There's a moment about twenty minutes into my conversation on The Life Affairs Podcast where I found myself describing something I see in my office almost daily: a successful man sitting across from me, realizing for the first time that all the strategies that got him to where he is professionally have left him completely disconnected from himself and everyone he cares about. It's this lightning bolt moment that happens when guys finally understand the trade-off they've been making without even knowing it.
One thing I talked about is how men have been rewarded for being disconnected from their bodies for generations. We've been valued for our ability to push through, work hard, go to war, do dangerous jobs. All that achievement often comes at the cost of our well-being. And now we're in this transition where what used to be enough just isn't anymore. Women got empowered to move into the outer world over the last 50, 60 years. For men, it's the inner world that's opening up now. We're being asked to have feelings, to be present, to not always have the right answer. But here's the thing, most of us were never taught how to do that. We've only been shown about three archetypes: the macho jerk, the nice guy who can't set boundaries, or the stoic who's completely sealed off emotionally. None of those work.
I shared some of my own story, how I started this journey because I was in so much pain. I couldn't connect with women, my body would just clam up. That started me on this hunt to figure out what was going on. I found men's groups in my mid-20s and got to be around older men who had done their work. I could feel in my body, that's what I want. That man is relaxed, present, not a pushover but not a jerk either. He can set clear boundaries and lead from a grounded place.
We also talked about how most boys never get that rite of passage anymore where men take them aside and say, hey, let's talk about what it means to be a man. The Industrial Revolution changed everything. Dad went away to work, kids went to school mostly taught by women. A lot of boys are essentially raising themselves without mature masculine presence. That's why I emphasize men's work and men's community so much, because sometimes you can't find that in your literal family lineage.
The research backs this up too. Male suicide is through the roof, we don't live as long, we suffer from loneliness and heart disease at much higher rates. Isolation is as dangerous for men as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. But here's what's possible: when men start doing this inner work and get more connected to their bodies, to their emotions, they come alive. Life energy comes back. And it's not just woo-woo feel your feelings stuff, there's real science here. Eighty percent of the bandwidth between your brain and body is dedicated to getting information from your body up to your brain. Most men are walking around only using 20% of their capacity to lead, to be intuitive, to make good decisions.
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Host: Hey, if you're listening to this episode and benefiting from it, could you help me reach more like minded listeners by rating it 5 stars? It only takes 2 seconds. Just pause this episode and click on the stars. Thank you. Welcome to the Life affairs podcast. This is a place where we share life experiences and the many lessons learned by just living. Join me to immerse ourselves and take a closer a closer look at the stories that shaped and defined us. Just remember, there's no judgment and a lot of understanding on today's episode of the Life affairs podcast. I am fascinated by men. Have you noticed that about me yet? It wasn't always this way for a long time. I am hurt, deeply hurt by their presence in my world. I felt jealous, burdened by the crushing weight of unfairness. Men hold the power, rule as leaders, and shape the fate of humanity single handedly while the rest of us are left to bear the consequences. Growing up in the war, I'm surrounded by the orders and worms of warlords. That makes me sick to my stomach. And now what makes me sick are the likes of Trump and Putin, Netanyahu, Musk Wilder, Dana White, Andrew Tate, and every man, condemned or not, who walks free despite the harm they've caused. But here's the thing. If we don't demand change, how will our children grow to look up to man with hope and respect? How can we raise them to become better men? And how are we as parents, teachers, society, and yes, women contributing to the perpetuation of toxic masculinity? This episode is a call to action because I want to reclaim my hope. I want to see men rise not in power, but in character, so I can raise my son in a world where masculinity is no longer toxic. I know it's a long road, but I am hopeful. Every small change we make in ourselves spark a ripple of growth and healing in those around us. That's why I'm grateful for people like Jason Lange and his Circle of Man group. His work is shifting the narrative, turning toxic masculinity into tonic masculinity in his own words. So sit tight. This episode will go deep. It's intimate, insightful, and, yes, beautiful. When it's done, you might find yourself falling in love with the man in your life all over again, but in a completely different way. I love you, my listener. You and I are on this journey together, saying a collective screw you to the men who are ruining it for all the others. Here we go.
Jason Lange: Foreign.
Host: Why do men have hard time in our society? In this modern World today?
Jason Lange: Yeah, it's a fantastic question and something obviously I'm pretty passionate about. But we're living in interesting times in that I believe in evolution. Like we're supposed to evolve as human beings and grow and, and men are being asked to grow now in some pretty significant and powerful ways. And I think we're just at this shifting point where what used to be enough isn't quite enough. In the positive, I would say these last 50, 60 years a lot has already started to shift. Women were able to come out of the home and into the workforce and be single and not just have to bear kids and really get empowered in some powerful ways that I'm very pro. There's been a shift happening to men that started a little later. And so this is part of kind of what I want to highlight here is that we're in a transition as men and we're a little behind in the sense that the men's work movement didn't really start till kind of the late 80s, early 90s with guys like Robert Bly and some others who started to bring attention to like, hey, things are changing for men too and some men are getting left behind, so to speak. The main thing I want to talk about here around this is from a young age, and obviously it's different in different places on the planet, but in general, from a young age, men and boys, we have tended to be rewarded for being disembodied, so for being disconnected from our bodies. So our ability to work hard, do long hours, do dangerous jobs, go to war, you name it, professional sports, a lot of times that achievement comes at the cost of our bodily well being. And in a sense, just in terms of evolution and reproduction, all it takes is if you have 30 women, you only need a man or two and you can create a whole nother generation of people. If you have 30 men and only one woman, it doesn't work so well. So there's in a biological sense the, the male body has been a little more disposable. And so men were often sent off to war, do really hard, challenging things. And so this has kind of crept up in how we're raised and in the culture where from a young age, again, what most men are valued for is being tough. Be tough, push forward, get it done, achieve, don't need anyone. Particularly where I live here in the States, there's this whole myth of the kind of lone cowboy who doesn't need anyone and just gets things done by himself. There's some positive qualities in there.
Host: What is it like generational inheritance in, in this mindset.
Jason Lange: Yeah, some of it's generational, some of it is cultural, some of it is probably even biological. But there is this sense that what we get rewarded for often comes at the cost of our body. And in the work I do that includes our emotions. And so the big shift that started in the last 20, 30 years for men is, I would argue for women, it was that the outer world came online. We can go into the world and be individuals who have goals and wants and desires and dreams that aren't just tied to our biology. For men, it's kind of the inner world that's opened up. We're allowed to have feelings and an inner landscape and not always have the right answer or not always be tough and not always be strong. And the cost of this is becoming more and more prevalent and noticeable in the culture. Male suicide is through the roof. Men tend to don't live as long as men suffer from loneliness, heart disease, like these different things at much higher level, and they're all connected. This idea of I have to be tough and figure things out on my by myself is ingrained in so many men from a young age. And they have the research that if a man feels isolated and lonely in his life, it's just as dangerous as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, being morbidly obese. Many men these days don't have any friends over the age. Once they get past, like 30, they have far fewer friends. There's been societal changes where things like male clubs and certain types of work have changed, and more people work from home and work alone. And so isolation has gone up. And that particularly hits us men. The challenge we're having at this moment is we're being asked to bring our inner world online. And then the outer world has changed considerably and there's been a reckoning for. I don't believe that there's such thing per se as toxic, masculine. I call it pathological, which just means something has gone wrong in its development. And there's a real history of what can happen when men who are particularly disconnected from their heart, their hearts, their ability to feel, who they're with, and even the environment, what kind of destruction they can cause, right? Or rape, environmental degradation. This stuff is real and there's plenty of evidence in the world. The, the, the thing about that is there's a lot of attention on that now. And so a lot of men are getting fed this message of here's what you're not supposed to be, here's what we know is bad and dangerous, but there's not much talk about, well, then, what's healthy? What is the healthy manifestation of a. An integrated man these days? Someone who's holding masculine energy in a good way. And so many men want to be better, but they don't know what it looks like. And in the work I do, I often see that men, you know, in this inheritance thing you're talking about, we often only have about three different archetypes of what a man can be modeled for us. One, what I would just call simply the macho jerk. The just my way or the highway. I take what I want, I do what I want. My attention is on getting my needs met, Even if that means, yeah, I hurt somebody in the process or hurt the planet or whatever that might be. And we've had generations of that. And many men saw that and said, no, I don't want to be that. And so the pendulum kind of swung to what's fairly present in certain parts of the world now, of kind of the nice guy. A man who's really sweet, really sensitive, very safe, but a little disconnected from his power, his sexuality, his ability to set boundaries or move towards what he wants in life. And those guys don't tend to get what they want, and they sometimes have a hard time protecting themselves or the people around them. So those two archetypes don't work. And then there's also what I would kind of call just the stoic, which is the. The man who just shows up. He might be a dad, might be a grandfather, does what he's supposed to do, but has completely sealed off his inner world, never has an emotion, never talks about it, is just on lockdown. And, you know, I think particularly some older generations really have that, where I hear stories all the time of someone talking and they find out their grandfather was a vet in a war and experienced all this stuff. And like, why you never said anything about that. And I've known you for my entire life, but it's just lockdown. And so most men are kind of modeled those three things, and they don't work. Men end up suffering. Our bodies suffer the whole time. In terms of autoimmune disorders, addictions to alcohol or and weed. You know, there's so many things these days which are all attempt to manage what happens when we feel discomfort in our body. And you add on to that, you know, culturally, a lot of times, there's just this sense that's just as men are just as much at fault here of deriding other men. Anytime we show vulnerability or emotion, we call it locker room talk. We call it here in the States where we make fun of you or call you names or label you a feminine or whatever that might be. So men are also getting it from other men that, hey, I'm not supposed to have emotions. And lo and behold, emotions start as sensations in the body. So if I'm not going to have emotions, best way to not feel them is to eject from my body. And all that leaves is then our head. And so a lot of men walk around in the world ruminating, totally lost in thought and actually disconnected from the body they're in. And that causes all kinds of problems. And that's, I think, where men are at right now. If we've had generations of men who have been disconnected and we're now being asked to reconnect, to actually literally to come into our bodies and hearts and be present in the world in a.
Host: Completely different way, how could, how did you come to this inner work and kind of. I don't know if it's a revelation. It's we know about should happen, being connected to their body and feel the sensations, to feel the emotions and express them. Easy said. How did you get to this point, to this understanding?
Jason Lange: Yeah, totally. For me, it started the way it starts for a lot of men, where it came from my own pain. So something in my life was so painful that I had to make a change and try to find something else. So for me, it was. I grew up here in the United States, white guy, lower middle class, had most of my basic survival needs met in a lot of ways. But my family just did not have emotional connectivity or physical intimacy of any kind. So we were just kind of in the same house. Things weren't really talked about. There wasn't much connection between us. And so that was, you know, mostly fine. I found a way to survive when I was a young boy, but as I became a teenager and went through puberty and suddenly was interested in women, I found that I could. My whole body would get anxious and tight and uncomfortable when I was around a woman and I was attracted to and I did not know how to connect. And I saw other people connecting and getting into relationships and it was super painful for me that I couldn't. I didn't know how to do it. My whole body would clam up. And that started a journey for me of like, well, why? Why does my body do that? Which uncovered. Oh, okay. Yeah. There were certain nutrients I didn't get.
Host: How did you know that you were just a teenager.
Jason Lange: Well, this didn't all happen as a teacher teenager, but as I, you know, spent the next couple years with the realization, my life feels very painful. I don't like it. There must be a better way to live in the world. Like, literally, there just. There must be a less painful way to be in the world. And that started me on, like, a hunt, you know, a journey to try to figure out what was going on. And that ties into the next piece where, you know, first I got introduced to some therapy, and then it was men's work. I got into men's groups, and I, in my mid-20s, got to spend time with older men who were further along their journey, who had done more inner work and transformative work and had the immediate experience in my body of that is what I want.
Host: Wow.
Jason Lange: I can feel that man. He's relaxed in his body. He's very present.
Host: He's.
Jason Lange: He's not a pushover, but he's not a jerk. Like, he. He can set clear boundaries. He's a leader, and I want to be a leader like that. So it was me, you know, coming up to these men and being like, how did you get where you are? What did you do? What did you discover? And then that kind of got me on this journey of inner work and growth to help me get connected to my body. And that was a huge start for me of realizing I was totally disembodied. I was pretty numbed out from my body. And, you know, just really, until about 10 years ago, people would ask me, you know, what are you feeling? How do you feel? And I'd be like, I don't know. What do you mean? I'm okay. Like, I had no connection to what was happening in my inner world. No labels, no way to talk about it, no way to express it. Which means I didn't have a lot of control over it then, because it was something that was just happening without me. So this inner journey, you know, for a lot of. Another way to think about this is for a lot of men, we used to grow by going out into the frontier of the outer world, really exploring and going to new places. This moment in time that has shifted to the inner world, what does it mean to go inside and start to ask, why do I feel the ways I feel? And then, you know, you pull on that thread enough, and you just quickly discover, well, I feel this way because I was raised a certain way. Why was I raised this way? Oh, because my parents experienced something. Why did they experience it? Because their parents Experienced something. And you do feel these threads, which they have evidence for, right in this new body of work called epigenetics, that in addition to passing on our DNA, there's a layer of genetic material on the outside of the DNA that actually gets changed by your life experience. And we pass that forward through our children. And it's something you can change, which I think we'll talk a lot about later. But so there was this awareness of, oh, okay, there's certain wounds, let's say, that the men in my lineage have been carrying for generations. And what's really cool about this moment in time is now because of the Internet and information and just the way the world's opened up, we have access to more healing modalities than any single person had on the planet, you know, 100 years ago. And so we have the real potential to actually change this stuff and say, you know what, I want to do this differently whether you have kids or not. And I want the generations after me to experience it differently. So I'm going to change. I'm going to do my work here and become even more intimate with myself. And that has a massive impact on our well being as men. You know, the certainly what I experienced and what I see in men when I guide them in this work is as they get more into their bodies and some of this emotional material releases and moves and they get more grounded and they get more present, they come more alive. It's like life energy actually comes back in their body. And it's so much more pleasant to both be in that as a man and then to be around men who are feeling that.
Host: Hey, if you're listening to this episode and benefiting from it, could you help me reach more like minded listeners by rating it 5 stars? It only takes 2 seconds. Just pause this episode and click on the stars. Thank you. For the women listening to this. They have so much to come out of it. Because I can give you a real life example that maybe put what you're saying in more factual situation. We women, when we are angry, nervous, anxious, we feel it in our gut. And I remember I was in therapy sessions and the therapist asked me, so where are you feeling it? The first time she asked me, I didn't know what to answer. Even though I feel it in my gut, I was, is it normal to say that I feel it in my gut? I have stomach pain because of it. Sometimes I feel it suffocating me and I wonder if I'm feeling this anxiousness like this and I haven't heard I do hear women talking about it, but I don't. It's like men don't feel it. They don't have the sensation. And you mentioned seeking things outside in the exterior rather than inside the inner work. Am I like, understanding correctly? So what I'm feeling was the inner circle sensation of my anxiousness and the exterior would be overreacting. Drinking or having.
Jason Lange: That's what men will often. That's what men in particular will often do. I mean, any human, but men in particular, because no one teaches us or trains us how to be in our bodies. We will have uncomfortable sensations in our body. We've not been taught to identify them, let alone what to do with them. So what do men do? They want to eject away from those sensations. So when you think about probably the most popular drug on, on the earth, alcohol, what does it do? It takes us away from our sensations. It numbs literally men and women. But a lot of men will, will actually drink until they black out. They will drink themselves to feeling nothing. Weed, porn, sex. There's so many different things men will kind of turn towards to get away from their feelings because they don't know what to do with them. And you're right. Like, there's so much information in the body. And I think, you know, for evolutionary reasons, women have had to be more in touch with that because they are in more dangerous situations just physically. You know, in the history of the world, they, they've been smaller and so their intuition has had to be stronger of, oh, something tells me this is not safe, I am not safe, my child is not safe, this man is not safe, whatever it is. And I think some of that has persevered. So women are often just a little bit more in touch with their bodies and intuitions. Men, we have that capacity. I know men who are highly intuitive and highly connected to their bodies, but it's, it's often not there by default. We have to kind of be taught it how to connect to our bodies in that sense. But there's so much power there like, like you experienced. And they have evidence for it right now in that, you know, there's a, you've maybe heard of, there's a bundle of nerves that go from the base of your brain down your center column called the vagal nerve. They call it the vagal nerve, but it's a couple different nerves. And the interesting thing about it is it's what connects the brain to the body. It's kind of the highway that connects the brain to the body. But they've done research and what they found is that only 20% of the bandwidth of that channel, let's say, is brain to body. So 80% of that channel is dedicated to, to getting information from the body and bringing it to the brain. So many men are walking around in the world only using 20% of their capacity to lead, frankly, to be intuitive, to make decisions. They're ignoring all this information they're getting from their body, from the environment. And that's a big part of what, you know, I'm trying to champion here is hey guys, it's not just like woo, woo, get in touch with your feelings. It's you're missing out on being the most effective version of yourself, that you can be the best leader, the best lover, the best father, whatever that looks like the best boss in that. The more we can get in touch with that, the better.
Host: It takes me to, to the place where it seems men are missing out on so much and at the same time they did not have the help to discover it. Women from the 70s were fighting for the pill before fighting to vote and then for the pill to work. There is so much keeping women busy in advancing. And men, they've been having the wrong kind of guidance which made them disconnected completely from their bodies and sensations. To your point, a lot of men don't run away from these conversations because they don't want to have the talk about their emotions. They're with their friends. I don't know what men talk about with their friends, but you can see like football is men, car racing is men, shooting games, martial arts sport is men. And they get very excited about all these topics over a beer and a barbecue. I'm doing things together. Don't they have deep conversations to get to know the deep inside of them?
Jason Lange: Yeah, I think a lot of men are starving for that and many men I work with don't even know it's possible. So another thing here is, yeah, a lot of men are taught to relate by what I call triangulation, which means you and I, we feel connected to each other by having our attention on this third thing, sports, martial arts, race car, whatever that thing is, it's by us sharing our attention on this thing, we feel bonded with each other and there's a time and place for that. It can be really beautiful and it can be really fun, but it misses out on the depth underneath of what happens when we put our attention on each other. Hey, what's going on in your life? What's hard? Were you thriving? What are you celebrating? Were you in pain. And when men, in my opinion, in my experience, when they discover that that's a possibility and someone guides them into it, turns out they have a lot to share about their lives and what they're feeling. But they've just, again, many of us have just never had it modeled for us that we can do that, that we can go deeper than just this kind of surface things. Right. A lot of men just. We like to talk about things rather than each other in our relationships. And I'm not saying you can't talk about things. What I'm saying is there's a lot more available to you, to us as men, when we bring on these other pieces. And in fact, it makes life better. Like, life is better when we're connected to ourselves and in our bodies and in our hearts and we can relate, particularly to other men. But really, anyone from this deeper place. And that, you know, there's some structural reasons for some of this, too, in that, you know, in a lot of human history there, there were, you know, obviously, again, different in different cultures, but it was pretty traditional that in a lot of tribal societies, you know, boys and girls would be kind of raised together until about the time of puberty and mostly be raised by women. And then at a certain age, a boy would be taken away by the men to go through a rite of passage and start spending time with uncles and men, men in the community to start to learn the ways of what it means to be a man, how to protect, how to serve, how to make things. And a lot of that changed when the Industrial revolution hit. And suddenly men's work wasn't in the near town anymore. It was often a factory. So dad would go away all day. And then, you know, we had the. Can't think of the word. But, you know, the. The idea of kind of K through 12 schooling came online. Okay, then we're going to throw kids in a school where they go away. And a lot of teachers these days are females. So a lot of boys are primarily raised by women, and they never have that rite of passage where. Where men say, hey, let's talk about what it means to be a man. What it means that, yeah, your body's changing, you have powers, you have urges, you have desires. What's your responsibility in your culture and your family, whatever that might be. And so, yeah, there's just a lot of confluences of things that, you know, a lot of young boys never have the chance to connect with older, mature men, particularly ones that aren't necessarily their dads, because you know, no father can be the perfect father and give a son everything, but you can learn a lot by being around other older, wiser men. That's part of where I got lucky in my 20s is I met some men, and they each had different pieces of things I was yearning for and that I didn't even know were possible. And suddenly I had modeled for me. Like, wow, that man is crying because of how much pain he's in. But, wow, he doesn't feel weak. He feels actually quite strong. Like, I feel more relaxed being around him. Or that man's really, really angry. Like, I feel his ferocity and his boundary, but he doesn't feel dangerous again. He actually feels safe. Like, I didn't. I didn't know that was possible. A man could be angry or a man could be sad and still be totally present and trustable and open. And it's in those interactions that our nervous system, I think, learns what's possible. Like, oh, wow, I didn't know that was an option. Nobody showed me or modeled that for me. And then once it's modeled for a lot of men, they. They want to step into it. You know, that's the thing. Like, once men get the instruction manual, we generally want to do it right.
Host: Men are good with instruction manuals.
Jason Lange: Yeah, we love it. We're like, oh, once. Once you tell me how to get there. But right now, a lot of men don't know where it is they're supposed to get and let alone how to get there.
Host: Jason, it seems that the conversations. Not. Not every man and every child will have the opportunity to have a father figure or a wise man to guide them in the conversations that men can have with each other as friends, as colleagues or nephews, siblings. These conversations can also give wisdom and guidance. My question is, what is the fear? Is it the competition? What holds men back? From opener. Opening up about conversations that are deep or they feel, they think. Is it judgment, fear, competition? What are.
Jason Lange: Totally. Yeah. A lot of it is judgment and fear that other men will make fun of them, mock them, hurt them, weaponize it against them. And there are plenty of men that have experienced that, you know, through bullying or other men taking advantage of them. So these fears aren't all unfounded. And I'm not saying you're going to do this with every single man on the planet, but what's important to know is there are men available you can relate with in a different way where you can get under the surface there and learn that, oh, wow, every man doesn't have to be my competition, as I say, but they can actually be my allies. Other men can be my biggest allies in that, you know, like I'm in a men's group. I've been in one for a decade here in la. And you're exactly right. A big part of what we're doing with each other is actually re. Fathering each other, giving each other certain types of father energy. And we all have a different expression of that that's going around the circle at different times. But it fulfills a need that a lot of us didn't get of what it means to. To be around a grounded, safe, powerful, masculine presence that accepts us and, you know, will give us a little guidance. If it's like, hey, I think you could be doing a little better here and I want you to be doing a little better. Do you want to do a little better? Yeah. Well, let's figure that out. It's the how I kind of summarize, like the what I say. The. The father energy we all need is just the energy of, well, let's figure it out together. Something didn't work. You have a problem, you failed at something, you're scared about something. That's okay, let's figure it out together is like such a beautiful masculine energy. We can bring that. I'm right in there with you. We're going to trouble, solve, troubleshoot, fix this, and then you're going to learn something in the process that's going to help you feel even more confident taking yourself forward. And so many men I know did not get that at all. They either had an overbearing father, a totally absent father, volatile father, you name it. And so many, many boys end up having to raise themselves.
Host: In majority. They do. And the fathers, they don't have the knowledge that this, their times were different and the women in their lives were not, did not want liberation. Of course, I'm not generalizing, but the families we know, we grew up with, my family and the fathers were not the guiding fathers to get connected to their emotions. They are absolutely the contrary. Just do it. Don't cry, be strong.
Jason Lange: Yeah. That's why I emphasize men's work, men's community, men's groups, because sometimes you actually can't find that in your literal family lineage. So you have to go for it outside of that. And that's how you can help heal your lineage in some ways is saying, wow, okay, my dad never learned how to X, I'm going to learn how to do that. So my kids have a different experience of what it means that, yeah, as a man, I'm allowed to have feelings, I'm allowed to have emotions. I can share my honesty. I can share my truth and can become more trustable for it.
Host: Frankly, I'm raising my son. And you said children, they went to school, their teachers were women. The difficulty I have as a woman in teaching my son to be connected with his emotions is when is it too much emotions and when is the time for me to ask him to be strong and just put these emotions aside, or not put them aside, but deal with them differently? So for women, we also lack the education on how to raise our boys because I think once we have clarity on the men's side and they are connected with their emotions, we can work together to raise our children. The remark from my side, based on women raising children.
Jason Lange: Yeah, No, I love that. And I think it is part of what we're all having to figure out collectively right now is how do we do this in what's the healthier way? And, you know, in. In my world, it's. There's no such thing as too much emotion or a good emotion or a bad emotion. What is important in what we want to teach our kids, it's what we do with our emotions. So it's not the emotion that's good or bad. It's what do we do with it. And where men in the past have been, you know, the most damaging is when they don't take responsibility and they push their emotions out or take their emotions out on other people. But it's totally fine to be angry or to be sad or to be upset. But that's very different from, I'm going to hit you or hurt you or totally withdraw from. From. From you or the family for extended periods of time. And so what we want to teach kids, you know what I teach my men, which is the same thing we teach boys, is how do we stay present with our emotions?
Host: Can you give me an example?
Host: I hope so. I don't see it at the moment. It feels such a long way. There are a lot of talks about it, but no one taking initiative or making this change or on a global level, because there are, of course, schools that only foster this method. This brings me to a conversation I had with my husband the day before yesterday. They're working on the road in front of our house and there's a pile of sand with pipes, empty pipes. And my son and his friends went there and they started playing. So I went to give them candies and I was sure shocked by the view. He was so dirty. His shoes, his clothes. Like, I've never seen him like this before. His nails are black. It was horrible. I returned home and I'm like saying to my husband, they're not allowed to come inside. They have to stay outside. They are so dirty. And my husband looking at me saying, it's okay, it's okay. He should be doing this, he should be getting dirty. And then I was like, yeah, what the heck? I mean, why am I Making such a big deal out of it. But I'm not used to it. I grew up in a place where we have to stay clean and not mess out our clothes. And at school, I was at nuns school. So you really have to be just brave and don't talk. And I think I brought this with me and my children upbringing. And my son is my third child. Can you imagine how awful I was with my first one? And how strict. So things change.
Jason Lange: This is part of the growth as a parent is right. As we learn things with it, with each child and in ourselves. And every time we have a kid, we get to re experience what we weren't allowed to experience as a kid. And so that stuff can trigger things in us. Like no, you can't come in the house dirty. And you really sit with that and it's like, well, where's that voice coming from? Oh, that's the voice that I was told. And I was never allowed to come in the house dirty. So that that stuff starts to play out right through the generations. But in a situation like yours, that's beautiful that you kind of caught that. Like, why am I having this reaction? Like, yeah, what would it mean to, you know, it doesn't mean he can just come in and get mud everywhere or whatever. But how could I meet him a little in the way. Yeah, play. And then we're gonna, you know, clean up a little bit when you come in and I'm glad you had fun.
Host: I also did some work on my cell phone in the past. It wouldn't go so easily that I accept it.
Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah. That's what it takes though. That's what it takes.
Host: Hard work.
Jason Lange: And that teaches practice and you know, without directly teaching him. That is teaching him something. Because you're transmitting. Growth never stops. I, I'm growing, I look at myself, I learn things, I have to reevaluate things. And his nervous system is going to absorb that whether he's conscious of it or not. Right. Wow. Mom changed her mind on something. That's incredible. Maybe I can change my mind on things too. Like that's part of the lesson you're then teaching him, which is beautiful.
Host: Thanks for giving me this insight. I have not thought of it. That's a good one.
Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah. It's a great gift. Totally.
Host: I want to know from you because you talk about the man group and how it helped you. What is man group and where can they be found?
Jason Lange: So men's groups, you know, in some sense they're like tale as old as time. But they kind of went away and I think they're coming back in that traditionally, yeah, men have spent time with other men to grow and discover who they are. Like we said, there used to be rites of passage, men going off on the hunt, men going off to war. Deep bonding often happened in these things. A lot of that has fallen away. You know, for those of us lucky to live in parts of the world where that's not prevalent right now. But men's groups, an attempt to bring that back, back that, hey, we need connection as men. We tend to grow faster and deeper with other men. So I often use the example of, you know, just something as simple as exercise. It's like, oh, I'm going to go exercise today and I'm exercising alone and you know, I exercise. Or it's like, I'm going to go exercise with my friend. Oh, wow, they're exercising hard. I'm going to exercise a little harder today. You know, there's a little like friendly back and forth and you want end up often bringing more of yourself than you might have otherwise. And men's group is essentially kind of that. It's what happens if a group of men gather often repeatedly, with the intention of, I want to be the best version of myself and create the most amazing life I can. And sometimes I'm going to be feeling down and I need support from others to let me know I'm okay, it's going to be, be okay. And sometimes I need my feet to be held to the fire a little bit and be held accountable that, hey, you've been talking about wanting to leave your job for two years and you're miserable. What needs to happen for you to actually make that change? And then the group can help you kind of move towards that. But the, the essence of a men's group is just men getting together and putting their attention on each other and supporting each other and becoming the most whole, deep, healthy versions themselves. They can be with intention. So sharing what are your intentions? What are your wants? What are your desires? What do you want to create in life? What kind of relationship do you want to have? What kind of father do you want to be? A lot of men never really think about that. They just get sucked into the, you know, you're supposed to do this next in life and this next in life and this next in life. And then lo and behold, so many men have, you know, midlife crisises where suddenly they're in a job or in a situation that they're, they're like, I don't actually want to be here. I never chose to be here. I just kind of fell into being here. So men's group's kind of a way to disrupt that. And there are many types of men's groups, just like we might talk about, hey, start meditating. And it turns out there's tons of ways to meditate. There's lots of ways to run the men's group. A lot of them are support based, like I talked about, or accountability based or practice based, meaning we get together and we do different embodiment practices or meditative practices to get more in our bodies. I lead some around shadow work, which is about getting more touch with our emotional material. And, you know, like I said, the, the men's work movements a little behind. So, you know, when I got into my first men's group in the mid-2000s, you know, I could say that term and nobody would have had any idea what I'm talking about. We're at a moment now where it is starting to kind of pierce the culture a little bit. And it's. The work is getting out there and growing really fast, where there's different organizations that run men's groups. And it's starting to spread because I think there is this deep need where men are feeling so isolated, they want to feel connected. You know, coming out of the pandemic, a lot of men felt even more isolated. So there's a real hunger for community and connection. So men's groups, you know, it can be something structured and organized and facilitated. It can also be, as I tell a lot of men, just start as simple as you grab another buddy or two and you say, hey, do you want to get together 8 o' clock on Monday and talk about life? Like, just talk about our actual lives for 90 minutes. That can often be the seed of an amazing group. And like I said, sometimes once men actually get into the space where they can be heard and share their honesty, they'll. They'll have a lot to say. Always kind of surprised, you know, quiet men will come into my groups and then finally they'll feel safe and they'll just have so much to share that they've been holding for sometimes decades.
Host: I'm going now in a. In a. In a direction that is awkward, but I really want not to understand. I just want to put more emphasis on the work you do. I hear a lot of coaches, men coaches, they came from, they hit rock bottom, they discovered themselves and they started coaching. And in majority, they go into sports and fitness and coaching to become stronger, stronger body and they connected stronger body, stronger in mind, what you're talking about has physical activity, or maybe not, but it's totally different from what I'm hearing from multiple coaches. What shadow working, what you're talking about stands out. It's not go to sport and get yourself fit and feel confident. It's go and talk to have mental fitness and more confidence.
Jason Lange: Yeah, it's exactly it. It's not at the exclusion of that other stuff. You know, feeling just having a strong and healthy body is life giving. Right. We can show up and we can do more of the things we want to do. So the work I do is about we want to have healthy balance in our bodies, in our hearts and in our minds. We need to do just like you go to the gym to work out your body, you have to do certain emotional work to work out your heart, your emotions, and you have to do certain meditative work to work out your mind to get a little more structured with your beliefs and thoughts and not believe most of the garbage that our mind thinks. Most thoughts are just garbage. Like they're just the way we talk to ourselves. The stories we make up, they have nothing to do with reality. And so a little discipline there, a little ability to emotionally express ourselves and then taking care of our bodies and men can transform so fast. And I think these things are all important and all related. So the work I do, yeah, it's really about what I call embodiment just coming into the body. But that includes our emotions, that includes our head. It's not the exclusion of all those things. We want all three in healthy balance.
Host: What kind of the man that comes to you? They have somebody told them you have to go and work on yourself. Or in majority they knew they have to up.
Host: Notice you're very good in talking about man's energy and how they can use it in the right way or how it can put them down, like in a dangerous manner. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Jason Lange: Yeah. I think one of the big challenges for most men I work with is energy management is just literally having enough energy and vitality to engage with the world. And most I joke, I want to make a T shirt. You know, for a lot of men, they walk around and they're feeling tired, grumpy and burdened. I have so much to do and I'm not, I don't have enough time and I didn't do this and I'm failing this. And that's the disposition for a lot of men. And so a lot of the work I do for men is around vitality. Yeah. What does it mean to get energy in your body so you can actually show up and participate and very important here, actually enjoy your life. So many men fall for the fallacy of, well, once I do X, then I can be happy and enjoy life. Once I get that raise, once I get the hot girlfriend, once I get the sports car, once I get rock hard abs. And the thing is that Almost never works because then you get there and you're like, oh, I'm still not happy. You know, like, I work so hard for this thing. So what I teach men is what does it take to have the energy to show up and be actively engaged and passionate about your life? And a man who is engaged and connected and passionate about his life is very infectious and attractive. People want to be around him. It's magnetic. There's, wow, you're in, you're in your life and you're enjoying it. I want to be around you. And how we do that as men, you know, it does take a lot of work learning to manage our energy and for a lot of guys, just literally learn to take care of our bodies, to get enough sleep, to eat well, to manage our sexual energy, to manage our diet, to manage our emotional health. These things are all connected.
Host: It's good to know. You know, you said once I get. Men want to feel happy. Once they get to their goal, they have a goal, they want to get to it, and then they will feel happy. And sometimes these goals are very small, and I don't mean very small, that they're not important. But these goals are not worth forgetting the essentials and looking after their partner or themselves or their children and save their energy for. Unfortunately, I don't think we also have learned anything after the pandemic is that the pressure of work is back, is, is making men and women feel back in this trap we were in before the pandemic.
Jason Lange: Totally. And that ties into, you know, that thing I said. A lot of men will just step onto the escalator of life without ever taking the time to think about, well, where do I actually want to end up and go? So I'm going to work hard, work hard, advance in my career. Suddenly I'm doing like 80 hour weeks and I only see my kid, you know, on weekends. So that what you know, and often there's, well, so that eventually I can make enough money to not work as much, so I can actually spend time with my friends and family. And then you realize, wow, so you, it, it doesn't actually work then, because by the time you get there, you've missed out on all the time. So there's this having to learn to prioritize and balance what's really right. That it's like, okay, well maybe, you know, making the extra $200,000 a year isn't worth it if I never get to enjoy my life or be in it or spend time with my wife or my kid. And that's a big thing for a lot of men to have to actually sit down and think about, like, well, what do I. How do I actually want to live? And then maybe I should make career decisions to support that. Right. That actually support me in my relationships and living my life and enjoying it. You know, that's the. The thing. You know, Another way to think about this kind of myth is the retirement myth. I'll work hard now so later on I can enjoy my life. The trick to that is, right, we're often aged, our body isn't as vital, isn't as healthy, and then we've missed out on exploring the world for, you know, 30, 40 years. So the idea of, well, how can I start enjoying my life more now, not just living for the future? And that's a big, you know, that's the big shift of how do we as men become more present in our lives now, right now, how do I actually be in it? Maybe it's not exactly what I want it to be, but the truth is there's no guarantee you're even going to be here tomorrow. So you gotta. Yeah. Have a goal, move towards it and don't forget to, you know, spend all the roses along the way.
Host: As we say, it's not easy to apply all of this. What's the most difficult thing, the most difficult approaches that you notice in your work? Happening and becoming. I have the word in Dutch in my head. Hold on, I have to find it in English.
Jason Lange: That's okay. Yeah, you can bring it in Dutch.
Host: Belemmering. That the blockage, the obstacle. That's the word, the obstacle from making them move forward.
Host: When you're talking about failure and support each other, see someone failing, learn, try. This is very hard. In my perspective as a woman on the sideline, it's hard for a man to fail in front of the people he knows, the friends, the family, whomever, because they have to keep the face that we're successful. I'm doing it, I'm achieving my goals. I have it everything under control. But in a man group, they're allowed to fail. So if the whole world did not know about this failure, they still have this one place.
Jason Lange: Yeah.
Host: Do you see this happening in your group?
Jason Lange: It's very freeing for men. Well, and part of what it starts to differentiate is my self worth as a human being is not totally reliant on what I do or achieve. Many men fall for that. That I am is only. I'm only as worthy as the things I do in the world. And if I haven't achieved those, I'm not worth it. Right. I'm not something. And so part of what, you know, men in this work and myself get to start to differentiate and distinguish is, oh, those things are great and I love to achieve them. And even if I never achieved that, still a good person, I love who I am. Love the relationships in my life. I'm proud of who I am. It's not based on, did I achieve this? In a. In a sense, was I successful? The, the real when I try to help move men towards is it's not about did you win or lose, it's did you play full out, did you move towards your truth and what you want in the world? And when you do that repeatedly, you feel free, even if it wasn't successful. And I work with a lot of guys who are considerably older than me. And I can tell you the biggest regrets most men die with are not the times they failed. It's when they're like, oh, I never went for it. A failure. If a relationship burns out or a startup or a job doesn't go well, like, it stings, it's there, but then, you know, a couple years later, it's not the thing you're thinking about. It's, yeah, I went for it. I'm really glad I went for that. I learned so much in that process about myself, which then I was able to bring into my next relationship or my next job or whatever. And that shift is, that's just a game changer shift for men. And it's not about winning or losing. It's, you know, are you actually playing the game, so called, so to speak, of life.
Host: Hearing you saying this, it makes me feel so compassionate with the man around me or the ones I hear, because what you're describing makes me also see so clearly that men are not giving themselves the permission to slow down. At the same time, I'm thinking, but if they give themselves this permission and slow down, they will be judged mostly at work. There is a lot of pressure and the pressure is real. So the more there are men groups at work everywhere supporting each other, we can make a change. And I say we because now from this conversation is it opens my eyes on. I knew. It's not like I didn't. Because this is why I wanted to have this talk with you. I know that men have it difficult. I just don't feel in a position that I can talk about it because I'm not a man. And this brings me to the question that distracted me a few minutes ago, is that if this interview, if this podcast was with a host, a man host, the experience would also be so different. Like, goodness, I can't even imagine how much there would be things to talk about because you feel it, you see it, the host feel it and sees it. And this is kind of awareness for us women to step into the world of men and see what's going on so we can have compassion and understanding. Which bring me to my question. How can we women help men to feel they can give themselves permission and that we are tolerant too?
Jason Lange: Yeah, I think I've been saying this lately. One of the greatest things you can do for a man in your life is just share appreciation for where. Where do you see him? Trying hard doesn't mean he's doing a great job in it. You know, there might be a lot you of improvement there. But to acknowledge, like, hey, I see you're trying. You know, I see you're trying to show up more around the house or you've been cutting back on work hours, or I, I see how hard you work for our family. Thank you. Like, I. I see what a toll that takes on you and your body. Appreciation goes a huge way for men of just. We want to take care of the people around us. Oftentimes we have a story we're failing at it. And when we just get a little appreciation, it's like nourishment for the soul. Water in the desert. So just appreciating the men around you in your life, or even as imperfect they are, as flawed as they are, has failed. Failing in certain things. They are to show. Show to appreciate where they are trying and to acknowledge that that makes a big difference with men. And then, yeah, to just let a man know, you know, I know there's a lot you experience that I don't necessarily understand. And I just want you to know it's. It's okay that you don't always have it figured out. You don't have to do everything perfect. And I want you to be resourced and enjoy your life. And I'm here to support you. And I'm totally open to you also getting support from other men, men, you know, whatever that might be, to kind of bridge that conversation. Because there is something I see that's pretty magical for men when they're just in a room with other guys and there is that kind of just shared reality of, oh, you get it. You get it. In a way that I imagine when women sit in circle with each other, they can often feel too of the pressures of being a woman and all that you have to deal with in. In the world. And when we can do that individually, you know, and then also be open to connecting with each other in these ways. And just getting curious about each other is such a great thing. Just the willingness to get curious, to try to learn more what's happening over There for you, and particularly for men. I would say one thing you can do as a woman is if you are wanting to feel your man more and how, you know, get him more connected to his feelings. Oftentimes the best way for men to do that is to first ask them to just share what are the sensations they're feeling in their body? So not like, what are you. Emotionally, what are you feeling? But just like, yeah, what's happening in your body right now? And oftentimes men can. Oh, yeah, I do feel. I just feel a lot of weight on my shoulders. They can. They can start there. Just like, yeah, what are you feeling in your body right now? Does it feel tense? Does it feel. Feel light? Does it feel nauseous? And that can be a gateway into those deeper emotions a lot of times, like we were talking about, and not always, sometimes they just might be like, yeah, my back's. My lower back's just really tight right now. But that's more. That's a lot more. At least you have something to work with there. And I. I found the physicality of that is sometimes easier for men to answer than like, well, what are you feeling right now? You know, emotionally, they're like, I don't know. But it's like, well, what are you feeling in your body right now as you're with me? Yeah, my stomach doesn't feel good. Okay. You know, that's a start. So that's another generous thing you can do.
Host: That's a hard one. Because. Do these answers come after you taught them something? Because I find if I would ask this question the first time, I might not have an answer from my husband.
Jason Lange: Yeah, you might not. I mean, and that's a big part of what I do in men's groups when I lead or coach with men, is slow them down. Get them into their bodies and slow them down. Once we slow it down, then it's often, oh, I can't. Yeah, okay. Oh, yeah. I am kind of feeling something right here. It's just. Just below my navel or, you know, wherever. So it does take some training. Like, I will be, you know, like we said, it takes practice. It's like any skill, it takes practice to build that awareness. But it can happen, you know, faster than we think. Once, particularly once you make it the culture of a relationship, you're like, hey, here's what I'd like us to do, is even if we don't know what we're feeling, we can just slow down and name one sensation we're having in our body. And then that becomes habit over time, and then it'll get easier to name the sensation, sensation in your body. And from there, you know, you might layer in some emotions or things like that later on. But that is a big part of what I do in men's work. And same thing it's the beauty of doing it in a group is when a man witnesses another man getting more deeply connected to himself and naming his inner experience, suddenly that man witnessing it has a new roadmap. Oh, those are the kinds of things I can share and talk about. And it made sense to me. Okay, so we see it repeated, and then it becomes easier for us to do it ourselves as well.
Host: Sounds building trust.
Jason Lange: Yes. Great way to put it.
Host: I liked what I heard from you on Instagram when you talked. Let me rephrase it. It's. It's so easy when men are at work to go and do a workshop and get new certificates and learn and grow. And on a personal level, what you mentioned, like men reads, book, etc. How can the work be done? Because learning is something and working is something else. Can you just get me into that part?
Jason Lange: Yeah, I think there's a couple things here. One, I talked about this earlier, but one of the amazing things about the time we live in right now is there is an endless amount of information we have access to. So. And I work with many men, and I do this myself. There's so many books we can read, podcasts we can listen to, courses we can take. But that's also very different from how do I then start to embody this transformation in my life and make different decisions in my day to day. So a lot of men I know get stuck on information. They're just learning more information, but their behavior is not changing. So transformation is when we actually start to take that information and use it to inform the choices we're making in our lives, how we're showing up in the moment. You know, another way I say that is that's embodiment. So it's taking the ideas, it's moving them through our body. And the best way to do that, I find, is start spending time with people who are deeper than you in whatever it is you're wanting to learn, whether that's a professional trade, music or artistry, or in this work, transformational work. A man who has a deeper presence, has gotten more in touch with his emotions, who has done more meditative work or whatever that might be. And when you're around those people, you know, it's like, imagine you want to get better at tennis, what's the best way to do that? You play somebody who's better than you at tennis. If you just played someone who's not as good as you, you're not really going to have to improve. And so it's not so much about gooder and better, but it's just they're more developed, they've invested more time there. So men's groups and men's work are a great way to do that, where you get exposed to other men who are a little deeper on the journey, which will accelerate your transformation. And they can help guide you more into yourself, more into your truth, more into your feelings, more into your bodies. Because again, we love to do it right once we're guided as men, once we're like, oh, that's the game we're playing great, now I can play it. But a lot of times so many men, they just don't know where to start. We don't know the rules, we don't know how to win, so to speak. But when the game is, hey, let's become deep and connected to ourselves, our bodies, our emotions, our feelings, to talk about, you know, the direction of our life and to support each other in the process. Men, you know, will often transform pretty fast. So that's where I would say get involved with a group, a men's group, transformational group, workshops. You know, there's so much more available these days than there ever was before. You know, you can start if you don't have anything in your area listening to podcasts or books or things like that, which will start moving. But at some point you got to get into the room with some other people.
Host: Frankly, my late father is my greatest inspiration in discovering the essence of man. And also my inspiration comes from my brother, my son, my husband. I looked up to my father deeply and at the same time, I wish I could have shown him more of my love. It's difficult to do so when there is no shared vulnerability and also no understanding for who we are or who they are. How do you feel after hearing this? If you'd like to learn more about Jason's work, he is not only helping men transform their masculinity and deepen their presence with women and in the world. He also supports couples in creating happier, more electrifying relationships and expanding their love. Jason also hosts a binge worthy podcast called Evolutionary Manpower. You can find everything about him and the evolutionary man in the show notes. See you next time. Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you enjoyed it. Please share it with your friends and family and ask them to subscribe. Leaving a rating and review on platforms like Apple Podcast can also help boost the podcast ranking. Your support through word of mouth is greatly appreciated. If you feel I'm encouraging you to tell your story, contact me or rulathelifeaffairspodcast.com you will see my email in the Show Notes. I'll see you next time.
