was full of those moments of not knowing how to connect, connect and create the types of relationships that I want. Luckily for me, through men's work, I at least started building some very deep relationships with men. But it was always boundaried, in a sense, until I got older and that even my early relationships with men, I was so locked up in myself that I couldn't even always share with them what was actually going on in my life. So I would kind of hang out with people, but then when I'd get home, I'd feel quite lonely because I wouldn't be able to talk about my feelings. And like I said, for me, I mostly medicated that through food and masturbation were the ways I tried to just distract myself. And ultimately those things didn't work. So getting into a men's group was really the first step in terms of creating a lot deeper connection in my life and learning how to get into my body and take really control over the direction of what I was feeling and what I was wanting.

Host (Health Fact): Okay. Why do you think so many men feel lost or disconnected today?

Jason Lange: Yeah, it's a great, great question. And it's a very real problem that's just growing, I would say, over time. Excuse me. So essentially, there's kind of a journey that I think a lot of men get dragged along by our culture and what we call this, you know, it's a heavy word. A lot of people don't like it, but we call it the patriarchy. We could call it the man box. But it's really the culture of what are the expectations of what it means to be a man that are put on us from a young age. And from a age we can see it right? Even in the difference between how boys and girls are parented. Little girl falls down, maybe gets hurt. Parents quickly attuned to her to try to comfort her. Oftentimes little boy falls down instead of comfort. Boy gets, hey, get back up. You're okay, you're tough, you're fine, get back out there. And what that message sends to little boys early on is, hey, whatever's happening in your body, ignore it. Override it with your head. Then boys get put in school and one of the differences between male and female bodies is young male bodies need to, to move, right? They're like little pinballs. They're very kinetic, have a lot of energy. And so there's this urge in little boys to move, to learn through play and horseplay and extreme kind of physical horsing around and whatnot. But in school they're taught, nope, don't do that. Sit still, be quiet. And what that teaches a little boy, again is, hey, what's happening in your body? Ignore that, Override it with your head. Then we get into adolescence where the pressure starts to come from a other men and boys. We get into the locker room, we get into our teenage years, and we quickly learn to stay in the in group means we have to play it cool, right? Don't share any vulnerability, don't share any weakness. Go along with the crowd. What that teaches us, boys, is what's going on inside your body, your heart, your emotions. Ignore it, play it cool. Then we get out into the workforce where men tend to be mostly rewarded for being providers and how hard they can work and how much money they can make. And so we have some perverse incentives, at least in our culture here, of oh yeah, wow, wow, he works 80 hours a week and he sleeps under his desk. That's great. But that comes the expense of his relationships, his body, his emotions. So swirl this all together. And from a very young age, boys and men are taught not to how to be in their bodies, which is important for what you asked, because then emotion, emotionality, feelings, they always start as sensations in the body. So if we're not in our bodies, we're not going to be able to connect and understand what we're feeling. If we can't connect and understand what we're feeling, like I did as a kid, we can't share it with other people and create connection in relationship. So all this swirls together and there's this kind of belief that a real man is an invulnerable man who doesn't need help from anyone and just does it all himself. That puts a lot of social pressure on men. And then last piece is a lot of men are taught when they do connect to other men, to connect through what I call triangulation, which means me and you, the other man, we get our connection from each other by putting our attention on some third thing, a sporting game, an activity. We're literally looking at something else. We're not necessarily looking. We're talking about each other. So for a lot of men these days, like I often had the experience when I was young, loneliness doesn't just mean I have no friends. Loneliness means the men I connect with, we don't actually talk about what's happening. And so I might spend a whole weekend with guys, but get home and feel lonely because none of them know my wife's about to leave me or I just lost my job, or I have a big medical crisis. Because men aren't taught to connect emotionally and relationally. So what it does is it leaves men in this very isolated place. And the stats are pretty bleak, right, compared to previous generations. They did this poll in the 90s and it was 3% of men had less than three close relationships within the last decade. That's bumped up to nearly 15% of men don't have any close friendships and say, argue it's probably even higher now post Covid in the. In a lot of the changes we've seen in our social structures. And then, you know, depending on where you are in the world, things are moving towards more work from home. A lot of social structures and places to meet and have community are kind of breaking down. So men are isolated and they're lonely. And this is causing, I would say, a drive to much higher suicide rates for men. Men are three and a half to four times more likely to commit suicide side than women in most developed nations. And I would trace this all to the fact that men don't know how to connect.

Host (Health Fact): Okay, how have traditional ideas of masculinity contributed to these struggles?

Jason Lange: Yeah, great question. Like I said, it's all right there in this term we use called the man box. The man box is this kind of cultural belief that holds up pretty, pretty well across the planet, which is okay. To be considered a man, there are these attributes you need to embody literally inside this box. And if you check those, check those off, you're considered a Man. And if you don't, you're not considered man. And first and foremost, the most important one is be invulnerable, right? Don't show weakness, don't cry, don't have emotions, be tough. Providing is more important than anything else in the world. A big one that hits a lot of guys I work with strangely is if sex is available to you, take it. If you don't, you're less of a man. And we can go down the list of all these different attributes. And the interesting thing about these is they don't just come from men, Right? There was a research study a couple years ago, it was really interesting, where they asked both men and women what marks the transition from a girl to becoming a woman and a boy to becoming a man. And both men and women answered this. For girls, what they tended to point to was physiology changes in their body, right? Their menstrual cycle started, their body changed shape, they became a mature woman now. But here's the important thing for boys and girls, men, it was not the same. Instead of it being based on how mature a boy's body was, it was based on how is he showing up in his community life and world. It was based on his behavior. And so men tend to be judged in a slightly different way, right? In that there's an expectation on our behavior that really signifies culturally whether or not we're a man. And the bind this puts guys in is for a long time, men have only had a couple of choices for how to be in the world. There's the kind of old school, what I would call stoic, the man who just kind of stays quiet, doesn't share what's happening inside, gets his job done, but is often suffering emotionally and sometimes even physically because he can't talk about anything. Then there's the kind of traditional macho guy who's all bluster and power and domination and just goes and gets what he wants, frankly, takes what he wants. But we've all seen plenty examples of what that man can do in the world when he's disconnected from his heart and the ways he can abuse the environment, children, women, other men, et cetera. And then a more recent development over the last decades is the so called nice guy. The guy who sees the macho jerk and says, no, no, no, no, I don't want to be that. I don't want to cause harm to others. I don't want to make other people feel unsafe. So what he does is he disconnects from himself and puts other people's Needs and priorities above his own. But then he doesn't know how to set boundaries. He doesn't know how to ask for what he wants. And he insists ways becomes a bit of a pushover in life. And none of those lead to a satisfying life for men. And so these old school definitions of masculinity are being confronted with. They don't work in this world or culture anymore. And there has not been enough of a model for what the healthy version is. So in the vacuum of that, we've seen the emergence of kind of the red pill culture, the, hey, let's just go back to how it was 50, 60 years ago. But those guys are just selling snake oil because there's no going back. The world only evolves for forward. And so instead, what we're being asked to step into as men is to become more integrated, to, yes, be grounded and in our bodies, calm, regulated, and very much connected to our power, our capacity to create change in the world. But here's the key. We're also being asked to marry that to an attuned, sensitive, open and relational heart that can actually feel and connect and express and receive in a safe way. And for so many men, it's been an either way or either you have balls or you have heart. But what we're being asked to evolve into as men is a combination of both. To be in touch with our power, our balls and our sensitivity, our care, our concern and our heart. And the challenge for a lot of men is until they've spent time around a guy who embodies that, they don't know what it looks like. That's once again one of the many reasons I strongly recommend guys get into men's circles and men's groups groups, because that's one of the places where you can experience firsthand what an integrated, conscious, powerful man looks like.

Host (Health Fact): Okay. What happens inside the men's group that make it so impactful?

Jason Lange: Yeah, so the thing about men's groups is there's very. There's many different kinds, but I'll speak from a very high level of the kind I work with. And essentially in a men's group, you get a couple of things first, and this is a big one for guys. One of the most important things we can do in a men's group is learn to slow each other down and help men connect to their direct felt body experience. Sounds complicated, but it's really simple. Often us men, we will talk about what's happening in our life like a report, but we will not actually slow down and Feel what the impact of that on us is. So one of the primary things that can happen in a men's group is the other men can hold space for you and guide you into connecting to what you're actually feeling in your life. That might be anger, shame, fear, disgust. There's so many different things. But these emotions, when we're not feeling them, tend to run our lives unconsciously. So in a men's group, when we learn to slow down and actually connect to them, it liberates an incredible amount of energy and power in our lives. So we learn to get into our bodies and actually know what we're feeling and be able to share that. Now, the other things we get are support. And support just means we do our best in life. But no matter who you are as a man, there's times you're going to be knocked off your center and overwhelmed or stressed. Now, what a lot of men tend to do in those moments is they withdraw into themselves even more. But the nature of the human nervous system is one of the primary ways we regulate our nervous system. We literally send the signal to our nervous system, to our body, you're safe, you're okay, you can come out of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn is through connection to other people. And so in a men's group, we can get connected when we're feeling overwhelmed. Other men can literally hold space for us to be able to feel those feelings. And that support helps us come back to ourselves and find our center again so that we can then go back into our lives in better shape with more energy and motivation and power. We also, in a men's group, will get accountability. Something so key for men, the masculine men, we grow through challenge and feedback, right? So we try something and then we get reflected to us, where did it hit the mark and where did it not hit the mark? Without that feedback, we can often just drift. So a men's group can bring accountability and challenge, right? Where the other men who are spending time with us, who know us, know our wounds, know our history, know our patterning, and know what we want the most in life going to point out to us when we're off track, when we're showing up in a way that isn't a representation of who we really want to be. I call this the spinach in the teeth moment, right? I'm walking through my day. I come up to you, and you're like, hey, Jason, wow. Do you realize you got a big piece of spinach in your teeth? You kind of look like an idiot, man. And I go, oh, my God. So embarrassed. I do have spinach in my teeth, and I cleaned it out, right? But then this is the important moment that happens in a men's group. I look at you and I say, thank you. Thank you for telling me that, because I just went through my whole day, and no one else me told. Told me that. But you told me the hard truth. Because you care about me now. I trust you more. Therapist Terry Real calls this carefrontation. We confront each other out of care, to help each other become the best versions of ourselves. So you swirl that all into a men's group, and essentially what we're doing is we're getting together, we're getting into our bodies, and then we're dropping in and sharing what's going on in our lives and how we feel about it. Where are we in pain? Where are we stressed? Stressed out? Where are we in challenge? What kind of help do we need? Where are we celebrating? Where are things going? Right? We get to do both sides of the equation here in a group. And when we feel stuck and don't know how to move forward, that's when our group can really carry us and help us make a plan for growing faster with each other. So there's infinite varieties to how this can happen in a men's group, but that's kind of the essential backbone underneath where we learn, learn to get into our bodies, feel and connect. And when we do that, what I've seen over the hundreds of groups I've led is men come away with two things. A deep sense of purpose and a deep sense of belonging. Purpose, meaning, wow, it really matters whether or not I show up to this group. My presence matters to these men and belonging, because I also get that sense of. And I belong here. These guys want me here. I'm part of something. And when men have those two things, their lives really open up in incredible ways.

Host (Health Fact): Beautiful response. What does vulnerability play in stronger relationships?

Jason Lange: Yeah. So vulnerability, you know, for a lot of guys, it gets a bad rap. They think, oh, my God, vulnerability, does that mean I have to cry and be weak? And, you know, excuse my language, but in the. In the lower men's culture, say, yeah, you know, don't be a pussy. What vulnerability really is, is courage. It means sharing or saying the thing that's scary because you do not know what's going to happen. And this is so important, right? I get a lot of guys that come. Come to me because they want help in relationships or dating, and they show up and they say things like, Hey, I want to be confident, right? With women, I want to feel confident. Oftentimes, what men really mean by that is I want to be sure of the outcome so I don't have to feel uncomfortable if it doesn't go my way. I want to guarantee, right? That's not what I train men in. I train men in vulnerability and courage. Vulnerability I define as three things. Authenticity plus risk plus softness. So authenticity means sharing what's real, right? Saying what's actually true. Risk means, and it's risky because I do not know how it's going to be received by the other person. And softness just means rather than being rigid and postured or closed, I literally soften the front of my body. Soft belly, soft heart. I'm open and receptive to what happens. And when men learn to lead from this courageous and vulnerable place, they're able to create. Create connection and make meaningful change in their lives in very powerful ways. Because the trick is, on the outside, vulnerability is what people think confidence is, right? That guy's so confident, he just went for it, right? He just says his mind, he just goes for things, right? Vulnerability on the outside looks like confidence, but on the inside, it's always a little bit scary. And I teach this, like I said again, to men in relationship in particular, because whether it's your first date or your 30th wedding anniversary anniversary, there's going to be parts in your most significant relationships, romantic or not, where you have to share something that feels scary to say because you do not know how the other person is going to receive it. Your capacity to do that as a man can make you an extremely rarefied, conscious man these days. When you learn the language of leading through vulnerability. Because what starts to happen is as you create the space and lead vulnerability vulnerably, what you'll find is other people will match you in it. So this is one of the new real ways men can lead in the world, is we go first with vulnerability. Whether that's our best friend we've known for 20 years, or whether that's a romantic partner or anyone else in life. We take the chance to share the scary, vulnerable thing. And in doing that, a couple of things happen. We're more likely to get that kind of energy back, which creates deep connection. And we're also going to find out who in our life is not down to connect in that way, does not want to be vulnerable. And that's a very powerful way to clarify what relationships you actually want to invest in in your life.

Host (Health Fact): For someone hesitant to join A group. What will you say to them?

Jason Lange: Yeah, it's one of the most important investments you can make in your life as a man. I would say I like to frame this. I'm using a little bit of a metaphor. You can think of a men's group as shock absorbers for your life. What I mean by that is it's not going to make life magically easier, but what it's going to do is give you a place to navigate the ups and downs and bumps of your life far more smoothly. And many men, this is very confronting for guys, especially the tough guys who say, I don't need anyone, right? I'm tough, I can do it all by myself. I don't care who you are as a man, at some point in your life, you're, your body is going to fail you and you are not going to be able to just push through. That can come from illness, accident, or the one that's coming for us all old age. And at that moment when your body fails you, you're going to quickly find what kind of support network do I have around me to care for me when I can't care for myself. The mistake many men make is they wait until the emergency and the crisis happens to have to form those relationships. Then you have a double crisis. You have the actual EM emergency. And now you have to find people you trust to help you. One of the best things you can do as men right now is don't wait. Start investing and building in those relationships now. So when the emergency hits, guess what? You already got a team at your side. And this doesn't have to just be big life threatening stuff, right? One of my stories I often tell was one of the men's groups I was in. About a decade ago my wife and I moved and it took a lot longer than I thought to, you know, pack up the moving truck. And by the time we got to the place we were moving to, it was like 9 o' clock at night. It was very late. And I was like, oh my God, we're going to be here till one in the morning. And my wife was pissed, right? She did not want to be up till one in the morning in a new neighborhood moving in. So what did I do? I hit the guys in my men's group, hey, SOS emergency. I need bodies here immediately to help me unload this truck. Within 25 minutes I had four other bodies. What would have taken me hours to unload. It took about 30 minutes. It's flat. It's a great example of the type of network we can have around us. So finding a men's group is one of the best things you can do to make sure you're creating a healthy, sustainable life. Moving towards the things you want to move towards. It will make you more powerful. You'll have better relationships, you'll feel better in your body. And here's a big shocker. A lot of guys are surprised. By staying it long enough, you will make more money. People will trust you more when you're part of a powerful, healthy men's group. And when people trust you, guess what? They want to give you money. That's just one of the amazing things in the world. So there's literally an endless list of the positives of being in a men's group and what this kind of social connection can bring us. Tying it back to vulnerability, you got to be willing to go for it and push against the default kind of lone wolf macho man culture and say, you know what? It's not weakness to need connection. It's not weakness to ask for help. It's actually going to help me get more done right here in the. In the States, we kind of valorize kind of the highest functioning people as what we call our Navy seals, right? The most elite soldiers we have. And guess what? They're not individuals. They're trained as a team. Because a team is more effective than a solo person.

Host (Health Fact): Okay, what is one simple step men can take today to feel more connected and grounded.

Jason Lange: Absolutely. So this is a simple one. In a sense, in that men's group is awesome. But even before that, all it takes is going a little bit deeper in one relationship. So once again, leading with courage, leading with vulnerability, be the one who goes first. All men I know generally when they slow down and think about it, can often think about one other man in their life that for whatever reason, they just have an intuitive sense they feel connected to that they could go deeper with. And one thing you can immediately do is reach out to that man. Grab a coffee, grab a beer, go for a hike, whatever it is, get on the phone with him. And don't just default to talking about politics, sports, culture, et cetera. Go deep. Be the one to go first, say, hey, I want to share what's going on in my life with you, what's working, what's not working, what I'm wanting, what I'm not wanting, where I'm in pain, what I'm ashamed of, what I'm scared of. And then you share first, and then you create the space for the other man to share, what about you? What's going on in your life. And I guarantee if you do that, you will feel more connected to yourself and this other man. I've had many men tell me, oh my God, I went out with my buddy. I've known him for 25 years. And last night we went deeper in 40 minutes than we have in our entire relationship because we went under the surface. We talked about what's actually going on inside of us. And you don't need to pay anyone to do any programs or anything to do that. You just got to reach out to someone and create the space.

Host (Health Fact): What do you want our listeners to take home from this interview?

Jason Lange: Yeah, great. Like I said, don't do it alone. You will get more of what you want as a man by getting into a men's group. You will learn to be in your body. You will have more social capital. It is night and day. What happens, happens. And I've worked with, like I said, hundreds of men's groups, thousands of men at this point. And the experience I've seen over and over again is when they get into a good group and they get connected to guys, it's like plugging into an enormous fuel source of energy they didn't even know they were missing. They look back and they see, wow, I was running on fumes there. How did I do things before without the support of a group? Again, it doesn't solve your problem problems, but it helps you recover from the challenges of life. And connection is really the most potent medicine we have as men. Connection, again, just meaning that sense of being grounded, present with someone face to face where they see you, you don't have to hide anything and they don't judge you. That's it. It's so simple, but so many men live without it and it has massive impact on our health. Right. Loneliness. Not having this, they've shown in research, is as deadly as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. It increases of premature death by almost 30%. So if you want to live longer and live better, get connected to other men again. You can reach out to a buddy or get into a men's group. Start a men's group and your life will shift and get better. I know mine did.

Host (Health Fact): Jason, you came well prepared for this interview. This has been such an honest and meaningful conversation. Your work is helping men show up in healthier, more connected ways. And that impact, and that impact reaches far beyond the individual. Thank you for sharing your story and insight with us. I really appreciate your time in this meeting. Thank you so much for coming.

Jason Lange: Yeah, thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it.