All right, let me be totally honest. Getting on Rob's show to talk about the lone wolf myth was right in my wheelhouse. I get to see this pattern constantly in my work, men who believe they're supposed to go it alone, that needing other men somehow makes them weak or dependent. It's bullshit, and the research backs that up. Loneliness is as dangerous as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, and men who strongly identify with stoic, traditional masculine values are twice as likely to commit suicide.
We dove into why men resist groups so hard. Part of it's fear of being a burden. Part of it's this deeply ingrained cultural programming, the Marlboro Man, the cowboy, John Wayne. But what I've seen over and over is that when a man actually brings his truth forward, his rage or his grief or whatever's really going on, it doesn't drain other men. It actually inspires them. It creates permission for everyone else to be real.
Rob and I also got into the practical stuff, how to actually structure a group so it goes deep instead of just floating on the surface. Tight agreements, clear structure, and confidentiality are crucial. Without those, most groups will default to talking philosophy or complaining about politics. There's a place for that, but it won't change your life.
The other big piece we unpacked is how most men are completely disconnected from their bodies. We're rewarded from a young age for overriding what we feel, sitting still, pushing through, not crying. Then we wonder why we're stuck in our heads all the time, reaching for things outside ourselves to numb out. Alcohol, porn, overwork, whatever. The path through is actually toward the feeling, not away from it.
Jason
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Host: Hey, welcome back to the Unstuck Movement. I'm your host, Rob Z. These are true testimonies of breakthrough. So you have real examples for your life that breakthrough is possible for you. Today we have the powerful Jason Lange with us on the podcast talking about evolutionary men. And what I want to do is start things off with a powerful question, Jason. Today we're talking, you know, brotherhood, masculinity, fatherhood, men's groups, emotional resilience, building that personal growth into our life, and connection over isolation. And that's somewhere where I want to start because I titled this episode the Lone Wolf Myth. And there's lots of guys out there in lone wolf syndrome. They, they kind of idolize glory, glamorize this, like, doing this journey on their own by themselves. And as a recovering lone wolfer, myself and you also, I want to know what changed in your life once you stopped, quote, unquote, lone wolfing it.
Jason Lange: Yeah, when, when I really, for me, the path here was getting into men's work and getting into men's groups and, I mean, just be totally honest. My life got better. My life got better. I started making more money. I had a, I got, I got married. My health improved. Like, if I told, if I told guys there was a pill for what this kind of stuff can do, they'd be like, yeah, totally, I want it. But when you tell them, oh, hey, it's actually about developing real relationships with other men and moving away from this kind of myth, like you said of the lone wolf, they're like, what do you mean? No, it's, you know, I, I really proud of myself for how, how tough I am, for how alone I am. I don't need anybody. Right. I hear this stuff all the time. And there were parts of me that believe that, too, that, you know, through before I fully immersed myself here. Some the most challenging or difficult days, weeks, months of years of my life. I had male friends, and I wasn't even talking to them about it. It's, like, so ridiculous in, in retrospect that I'd be sitting there with a man who clearly had fondness for me. But I was so gripped by, no, you don't talk about this kind of stuff. And I think a lot of men fall prey to that, and it has massive consequences on our well being as men. So, you know, I tell guys, like, whether you ideologically believe in it or not, you want to be a more effective man. This is the path.
Host: Yeah, man. And would you say a lot of that's pride? Not wanting to do it not feeling like you. You can do it, or you're supposed to open up. What would you say that if you had to put a. You know. Yeah, there's a word to it.
Jason Lange: I would say it's pride, fear, and, you know, the bad kind of cultural indoctrination. It's not like this necessarily comes up from nowhere. Us men were raised and taught this from. From an early, early age, really. And then it gets, you know, accentuated, and we perpetuate it often just as much as anyone else. You know, there's. There's these just romantic. There's these romantic ideas, ideals. You and I were talking about where we're located, and we're both here in the States and, you know, in the US in particular, it's the. It's the romantic Marlboro Man. The cowboy.
Host: Yeah, it's John Wayne.
Jason Lange: Right? John Wayne. I don't need anybody. I'm just free and tough as nails. And, you know, there's obviously some real attributes behind those characters that are desirable in a sense, but the real world, those guys are usually dying at the bottom of bottle or from heart disease or like, things. Very real things that we can now map back to the costs of social isolation and what it does for us as human beings and particularly us as men. Right. There's. I mean, there's just so much research and data. It's loneliness itself is as dangerous as poking, smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
Host: Right.
Jason Lange: It's a big one that the surgeon general released a couple years ago. I saw another one that came out last year. It was men who strongly identify with kind of traditional masculine and stoic values, twice as likely to commit suicide. So this stuff has a real cost, real cost to us as men. And part of what we're just having to do right now is kind of shatter that myth and say, actually, yeah, there's a better way. And the better way involves getting connected to other men who can support us and challenge us to create the life we want.
Host: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So, honestly, so excited to have you on here, because this is a. A topic of conversation that I need to have right now. I was a part of a men's.
Jason Lange: Group for.
Jason Lange: Sure.
Host: You check out connectedleadersacademy.com Talk about people coming together. Over 500 entrepreneurs from all over the world who serve each other, help each other grow, and also the Pro Podcaster Academy. So if you're somebody who wants to launch a podcast, you've been thinking about it for a long time, but all the nuts and bolts, you don't know where to begin. There's so many steps of the process. I'd love to help you with that. To become the go to authority in your space, create long lasting personal and professional connections and also create a massive impact in people's lives. If you already have a podcast, you want to streamline it, you want to monetize it, we do that also. The Pro Podcaster [email protected] Jason Lange with Jason Lange. With us today is a men's embodiment coach and Certified no more Mr. Nice Guy Coach, who helps men gain clarity in life and relationships. He believes every man should be in a men's group to access deeper transformation, purpose and support. So one of the questions I do want to ask as we start this is a personal one, right? And I'm sure you've dealt with this too. And maybe everybody, every guy deals with this. But whenever you feel like, I don't want to keep complaining to my guy friends, right? I don't want to come in here feeling like I've always got something to come in and complain about. I want to be able to lift other people up. Because I noticed this is the mentality that can happen. It happened for me. It's like I want to be able to help everybody else. I don't want to come in every week, oh, man, this is going on. Oh, now this is going on, right? And be that guy. I guess the question is, have you dealt with that and how did you deal with that? Because for me, I think that was in the men's group, which I, I had tons of breakthrough in. That was one of the, the biggest issues I dealt with personally.
Jason Lange: Yeah, it's a great question. It's a fear I think a lot of men have of being a burden to others. Yeah, right. This is why so many men carry so much burden.
Host: Yeah. Not wanting to be like the whiner too. Right. I don't want to be.
Host: That's really good, man. I love that. I am curious the. The kind of group that you're talking about where for. Well, let's just dive into. To your own journey in this. How did you.
Jason Lange: Whoops.
Host: How did you end up finding a men's group that was transformational for you? Did you put it together yourself? Did you stumble upon it? Give me some details because I'm sure guys listen to this and there's probably some wives out there, girlfriends listening to this too, who are like, how do I get my man into one of these? How did that come about for you? Because that is, I would imagine, for a guy who really needs a men's group, he's not the kind of guy who's going to go searching for a men's group, you know, often, particularly.
Jason Lange: Yeah, that's starting to change, thankfully, as you know, spaces like this are rewriting the narrative. When I got into my first group, I was in my mid-20s. It was in the mid-2000s. And yeah, back then it was a bit of a different world in the sense that you name, some said men's group. Most people would assume you mean like a recovery AA group or some kind of church group. Those were the big ones that most people associated with. It's changed quite a bit since then. You know, there was an initial wave of men's work kind of in the 90s with Robert Bly and the kind of mythopoetic mankind project, and they've been chugging along. But it was in the, you know, mid-2000s that I got lucky, frankly, I was just lucky. I had moved to Colorado to kind of pursue some transformational work. And I. I met some guys at a company I worked with, and we were talking about it like we wanted to do this, to go deep in deeper. And we got lucky because there was a older man in our community who is a coach who had been in men's groups. And so we kind of did both where, you know, I was part of one, I created and. And we had a guy lead us for the first two years to teach us, like, how do we make sure this doesn't just float to us talking about things which men love to do or complaining. Right. Like there's. There's a certain gravity to male relations by default that'll often just go to those things talking about philosophy or politics or whatever, which, you know, there's a place for that. But it doesn't necessarily go as deep as a good group can. So we had this guy lead us, and I Got lucky? Yeah. In my 20s, I got connected to an incredibly deep group of men who changed the trajectory of my life. So much so that being in that group inspired me to move across the country, follow a career and a passion, and really kind of try, like, go for it in life. And then once I started a family, I actually just came back about a year ago and 14 years later dove back in with those guys again. So it's pretty incredible. Wow. To have that continuity of, in a sense, going on a hero's journey and coming back and be like, yeah, man, I went for it. Here we go. But so I got lucky. Not a lot of men are as lucky. The other big thing that is shifting now that is really part of the tidal wave, I think, is things like this. Meaning, you know, 20 years ago, if you were outside a major city or kind of a transformational hub, pretty hard to find something like a men's group, like I said, outside of AA or a church or faith based group. But now, because of zoom, there is more opportunity than ever. So you can be out in the middle of nowhere and still participate in a group. Is it different than being in the same room? Yes. But for some guys, is it the only option? Yeah. And sometimes is it a more effective option depending on your life stage? Yes. I get lots of guys who are, you know, fathers or they just don't have a lot of time, but they can definitely make time like this where they don't have to leave their house or something like that. So there's more opportunity than ever. And there's a real swell, I would say, of, of. Of the work right now in. I think it's just based on the very real need men are feeling and some of these gaps in our culture right now.
Host: Yeah, man. The group that I was in, by the way, it was a church men's group, but it, It's, I think one of the things that I, I looked for that I didn't even. I mean, I didn't know what I was looking for, but what I found in there was one person starts opening up, I think, and you already mentioned this, one person opens up, gets a little vulnerable. That's a snowball effect. Right. So being aware that that is. This is part of the puzzle because most of the times somebody's. Well, not at most of the time, all the time. Somebody's got to do it. Somebody has to open up. Right. So encouraging that kind of environment to happen. How do you manufacture that sort of environment? How do you. And I'm curious about what you do and how you do it, how does that happen organically? Or how do you manufacture a group to come together and create that organic openness and organic conversation that allows people to feel safe? Like, all right, we're all on the same page here. I can do this. Where do you find the people? How do you get it put together, get the ball rolling, that sort of thing? Because that'd be the hardest part of the whole puzzle.
Jason Lange: Yeah. So you know how this shows up for me is it's combination of two things, structure and agreements. So that the tighter and safer a container is, the more comfortable men feel, revealing, going vulnerable, etc. And what I mean by structure and agreements. I'll start actually with agreements. Agreements are like, what are the road rules? Literally what are the agreements? We are all on the same page in and quite literally opting in on for how we're going to interact in these spaces. Right. What time do we start? When do we end? What's participation in terms of in between meetings and then in the meetings themselves. How do we handle conflict? How do we share? How do we deal with confidentiality? These very real things that if you don't set them, a group almost never go as deep. So setting strong agreements and getting buy in from men is extremely important around that. And confidential, confidentiality is obviously one of the most core ones I found that really relaxes men.
Host: So are you saying like write that down, like put that on paper? Oh yeah.
Jason Lange: This is like most of my groups once. Some groups I lead are ongoing. Meaning, you know, it's the same group of guys meeting over a certain amount of time. Those groups, eventually we're not going to read them every time because everyone's agreed. But if it's a group where people are coming or going something, I read them every time and every guy has to raise his hand like opt in. I am a yes, I am agreeing to these road rules. I agree for this meeting. And there's lots of different agreements out there in terms of different strategies around communication and presence and different things that I support guys in. But for one, you got to have them. You literally just, you have to have a shared reality of how are we interacting inside this group. Including, you know, a potent and often hard one for men is learning to speak in I statements. Right. That's often a common one. I'm supporting men in, in terms of, you know, you'll notice it there. Even I just did it right there. I notice it in the culture all the time. It's a very prevalent thing, particularly for men. To actually speak in the second person when they're referring to themselves. You know, you ever had one of those days where you're just, you're. You're not doing well and it's just really hard to get up, you know, as the person interacting, you're like, oh, you're talking about yourself. Right. It's a very different experience to say, I'm having one of those days. It's really hard for me today. I'm not sure what to do. A lot of times, guys will push away vulnerability by speaking in second person. So an agreement as an example would be using I statements whenever possible, owning our experience, not pushing it out. So that's kind of agreements. And then structure is like, literally, what is the agenda for a group? What are we doing, in what order, and how much time are we spending on it? And without a tight structure, again, it's pretty challenging to go deep. But so, you know, I'm not the only one who's created this kind of stuff. But there's numerous structures out there you can bring to groups that will facilitate depth. And when there's tight agreements and deep structure, what I have found is men will go deep. They will absolutely go deep once they feel safe and once there's something guiding them towards that. And then that third wheel that you kind of spoke about comes online, that once the culture emerges of, oh, wow, right, someone really goes deep, transparent, vulnerable, there's a feeling of, oh, these guys aren't messing around. Right. They're going for it. And in a great way. That often inspires men to go for it. It's like, oh, I can feel like this isn't a place to hold back. This is a place to go for it. And so that really will spark things. So, you know, again, is that going to happen in a very first group of men who have never met each other? Not necessarily, but in the groups I lead, right. There's a reason, there's a. There's a journey. Men go on week to week in order to facilitate that depth over time.
Jason Lange: Take care.
Host: So, Jason, loving this conversation, man. It's really important. I think it's so cool that this is what you. You do and that you speak about jumping back to the. The lone wolves out there and the angst that can come along with that. What, what are the ingredients to, to break that lone wolf mentality? Because for some guys, it is so deeply ingrained in them and it's. I get it. But at the same time, when you're on the other side of it, you're like, holy cow, man, you're. You're missing out on so much. There's so much opportunity there. How do you help guys to, to break that, to break that mold? I'm sure you're doing this on a regular basis.
Jason Lange: Yeah, totally. I mean, the, the bad news is that for most guys, it starts pretty young. And what I mean by that is one of the major contributing factors, right. We call this in the work, the man box is this idea, this cultural idea of what it means to be a man that we both perpetuate as men and the greater cultural around us. Culture around us does. And one big piece of that is being a man means being invulnerable. Spirit means. Means being invulnerable, never being in pain, never being vulnerable, definitely never showing emotions and definitely never sharing those emotions with other men. So this often starts at a young age for all kinds of reasons. But the major impact of it is most men, to be totally honest, again, there's always going to be exceptions are pretty lacking in emotional intelligence. We are not taught from young age what feelings are, how to identify them inside of ourselves, let alone how to express them and name them. And why that's important is that it's a cost. Right? Because life's hard, right. First, first noble truth of Buddhism, they're like, they're suffering and stuff's going to come at you, and that's totally normal. The challenge for men is because we aren't given the tools to literally to know what's going on inside of ourselves. It's very hard to ask for help or know what to do with them. So what do most men default to as they age? Ooh, my internal state feels bad, don't like how I'm feeling. So I'm going to reach for something outside of myself so I feel different. Whether that's alcohol, weed, porn and masturbation, sex, food, overworking tv, you name it. We reach for things outside of ourselves to try to numb out from the discomfort inside. And that starts to create this paradigm of we don't even know how to communicate what's going inside of us. We don't have necessarily these relational skills to drop in and connect with another man. And then you just kind of add all the kind of locker room. You know, adolescent age, guys, boys, bodies are changing at a different time and shapes and there's just a lot of peer pressure at that time. And most boys learn, don't give any ammo to other men because they will bully you, they will ostracize you, they, they will sometimes physically hurt you. Like this is a real thing. Many men I have.
Host: I was gonna say there's a lot of truth to it, right? I mean, there is truth.
Jason Lange: Oh my God. It's a real, real thing. But so basically there's just all these factors and even just the way, you know, men by default sometimes are less relational from a hormonal sense that we're just not taught to connect. We don't know how to do it. So we start to get older. And again, how most men default to connecting is side by side, or what we call triangulation. Me and you, with our attention on some third thing. A sports game, an activity, fixing something, talking about something philosophically. And that can be a lot of fun. Like I'm not here to get rid of that. There's a time and place for that. But when that's the only way you're relating to other men. Lo and behold, I work with many men who have the experience. I just spent the whole weekend with my buddies actually, and I came home and they don't even know that my wife's about to leave me. Because we just didn't, we don't, we didn't, we don't go deep like that. Right. We just drink or party or, you know, play games or whatever. And so there's still that sense of I'm alone inside, carrying all the burdens of my life. And so there's a lot kind of orienting men towards this. Again, this just kind of romantic myth of the lone wolf. Right. I don't need anybody. I'm totally resilient.
Host: Yeah. If I can speak to it too, even just for a second, because I just had this happen. This literally just happened this weekend with my wife. We're, we're going fast right now. There's a lot going on in our life, you know, business wise, family wise, just like a lot of stuff. And so we had a birthday party for my son on Saturday. Sunday we're having a picnic for my father in law because he's having open heart surgery coming up. And I was burned out. Like I was just. And I didn't realize it yesterday, but I was like, I was shot. I needed like a day just of like recovery. And there was no Space for that. And instead of, like. Instead of communicating that, because I didn't communicate it, because I didn't realize what was happening. Like, I went home, I took it.
Jason Lange: Yeah.
Host: Fell asleep for an hour and a half. Was real groggy. Was like, distant. Was like. I was kind of like, just. I was definitely lone wolfing myself. I was, like, disconnecting. And so we had a call with our. Our counselor today, which was really good. And we were just kind of like, going through it, and I was like, yeah, I. I didn't communicate how I was feeling because I didn't even know how I was feeling. I didn't realize that I was burned out. I was like, I know something's off here, but I don't know what. And I feel like I'm fairly emotionally intelligent in the sense of, like, I'm not afraid to talk about how I'm feeling or what's going on. Times I am.
Jason Lange: So.
Host: That's not true. Sometimes I am not okay with it, but. But it was like I didn't even realize how I was feeling and how it was affecting me. So I didn't communicate it because. So then my. My wife got kind of mad at me because I didn't come over to the party for, like, a couple of hours.
Jason Lange: Sure.
Host: And I didn't, like, say, hey, I'm, like, worn out. I was just kind of saying, I don't know what's going on with me. I don't know. So she thinks that I'm, you know, mad at her family or something or whatever. And so that's just. I want to give that example that literally just happened to me where I was like, man, I did not know how to communicate what was going on with me and didn't even. And then I didn't have the realization that that's what the situation was until like, a day later. Right. So I think that happens to us often.
Jason Lange: Super common for men. Again, it. And it starts at a young age in. In that for boys and men in particular, we are generally rewarded for being disembodied. So you can even. I mean, there's plenty of research. It's changing now, but plenty of research on how parents, same parents, will treat a young girl and a young boy differently from a young age. Something as simple as they fall down and scrape their knee. Young boy. Oh, get up. You're fine. You're tough. It's okay. Get back at it. Young girl. Like, are you okay? Like, you know, are you hurt? Like, what's going on? Yeah, what we're really telling a boy in that instance is, hey, whatever's happening in your body, ignore it. Override it with your head. Quite literally. Or, you know, this goes to boys and girls, but I think boys particularly are fed this more. Stop crying.
Host: Right?
Jason Lange: That is something still said all the time to children. Stop crying, you are fine. What you're feeling in your body, discount that, Ignore it, override it. Then we're going to put you in school. What do we teach kids to do in school? Sit still. That impulse to move, young boy. Oh, there's something wrong with you. You have ADD or ADHD or something like that. Again, tons of research. Boys in particular need to move their bodies more. Most educational gap stuff can be eradicated if you just start the day with two hours of vigorous activity for boys. And they're fine, right? Then they can totally sit, they can listen, they're well behaved, they have a lot of energy in their bodies. They need to move it again. We get up to adolescence, whatever you're feeling inside, definitely don't share that because those guys are going to attack you for it. So just pretend you're, you know, just push it all down inside, graduate, get out into the workforce. What. What's a great man? Oh, man, he works so hard. He works 80, 90 hours a week. That guy is crushing it.
Host: Right?
Jason Lange: Well, what's he doing to his body in the process? He's overriding. He's not getting enough sleep. He's amping himself up with stimulants and then often bringing himself down. Then he gets on antidepressant. Like all of these things just start to happen where again, we're just not really encouraged to be in our bodies as men. And so that's part of what shows up in instances like that. Why I'm such a big proponent of men's groups is it's actually the dojo where we get to practice the other way. What does it mean to actually slow down, get present in my body, my heart, feel what the truth is and communicate that. And even if I'm not aware of it, suddenly I have, you know, 6, 8, 10, 12 other eyeballs looking at me that are going to start to reflect things to me that maybe I'm not aware of. I get this all. I've had, you know, so many experiences of this. A guy will be sharing about a decision he has to make. You know, I'm not sure do I do this or do I do that or oh my God, like my wife, you know, she did this and I got so angry and it's like, do you realize why you said that? You were just smiling the whole time, like you were actually laughing. And they're like, what do you mean? It's like you were laughing when you were talking about how Maddie and. And they realize, wow, I have such a defense mechanism built up that I didn't even realize what my body was doing. Or. Yeah, I hear you talking about that. You know, I hear you talking about how excited you are about so and so, but you look and feel dead as you're doing it. And they're like, what do you mean? But when he talked about this other thing, your energy was like, through the roof. These are the ways we can start to support each other. And as men, with the feedback and with really slowing each other down into, you know, what we say is the felt body experience, where emotions do tend to lie, which, again, most men are resistant to because we've not been taught to feel.
Host: Yeah, yeah. It really is. It's fascinating when you see it and it plays out in real time. It's like, oh. Oh, crap. I. Okay. I really realize. I don't know what's going on here. Talking about angst becoming liberation. What. What does that. What does that look like?
Jason Lange: Yeah, it's just this simple idea. I mean, it ties right back to what we were just talking about that most men want to get away from feeling. Oh, there's grief in there. I want to get away from it. I feel anxious about something. I want to get rid of it. Right. We want to get rid of and away from certain emotions in particular that we might label more dark, challenging, whatever. You know, you might call that negative. Some people would say. Even though I don't really believe in negative emotions, but the idea is when we start to identify these things, the path through is actually toward. It's like the simplest life hack in life. It's like, oh, I'm feeling sad. I don't want to feel sad. I'm gonna go distract myself. No, it's actually go towards the grief, Go towards the angst. Really get present to it because, you know, the most people have heard the platitude. It works. It's useful. Emotion, energy in motion. Emotion is a biochemical response to our environment and something that's happening that is meant to prompt some kind of action in our nervous system. So it's supposed to elicit a response if we're disconnected from it. This is where men will stay stuck. Right. It's right there in the title of your thing.
Host: Yeah.
Jason Lange: For days, weeks, months, years, decades. In something because they're afraid to feel the truth of. I actually, if I'm totally honest, I feel I hate my job. I can't do this anymore, or this relationship's not working for me, or whatever it is. Avoid the emotional intensity of that. So your angst is your liberation came from a Zen teacher I studied with who was brilliant. He was deeply involved in the Mankind Project and quite a luminary. And his thing was, when you feel these different places of angst in your life, the key is to move towards them. The freedom is on the other side of going towards it, not away from it.
Host: Yeah. The only way is through it. Right. I mean, you have to go through it. Yeah. But you avoid it about 10 million times before you go through it. Right. It's like, I can look at it for a minute. Oh, that was okay. That didn't feel good. All right. I can look at it for two minutes. Oh, now I can. I can stare at it for an hour. Right. It's like building up that. Maybe callous isn't the right word, but you're building up that stamina. You're building that discipline where that. That uncomfortable thing, it's making the uncomfortable comfortable. You don't want to look at the uncomfortable thing. It's like getting stabbed in the leg and holding your arm or something. It's like you need to go to the source of where the problem is for it to get any better. I don't think that's a great analogy, but I'm gonna roll with it for time's sake. So as we come to the close of this. The shadow work. You mentioned about the shadow work, how it can improve a man's life. And this is kind of. I mean, we've been talking all around this, but how do we identify things that we don't see out? So obviously, joining a men's group, that's a place where, you know, other people can bring these things to light for you. Do you have any recommendations, advice for somebody maybe who's not ready yet to dive into a men's group? They want to maybe check it out, but they're also like, man, how do I even just identify these parts of me that. Because I don't know what I don't know. You can't see what you don't see. You can't do anything about something when you don't know it exists. So just the beginning part of that process. Could you maybe elaborate a little bit on that?
Jason Lange: Yeah. So, you know, shadow work, something I'm super passionate about in particular is a great bit with group work, with men's work, because shadow work, there's ways to do it solo, right? So there's journaling prompts you can go out and do where you write about certain things, and there's a level of awareness that can come from that. But I tend to focus on. The most potent place for shadow work is in relationship. So it's relational, right? Because the whole idea is, right, shadow. What are you talking about? My shadow? I look for my shadow, and it's always behind me. But you're looking at me. You're saying, dude, you got this huge shadow right there. It's so obvious. Can't you see it? And I'm like, no, it's. These things are so often apparent and clear from the outside, but they're very hard for us to see ourselves. So relationship, whether that's coaching, therapy, men's groups, that's intimate relationship, right? You're in one, you know how it is. Your partner can probably name, oh, yeah, here's his things. And you're like, yeah, here's her things.
Host: Yeah.
Jason Lange: It's one of the great mechanisms of relationship for presencing this stuff. But shadow work is really just the process of bringing that which is in the dark into the light. What are the unconscious beliefs, processes, strategies, wounds we've all internalized that actually drive our behavior without us realizing it. And so for many men, they come to me in shadow work because it's like there's this thing I do I don't want to do, but some. For some reason, I keep doing it.
Host: Why?
Jason Lange: Maybe it's an addiction. Maybe it's a relational habit. Maybe it's a way they treat themselves. Maybe it's blowing things up in their job. Every now they're like, this thing keeps happening. I don't want to do it. And yet I. I keep finding myself back in the same situation. What's going on? There's almost always shadow material behind that. Shadow work is really the process of reclaiming that, bringing consciousness to it so we have more choice. It's about liberating that and, quite frankly, allowing us to get unstuck again. Stuckness is often deeply correlated to something in the shadow. A belief pattern, a previous experience that our body still thinks is a threat. Now all these different things kind of add up. And where, again, where I love to tie it into men's work is it's one of the great bonding experiences I now see men have with each other of, you know, bullet, bullet, summary here. You know, one of the things they've researched that is different between a male and a female body is male bodies have more receptors for vasopressin, which is one of our bonding hormones, which, guess what? How does that hormone get activated? Doing challenging things together, moving through difficulty and challenge. Traditionally, in a lot of ways, that was out in the world, wow, there's something broken. We gotta fix it. There's another tribe coming to get us. We gotta go find food. Whatever it is, there's challenge. We have to move through it together. Modern society has gotten rid of a lot of that for those of us privileged enough to live in, you know, places like we do. But one area I've seen it coming alive very strongly is now, what does it mean to move through our inner challenges together? Some of these patterns of wounding and shadow and trauma that sometimes are not only ours, but go way back in our lineage. And so, you know, I lead one group in particular that's about taking men through shadow work together. And it's unbelievable. It's just incredible to see what happens to guys. In about 10 weeks, they go from complete strangers to, okay, you're my brother to the grave now. Like, I have seen the most intimate, deep, challenging, dark places your soul has encountered and been witness to you moving through that and even supported you. And we're good. Like, which is just it. We're best friends now. Like, there's a level of bonding that is just incredible for men that I think a lot of men are actually deeply craving in life and just don't know how to find it.
Host: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. That's really good. Really powerful stuff. And I think going back to a minute ago, what you just said, because you might be seeing these things for yourself, maybe you're. You've awoken enough to be like, oh, wow, I. I noticed that I do these things. I know that I do them, and I don't want to do them anymore, which can be a very frustrating place to be. Right? You've come to a level of realization and actualization, like, oh, wow, I see these problems because before you. Before that stage, you don't even see them. So you're just, like, lost in them. And maybe it's a fun place of delusion to live in for a while that you don't know it's even happening. Then you can blame other people. But once you know, you can. I can only blame yourself. You see? Like, crap, man. I don't want to do that. Like you said, you don't want to do it, but you Keep doing it. And it. That starts to drive you nuts. So doing something about that. Don't stay in that place. Take action. Do what you do. And I would recommend everybody jump on a call with you. Jason, I've loved this conversation with really, really important. I want to encourage anybody who's a part of this conversation right now to book a free exploratory call with you. Evolutionary Men Forward slash talk. You want to share a little bit about that? What if somebody goes and signs up what they can expect?
Jason Lange: Yeah, we're just gonna hop on the phone together and talk a little bit about what's going on in your life. And whether you work with me or not, you're gonna walk away with a path of, oh, hey, here's some places I could focus. Here's some resources I could use, whether it's men's group coaching retreats, you name it. The idea is, most guys I know want to change, want to get unstuck, but they just don't know how to do it right. They're, like, literally give me the instruction manual for how to change my life. And, you know, what I've experienced in my own journey. And now coaching hundreds of men is. Men's community is one very strong pathway for that. So getting into a men's group will change your life in a pretty potent way that, you know, I'm obviously quite passionate about because I think it's one of the most potent leverage points we have to shift culture in the globe right now is getting men more connected to each other.
Host: Very cool. I couldn't agree more. So get that call. Go to Evolutionary Men Forward slash talk to connect with Jason. And as I always do, as we end these. These episodes, I want to pretend like. I want you to pretend like you're never gonna see or talk to me again. Anybody watching or listening, you guys are gonna separate, never gonna be in contact again. What lasting message would you want to leave with all of us if that's the case?
Jason Lange: Yeah, you know, I'm gonna speak right to the skeptical men here, I guess, or the skeptical part of all of us as men and really say, you know, stop doing it alone. And what I mean by that is, you know, guys will push back with, you know, I don't need anyone. But the honest, brutal truth for any man, any human being, but any man is at some point, your body is going to fail you, and you will not be able to just push through. Whether it's illness, sickness, accident, old age, there is going to be a time where you're not going to be able to just push yourself to do the thing. And it's in that moment we fall back to what is the level of community I have in my life and the vulnerability of, wow, you know, whether it's, I can't even get myself to the bathroom or I need someone to pick me up or whatever that is, you can start laying the foundation for those moments now. And it's not weakness. It actually creates more resilience. And even beyond resilience, something I talk about is anti fragility, where as life hits you with stuff, you have a system of support around you where not only does it prevent you from falling, it makes you stronger because your network helps you leverage that. So if you're feeling, you know, stuck or alone or whatever that might be, really, whether it's with you, with me, with any reach out, be the one who says, you know what, I'm going to do this differently and I'm going to get some support in my life. And good news, things will get better. Your relationships will get better, your wealth will get better, and your health will get better. You know, the big three most men are concerned about.
Host: Yeah. Great, Jason. I love it, dude. That's so good. So powerful. So glad that you came on here today to share in this journey that you've been on for yourself and helping other men go through this journey, too, and families, right?
Jason Lange: You're.
Host: You're changing. You're changing families out there for sure. So I thank you for that. Another true testimony of breakthrough here on the show. Until next time, this has been the unstuck movement. Sam.
