What is the healthy masculine? My conversation with jason lange | Digital Dating with Anonymous Andrew

Jason Lange: I earned my degree online at Arizona State University. I chose to get my degree at ASU because I knew that I'd get a quality education, they were recognized for excellence, and that I would be prepared for the workforce upon graduating to be associated with ASU both as a student and alum, it makes me extremely proud and having experienced the program, I know now that I'm set up for success. Learn [email protected] My name is MacKenzie and.

Host: I started a GoFundMe for the adoptive mother of a nonverbal autistic child. The mother had lost her job because she wasn't able to find adequate care for this autistic child. So she really needed some help with living expenses, paying some back bills. So I launched a GoFundMe to help support them during this crisis and we raised about $10,000 within just a couple of months. I think that the surprising thing was by telling a clear story and just like really being very clear about what we needed, we had some really generous donations from people who were really moved by the situation that this family was struggling with.

Jason Lange: GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising.

Host: Platform, trusted by over 200 million people.

Jason Lange: Start Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com.

Host: That'S gofundme.com gofundme.com this podcast is supported by GoFundMe. Welcome to the Anonymous Andrew Podcast. Life and the Choices we Make, the Choices other people make. This podcast explores all things as they relate to dating and romantic relationships, why we ignore or choose to ignore or miss the red flags. Red flags like gaslighting, cheating, lying, narcissistic behavior, deception, and so much more. Join me each week as we continue my journey into the modern dating world with my weekend rants, Anonymous guest dating stories and experts who share their wisdom so we can better navigate the dating terrain. If you are new to the show or have been with me from the beginning, hold on tight for the Anonymous Andrew Xper experience. Greetings and welcome to Anonymous Andrew Podcast Life and the Choices we Make. So on today's episode, I've invited a gentleman by the name of Jason Lange and his profile caught my attention because it it he focuses. He's a men's dating coach, but he focuses on the masculinity of men today. And if you know what's going on in the world, and it's been going on for years and years, the men have been being emasculated in social media, in on TV and commercials and yada Yada, yada. And this gentleman is working with men to build their self confidence, their masculine energy, bring it back up to the surface. And of course, I'm rambling and I'm probably not doing Jason very much justice. So I'm gonna do what I usually do and shut up and let the episode do the rest of the work. So coming up next, my interview with Jason Lange and the male masculine energy. Enjoy the episode and we'll talk on the other side. Greetings everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Anonymous Andrew podcast. And today with me, I have Jason Lange. Welcome, Jason, say hello.

Jason Lange: So excited to be here, Andrew. Thanks for having me.

Host: Thanks for coming on. And so I'm just going to get this out there in the beginning because my women's audience, Jason, is a men's dating coach. And I've had some emails from women saying, when are you going to have on some women dating coaches? And Jason just told me his wife is a woman's dating coach. So I'm going to balance it out and we might have Jason's wife on the show soon. So to the ladies who have been complaining, I'm working on it. I didn't forget about you, Jason. Tell us a little bit about your work. You are a men's dating coach and you have a program called Evolutionary Men and Face youe Dragons and more importantly, something called Shadow Work.

Jason Lange: Yeah. So I've been working for men for almost a decade now, and I've been involved in the men's work world for longer than that. And my portal into the work actually came through. Right. My own pain in the sense that just the nature of how I was raised, what I experienced, I could not. I was in so much pain around relationships in my teenage and 20 years in particular. I didn't lose my virginity till my late 20s, and it was a source of real hurt for me not knowing how to connect to the opposite sex.

Host: Yeah.

Jason Lange: And that kind of sprang created my whole journey. And my journey, I think, is maybe representative of now how I work with men in that I work with a lot of men around dating and relationships, but what I'm really doing with men is helping them grow. And kind of my belief is that we, we actually grow ourselves into attraction to be. To attract the right types of partners, to be able to attract the right kind of partners. It involves inner growth and sometimes outer growth. Right. In different things. But oftentimes there's a lot of inner work, particularly for us men, that we can start to do to help us come more into alignment and Come more into integrity and be able to hold. You know, what I say is this deep masculine presence, which is what the feminine and a lot of women these days are really craving from men because it's not like, you know, 40, 50 years ago. Women don't need us to take care of them, to make them money, to do any of that kind of old traditional stuff. Women are empowered, right? They can be out in the world taking care of themselves, earning money. And so what we can offer in a relationship is actually different these days, right? And in the work I do, that's about this deep capacity for grounded masculine presence, which is something we kind of have to grow ourselves into as men. It takes works, takes, takes practice, takes inner work, takes shadow work, takes embodiment work. All these things I help guys with. Andrew.

Host: Okay, so you. You. You alluded to that 40 or 50 years ago, and that's where. I'm 63. So I lived that time when, yes, men courted a woman. Men paid for the first date. Men did everything. You know, I even remember the old stories where if there was a puddle, the man would take his coat off and lay down the puddle. You know, that goes back to the 30s, whatever, real chivalry. I. So today, with. With women empowerment, feminism, just the modern dating society, are you saying that women and I. I think I would agree with you that women are standing on their own two feet. Women are doing things on their own. Even you go to the gas station, you'll see a woman bring her car to get her oil changed these days. Well, that used to be the man's job. You know, I. I've seen women do things around the house that men do that they don't even need a man to do anymore. But does that. So how does that. So listen, I was going to jump to the. We'll jump right to the last question that I have for you. What does the woman, the feminine, crave from the masculine? What is the male's masculine role today?

Jason Lange: Yeah. So a couple of things here. First, you know, the work I do, I do a lot of work around, yeah. Feminine energy and masculine energy and how they interact. Some people don't like those words. They're very charged in our culture sometimes. But know that there's lots of ways you can refer to these energetics, right. You can say some people say alpha and omega, yin and yang, structure and energy, feeling and perspective. There's countless ways to kind of differentiate these two real primal energies that exist in the universe beyond human sexuality. And they interact right when they're different. They get attracted to each other when they're the same, they push each other away, kind of like magnets, right? And so one of the struggles in the current time is we can be too similar again because we've done so much work around equality, which I'm pro. Let me be super clear about that. We want equality, and there's still more work to be done. But then when it comes to the bedroom, sometimes things can feel a little flat. And so what the feminine craves now, this could be the feminine in a man or the feminine in a woman. A lot of women tend to have a feminine kind of orientation, but not all women. And people are more and more flexible and fluid these days. But what the feminine part of anyone craves is deep, grounded, masculine presence. So the ability to really be here, have our attention on you, be breathing deeply, be aware of ourselves, who we're with and the environment around us. And the spaciousness of that, that kind of grounded stillness is often what the feminine craves. Because one. One thing you can think of here is with the feminine, we often talk more about feminine as being energy, movement. Like when you think about a highly feminine person, they have a lot of energy. They have a lot of movement literally in their bodies and their voices and their emotions. It's. There's more of a flow in a fluidity. And for those of us that have a kind of a masculine home base that's wildly attractive, right? We're attracted to that energy because it's so different from what we are. So if we want to create erotic charge in relationships, we want to be as different from our partner as we can. Now, this isn't every moment of every day when we're just deciding how we're going to, you know, split up the bill or something like that can involve that. But this is more about the energetics that kind of keep a relationship sexy and hot in what we can do for the feminine. Because. Because so many women these days, you know, for better or worse, a lot of women like their success, their achievement in the world. It requires them stepping into their masculine going out in the world, having an agenda, getting shit done, executing, taking action. This, then this, then this, then this. So what they often crave is a masculine presence that can step in and hold that so they don't have to in those moments. It's not that they can't do it. Like in generations past, we didn't even give women room to do that. They can do it. But sometimes what's most restorative to the Feminine heart is to just be right, to not have to hold anything, to not have to drive anything forward. You know, the kind of classic imagery I use for this. And again, this can be a man, woman, any gender orientation in between. Anyone can hold these positions. But if you think about two people on a motorcycle, one person driving and one person just sitting on the back holding on, the person driving is holding all the structure and attention. Right. We're going here. I'm tracking this. Okay, we're taking a left. Oh, I got to be aware of that car. That is the masculine. It's the part of us that's noticing all of that. The person in the back gets to just relax into their feminine flow, Just be looking around, whatever they want, feeling the wind in their body. Ideally doesn't have to track all that. And that energetic creates a lot of energy in the capacity for us as men to step in. Into that. That's where I would argue our real value is these days, our capacity to step into masculine presence and hold it in a grounded, spacious, and sometimes. Yeah. Powerful way that can lead in many facets. Does that answer. Does that help?

Host: Yeah. Yeah. And I like the. The motorcycle analogy. I think whether it's whatever gender is on the motorcycle, the person in the back is. While they might be able to look around and take in the whatever. And like you said, they don't have to worry about the red light ahead or the car crossing, but they're holding the person in front of them.

Jason Lange: They're trusting them too.

Host: Exactly. Thank you. That's where I was heading.

Jason Lange: Giving their trust there.

Host: You completely. Because if you get on a motorcycle and you. You trusted the person that's. Well, even in a car, but you're in a car, you're less likely to die. Motorcycle accident is obviously whatever, but the concept is trust. So, okay. Wow. While you were saying that, as always, pop, many questions popped into my head. Is this a generational new thing? So I'm 63. Is this a 20s and 30s thing, or is this now across the board, from 20s up to senior citizens, elderly.

Jason Lange: This. This is accessible to anyone. These energetics are accessible to anyone. What I would say is we're at a moment in time where it's more necessary to be aware and consciously practice these than ever before, because traditionally, we relied on roles. You do this, I do this. This is what's expected. It was like, the great thing is we're continuing, and I'm pro This, to be liberated from the roles. Meaning you have to do this, and if you don't do that. This whole exchange doesn't work. The energetics I'm talking about are less. I have to do it. Right. I don't have to take care of you. It's more. I want to. Right. I gift this to you. We're both able to take care of ourselves, but we can gift each other these energies. Right. And so I think it's a new wave in the culture as we learn to interact in different ways and these roles have continued to dissolve. We have to learn these skills. And nobody teaches us this stuff, really. We're given all the Hollywood movies, all the stories, they always end with. With. And then they lived happily ever after.

Host: Right.

Jason Lange: And in the work I do, that's when a relationship actually starts. Because I don't care who you are, how attracted to your partner are, how great it is. Every relationship at some point hits what I call the dopamine cliff, or the end of the honeymoon. We meet someone. It's so exciting. It's so amazing. There's so much erotic charge. It's just great. But then, as we continue to pair bond with that person, that's where our existing attachment wounding comes. Comes up. So attachment wounding. Right. Is how did we bond with our primary caregivers when we were young? And that creates stuff. Some people have highly traumatic versions of that. Some people just have a version of it where they didn't quite get all the nutrients they needed. Right. And so we talk about attachment in terms of secure, anxious avoidance.

Host: Yep.

Jason Lange: Disorganized. And the thing is that whatever is unresolved from our childhood or our major traumas will show up in our intimate relationships. And a lot of people don't expect that. They think, oh, my God, I'm in love. And then something happens. You know, you experience some intensity like that sometimes that we find suddenly, oh, my God, I'm getting in fights with my partner, and I. I'm not turned on by them anymore. But I thought this was my. I thought this was my person. So what's going on? They must not be my person. The kind of harsh reality I'm here to speak about is that's going to happen to everyone like that. It just happens across the board that this stuff comes up and we have to learn to work it. Now, the interesting thing about when I say we have to learn to work it is at the end of that honeymoon phase, that dopamine cliff that also tends to correlate with when all the automatic hormones start to wear off. So the initial sexual charge we just have for people starts to Plateau oftentimes around then we move in with each other, we become kid admitted partners. We start to become more and more one and less and less different.

Host: Different.

Jason Lange: So there's, you know, if we get through that hump, there's a lot more charge. It's our best friend, we're sitting around in sweatpants hanging out watching Netflix with each other. But we're not exactly erotically turned on anymore. So this work of, you know, what we call polarity or erotic friction, how do we keep that charge alive? Which means being different, someone embodying the more feminine energy, someone more masculine. Again doesn't have to be man masculine, woman feminine. There's endless configurations of this now. But that difference is what creates the charge. And we're having to learn as a culture now how to consciously do that, how to consciously bring these practices on. Right. I've been married seven years now and this is work. My wife and I have to consciously choose. We have a kid, we're entrepreneurs. There's a lot of stress in life. It's very easy if we're not careful to just fall into kind of co parents in the same house mode, right. Surviving and then wonder like wow, we haven't really put our attention on each other and felt that just longing in a long time. Unless we do these practices.

Host: I was listening to a podcast just the other day, one of my favorites and they were talking about why there is affairs in marriages. And one of the, I think they even did a survey. I think one of the first things that they said was after the child comes and after, I think it's the seven year mark and the 14 year mark when most affairs happen and it's because of exactly what you just said. The children come in, the careers come in, they clash and they, the husband and the wife or the partnership doesn't nurture, continue to nurture itself. So date nights go out the window.

Jason Lange: Exactly.

Host: Yeah. Okay, great. I'm glad you validated that because that's, that's my thinking. What, what? I, I have a question. So I'm 63. So I grew up in the 60s and 70s and my parents were Roman Catholics. I, I, I dare I say Republicans conservative. I don't think political has anything to do with this, but let's just say conservative. And I was brought up specifically and my father, while he was a doctor and not around a lot, he, I watched how he treated my mom and I also he did sit down with me on a few times and tell me this is, you're going to run into this, this, and this. And I even. I tell this story that I went on a date when I was 14, and I obviously didn't drive, but we were going to the movies, and my dad picked. Took me to her house. We picked her up, we went to the movies, and we came back from the movies. He drove us back. And I reached over. We're in the back seat, and I reached over to open the car door for her, and she starts to get out, and my father turns around and says to me, get out of the car and walk her to the front door and make sure she gets in safely. You know, we're not even talking about saying a kiss good night. Just. That's the chivalry, gentleman thing to do. So it was drilled into me. Chivalry, and I don't know what label you would put that on there. Is that chivalry or gentleman being a gentleman?

Jason Lange: I think those both totally apply. I like those.

Host: I. I have taken that. That's the way I was brought up. Now there are. So now we're in 2024, and I have grandchildren, and I have grown adult children, and I'm wondering how they are going to raise their children, because it has changed. So everything that you're talking about, about the feminine empowerment and the feminism and the women are now. My mom didn't work, although she was an rn, and she did help my dad in the office, but she didn't have to. I think once the kids went to school, she went into the office and helped dad, so they didn't have to hire an office manager. My mom was a registered nurse, so back then, most women were housewives. The father went off to work and the woman stayed home and did the laundry and did the. So you're telling me that today the roles. Well, especially with the fact that the economy, the way it is, I think in America today, both partners have to work, right? Yes, most likely. Unless you're lucky and you're the top 3% and the man can make all the money. So I went on a date recently, and because I'm doing this podcast and I've been talking to many, many, many, many guests, dating coaches, therapists, even just ordinary people who tell me. And of course, social media is a big influence on what's going on today. There is this whole thing about you have to wait three days before you text somebody after the first date. And it's like, it's silly that they're coming up with these rules and. Right, right. And I went on this date a month. Yeah. Okay. Well, Good. That's what, that's the, that's where I'm going. Because I went on a date a month ago and I, I threw all of that out the window because the woman was a little, just a couple of years younger than me, but for my generation. And I pulled out the old chivalry from me. I paid for the date. I picked her up. I paid, picked the restaurant. You know, I did all the. I walked her to her car. I did pick her up. No, I met her there, then I walked into her car. Anyway, the point is, is that I didn't listen to what's being thrown around in social media today about how everything has changed, but it has changed. That's why I kind of asked you if it's a generational thing, because does this apply to the 20s, 30s, and I guess, what is it? Gen Z, Gen V, Gen X? I, I think I'm a baby boomer, which is just at the tail end of baby booming. So. All right, so. All right, so. But, but we're, I, I understand where you, what, what you're teaching and, or what you're coaching. Let's get into some of the challenges that men face today. Because that's, yeah, that's actually one of the questions on your profile. What are some of the challenges men are facing today? And I could, I could tell you what I'm facing, but what are you seeing?

Jason Lange: Yeah, for one, figuring out these kind of the new framework, the new rules for how this is all supposed to work. So I know one challenge a lot of men I work with are, are what is. And this is part of what I really focus on men with. There's so much talk these days around toxic masculinity and the damages men have done. And there's very little talk about what's the healthy version.

Host: Right.

Jason Lange: What does a healthy man look like these days? What is a model for that? And most of us men, in my experience, in the way I work with guys, we were raised with one of three models. We were raised with the model of what I kind of call unfortunately the macho jerk. So the guy that just goes for what he wants, he's just a little eye oriented, he does whatever he wants, he takes power, he goes for things. Women are often just objects to him. He can cause damage to the feminine, to the planet, to other men. But he, he often, you know, is quite a leader in some sense because he's moving towards things and taking a lot of action. But a lot of us guys have seen those men and are like we don't want to be that. I don't want to be that. We're coming out of the me Too movement. We're like, I don't want to dominate women. I don't want to take power away from women. Like, I want there to be safety and consent. Right. So the problem is a lot of men grew up either experiencing those men firsthand, you know, through their fathers or through men in their community, or just seeing what, you know, certainly a large portion of men in our planet have done in its history. So they say, not that. And that has kind of been the birth of the. More what one of my mentors, Dr. Robert Glover, calls the nice guy. So we are the guys. I consider myself a nice guy. We have a lot of heart, lots of sensitivity. We're very attuned. We really care about safety. We don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. We put other people's needs often higher than our own. And those are the friend. The guys that often get stuck in the friend zone are often disconnected from their power, from their sexuality. And I work with a lot of men like that who. Yeah, it's really challenging because they go online and, you know, the. They go into the online dating, and, you know, they'll put out there hundreds of matches, and they're just. They get nothing. They barely get anything in return, or they go on countless first dates, and women are like, you're really nice, but there's just. I'm just not feeling the connection, or there's no chemistry there. Right. So they feel a lot of that frustration of just online dating. You know, it's not easy for either side. I'm not here to say that. But there's, you know, for men, the challenge is just being seen and heard because, you know, a woman can put up a profile and get hundreds of responses in a day. Sometimes a man can get maybe one or two a day. Right. And then to get a match beyond that is the numbers are just unequal in that sense. So men often have to put themselves out there, and there's just, like a type of resilience for some of those guys I work with. But then they get confused because, you know, they do connect with a woman, and they've kind of learned this lesson that I don't want to be a macho jerk, but then these women don't connect to me, and then I see them dating sometimes macho jerks after me. Like, you know, like, they're attracted to those guys, but they're telling me they want a nice guy. So what do I do with that? Like, that's super confusing. And those two archetypes, you know, the macho jerk, the nice guy, are two of the big ones. We get, some of us guys get imprinted with what I call more the stoic, you know, I kind of call it sometimes the grandfatherly energy. Just a man who just shows up, does his job, does not share much about his inner world, is very kind of tight lipped, not super expressive and is just tough and keeps going. And the trick is all three of those archetypes create pain for men these days. None of them quite work. And so what I work with men on is how do we become this more integrated man that has this capacity to be fully present and in our power and deeply in touch with our sexuality, but is also open hearted and extraordinarily sensitive and cares about safety and consent. So it's not an either or, but it's a both. And how do we have both of these things? Because women want a man who they feel like equals with and they feel really safe with. And then a lot of them also want a man that they feel a lot of erotic charge with. Like, this is a man who can, you know, light me up in some ways. And for us men, that could be super confusing sometimes of how am I supposed to show up here? What am I supposed to do? So that's a major challenge for one that I see a lot of men dealing with. The other one I see, Andrew, is there's men in particular, I think are very. Are a lot more vulnerable to the issues that are being created with some of our societal structure shifts to loneliness in that men.

Host: Wow.

Jason Lange: Aren't necessarily as relational oftentimes by default. And a lot of the structures that used to support men connecting with other men are evaporating, they're disappearing. Social clubs, sports, things have moved online into work from home. I was working with a lot of guys during the pandemic and the lockdowns and if they weren't on a call with me or my community, they weren't seeing anybody.

Host: Right.

Jason Lange: They were just working from home. And that creates a tremendous amount of stress for us men. We are meant to be social creatures and we're fed this bullshit narrative, particularly here in the states of a man is somebody who's tough, a lone wolf, a cowboy that picks himself up by the bootstraps. And none of that works long term. You do that long enough, you become an alcoholic, you die from heart disease, you get addicted to drugs. Like they have tons of research of loneliness is just as dangerous for you as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day or being severely obese. And so a lot of men, because they don't have a lot of healthy connection, particularly to other men, as I argue in my work, they have a deep yearning to be met by an intimate partner, to have an intimate partner, which is okay, but then it puts a lot of pressure on that relationship. And oftentimes, many men I've worked with, particularly the nicer guys, that sometimes have a hard time setting boundaries or standing up for themselves, they will get into relationships that aren't the healthiest relationships, ignore some of the red flags because the choice is this relationship or oh my God, it sucks to be alone. I don't want to be alone. So here's some connection. I'm going to move towards it. I think men are just for all kinds of reasons right now. We're just a little more impacted by this weird shift we're going through in a culture of less face to face time, right? More social media, more empty calories. If it feels like I'm connecting with people, but I'm not actually connecting with people, it's very different. Right when we're actually here, you and I, even virtually face to face, we're having a conversation, there's a back and forth. I can feel you, you can feel me. Not all men have that present. So just those two things of like, you know, how are we supposed to be healthy, integrated men these days? And how do we deal with the increasing isolation that men in particular are susceptible to these days?

Host: So, wow, you just unloaded a whole shitload of stuff. And so let me see if I can dissect some of it. First of all, you just described my last relationship where I was everything you just said. I showed up, I did what I had to do. But anyway, you saw me pointing to myself when you would. And I'm also. I also happen to be an alcoholic in recovery. I got almost nine years, but sure, but so I fall right into that category. And I also fell under the bad boy thing. So I don't know if I was the jerk, but I was the bad boy. You know what, I got tattoos, I got long hair and I had that bad boy image, but I was nice. I set no boundaries, I ignored the red flags, yada, yada, yada. So. And I do suffer from that loneliness because this is what this podcast is about. I have not been able to sustain a long term relationship for 30 years. I have been married twice. Neither of them worked out, but I mean, I Have. And I'm glad for them because I have children from them. But after that, for 25 years, I've been wandering this desert of loneliness, trying. I've been dating and in relationships and. Anyway, I. I have a question, which I think may or may not connect all the dots here. A friend of mine who's in her 30s is on a dating app, and she texted me a week ago and said, oh, I met this guy and we're talking, and I really like him. He's cute. And I think. And he. And she said, this is one of the first guys that didn't ask me to send him a nude picture. He didn't start. You know, he didn't want. He was almost very pleasant. And he said he texted her good morning and yada, yada, yada. And she said she was loving that for the first week because he was giving her a lot of attention. But it was all through text. And after about a week, she called me and she said, I want this guy to call me. I want to hear his voice, and then I want to meet him. He's dragging this on. And it's going into the second week of texting. And she asked me what to do because I feel like I'm an older brother to her. I said to her, this is my advice, and I would like to hear your interpretation. I said to her, he's in his 30s, I think 34. I said, Men his age today have no clue on how to date and how to court a woman. Or maybe because I have more experience or I've been doing it longer. I said, if you want to talk to this guy and you like him, you're going to have to coach him and you're going to have to kind of gently. So I suggested that she. He was telling her a story about something and over texting. And I said, I suggest you say the following words to him. I'd love to hear that. I want to hear more about that, but I want to hear it. I said, this is actually what I said to her. Tell them. Tell them that your thumbs are sore. Can we give the thumbs a rest and let our tongues do the rest? And, yeah, so drop that hint in his lap. Seeing. So, meaning, pick up the phone and call me, dude, you know, And. And it worked. He called her like two days later. And I think they have a. I think they might have even gone out this weekend. I'm not sure. But the point is, is that I think that I don't want to separate all men or put men in Categories or generations. But there seems to be some men out there that are just clueless on how to do this, how to date.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I think, I think part of what you're pointing to there. So in the work I do. Right. With the masculine generally, that's the side that brings structure and direction to an interaction. Right. You name a time and place, you move the ball forward, you give direction to the relationship. A lot of men these days aren't comfortable doing that or they're afraid to because they don't want to seem like a creep or too forward or any of those things. So they kind of take their foot off the gas. But what that does is it puts the woman in the masculine.

Host: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Because then she has to lead. She has to be the one to take the initiation. You coached her in a really great way that was kind of fun and playful and responsive. That allowed him to kind of step in that without being too directive. But that's, that's hard work and a lot of women do have to do that these days. But there is that yearning for a man who, yeah, just takes the lead and brings the structure and moves things forward. Well, I work with men a lot that, yeah, like get it off chat and text. You want to get to real in person connection sooner than later to see are we a fit. Right. And you want to know that sooner than later because you can have. In many men I know have experienced this. Right. Week long, month long, highly connected tech streams and chat and then you meet in person and it's just dead.

Host: Yeah. So it's a whole month waste of time, Right?

Jason Lange: Exactly.

Host: Yeah.

Jason Lange: So I work with men to, as weird as this sounds, you want to get to rejection quickly.

Host: Yeah.

Jason Lange: You want to make it face to face and feel each other in person and just see, hey, are we interested in exploring each other more?

Host: This friend of mine, she felt awkward and I said, well, why don't you just call him? And she says, no, I want him to do the work. I want him to court me. So there is some, I, I guess whether it's female empowerment or what they're. I guess there's either a fraction of women or there's still some women or many women still want the man to do. You were talking about roles before. They want to be courted. They want to be the man to take the lead. And I just, like I said before, I think some of the younger generation just don't have a clue. So I said to her, there's nothing wrong with you dropping. Don't come out and Tell them. Because she almost bailed on him. And so when I told her what to do, it worked. And now I may have created a union just through a simple advice, but I don't know. But how are we going to help the rest of the men out there that are lost? I mean, you're doing your thing and I'm trying to do my thing, but reach everybody. So tell us a little bit before. We will. We'll wrap up shortly. But let's get into. Right on your website you have the Evolutionary Man Face youe Dragons and Shadow Work. So walk us through a little bit about. So if I come to you, tell me what, how you work would work with me.

Jason Lange: Sure. Yeah. I work with men in a variety of ways. So I do the kind of more dating and relationship coaching like we were talking about. And then I also do deeper inner work with men which I call shadow work. And they're not separate, but you know, I run them in different programs as they're different angles in. Because the depth of kind of what I work with men on is most of the time our work as men is to get more embodied. So get out of our heads and into our bodies directly connected to the sensations we're experiencing in the moment. Most of us men fly up here ruminating in our heads all the time. And women can feel that they are rarely attracted to a man whose attention is on his own thoughts.

Host: Right.

Jason Lange: So I work with men on embodiment because once we're embodied, we're grounded and present. That's where we can hold that space that tends to create deep attraction for the feminine. One of the tricks to getting embodied though is as mention we are not taught how to be in our bodies. In fact, we are actively celebrated for being disembodied. In most places in the world, we are celebrated for being tough, working hard, pushing ourselves, having no limits, not showing weakness with emotions, which when you translate all that, it means be out of our bodies. Right. Whatever's happening in our body, whether we're going to war, whether, whether we're working a 90 hour a week job, whether you name it high achievement sports, our bodies being beat up in order to create this thing. We tend to be celebrated for not being in our bodies. And we're not taught how to be in our bodies. And in our bodies, Andrew, Emotions start as sensations in our bodies. And so men again are rarely taught how to be with our emotions. Most men, depending on the locker room culture they were raised in, are actively mocked for showing emotion.

Host: Yeah, absolutely.

Jason Lange: They're Called pussies. They're called whatever. And so what we learn is to disconnect from our emotion, which means disconnect from our body. And then what do we do when we have uncomfortable sensations in our body? We turn to something outside of ourselves to change our state so we feel something different, be it booze, weed, sex, pornography, masturbation, video games, you name it, we change our state. Or, you know, the biggest one in our culture still, like I said in globally, is really just alcohol, right? Men and alcohol, they're just. Men drink. What does that actually do, when you really think about what alcohol does is, you know, there's a bit of a curve where sometimes a little bit brings us more into our body. But you drink enough, you literally leave your body. You black out, you disconnect. We become more numb the more we drink. And so the work I do is helping men come in to our bodies, the edge for a lot of men, in doing that is any unresolved emotional trauma from their history, from their past, from their childhood, from previous relationships that we're not taught how to be with. So we eject it out, right? Like. Like I said, through ejaculation, through booze, through. Through different things. So shadow work, as I lead men on, is the process of. What has been running the show for me that I haven't even been aware of, right? Shadow is this idea. There's parts of ourselves we can't see. They're hiding in the shadow, right? We turn, we can't see our own shadow. So shadow work is the process of. There's often all this un. Unresolved emotional material. From my own experience, the crazy thing is, man, we won't get into it here, but sometimes back in our lineage, so our parents were carrying certain stuff. Their parents were carrying stuff. This stuff goes through the generations that has been actively running the show for me, but I haven't been aware of it, and it prevents me from being present in the ways I want. So shadow work is the process of uncovering that and. And getting more in touch with what's actually happening inside of ourselves, which for a lot of men is a process of connecting to our grief, our sadness, our anger, our shame. This shows up in all kinds of different ways, but it's, you know, there's only so many paths, in a sense. So the work I do tends to lead to some similar places for men where we learn, quite simply through shadow work how to feel, how to be present in our feelings, in our bodies, without collapsing, without numbing out, and without getting Reactive and like, pushing that anger out onto people and being, you know, dangerous in some way. We learn to hold and contain our emotions, but not disconnect from them. And on the other side of that shadow work for most men is a lot more vitality, a lot more presence, and particularly important in relationships. Andrew. The more comfortable we are with the full range of our emotional experience, the easier it is for us to be fully present without trying to change it or fix it with our feminine partner. Oh, she's feeling sad right now. Okay, I'm just going to be with you in your grief, as opposed to a lot of us men when we aren't comfortable with our own grief. If our woman is not feeling well, what do we want to do? We want to fix it and get her to feel something else. Right? So. Oh, my God.

Host: Oh.

Jason Lange: Have you thought about this? That tends to drive most women just batshit crazy when they're like, I just want you to be here with me.

Host: I, I, I couldn't agree with you more than 100%. It's, I'll tell you two quick scenarios that happened to me. Well, one that I learned and then one that you were just, I think you were explaining. I took my ex to a concert. It was a small venue, but it was like a club. But it was a restaurant type club where you could whatever, and it was a special show and we got dressed up and we went to dinner and we get to the restaurant, we get to the club, and we had VIP seating. And where, this is where I didn't share something with her when we sat down. I had been to this venue many, many times, and we sat down. It's surrounded with bars. So there's like a bar, like every, I don't know, every exit there was like a little bar. And then down below, we were sitting up top and down on the ground where the stage was, there was a full bar. Anyway, I was setting up mezzanine or whatever, and I'm looking down at the bar and this alcoholic looked down at that bar. And I had been to this venue many, many years, and I used to drink at that bar. And when I took my girlfriend at the time there, I left my body. We sat down totally. We were looking at the, she was looking at the stage and then she looked over at me and I had, I guess, disembodied. And I got caught up and I was staring at the bar, literally having a flashback, like, oh, my God. And I started salivating, like, what I would give to have a glass of bourbon right now, and I got caught up in my. I wasn't present. And she saw that. And she saw my eyes looking and didn't know what was going on with me, but assumed that I was looking at another woman or saw that or that I was. I saw. Yeah. Or I saw somebody that I knew. And it ruined the whole night. And we had this whole long conversation on the way home. And she didn't buy it. She. She was just telling me, now, I saw your eyes. You were looking at somebody. And I was like, no, honey, I was. I was caught up in some old. Whatever. I have learned one thing. And you mentioned this, one thing that I have learned is if you're dating a woman or even after you've moved in or got married or whatever, they want you to listen to them. And I. I went on a date a month ago, and I. I tried something new that I haven't done in a while is I. I shut my mouth and I lit. I mean, I would ask her a couple of questions, but she had a lot to talk about. And I just. I literally went like this and I just let her go and talk and talk and talk. And that got me a second date, you know, because I didn't sit there and talk about me. I was present and I was listening to what she had to say. And I find that. Yep. And I think women just want a man to listen to what they have to say and really listen. Don't just, like, pay attention, but absorb the words that she's saying and then validate them. You know, well, how did that feel for you? Or, you know, how did. How did. Whatever. And it works. And I'm hearing from. And I talk to women, and this is what men don't do. They talk about. Somebody told me once I went on a date and the guy was rich, and all he did was talk about his yachts and that he flies to Barcelona and Madrid and down the Bahamas. And the woman. You know, this whole thing about women are looking for men who are rich to take care of them. Yeah. There's a couple gold diggers out there, but I think women are not. They don't care how much money you have. Some of them today. Because I think like you said before, a lot of them have their own money today. You know, they work. They, you know, I mean, would. Would if I was a millionaire and she was not a millionaire, but did. Did. Right. But she. It's just how I present myself to her. Look at me, I'm rich and famous or rich and powerful. They don't want that. From my experience, from what I'm being told.

Jason Lange: Well, I mean, this goes for both men and women. But shallow people are attracted to shallow things. So there are going to be couples in relationships that work based on the surface level. Generally a woman's body is offered in exchange for high status or money, right? Yeah, there's like, there's a level of that, that that does work. You know, people do that. But what we're talking about here, you know, and I imagine the type of men and women that listen to your show, they're interested in depth, something more than that.

Host: That's what I'm talking about.

Jason Lange: Valued for their bank account or their body. They want to be valued for the human being on, you know, inside them. And that's where this deeper work does really become important. Because the more as a man you can bring depth and you are in your depth, the more you're going to attract partners who are also in their depth and who can see that and know that. And part of why I focus so much on this idea of inner work as men is the more inner work we do, the more we attract partners who are doing their inner work and see the value of, wow, you're somebody who's taking responsibility for your life. Just the way you were raised, the experiences if you had. It's not about being a victim. It's just, hey, some stuff happened to me and I'm learning how to become a healthy, whole human being. As we do that work as men, I seen it time and time again. We start to attract different partners and we are attracted to different partners who are often coming from a more whole healed and growth oriented place. Yeah.

Host: Jason, I think you are fantastic. I think the work you're doing is. I'm in alignment with everything you just said and I wish there were more of you out there to. Because I really, truly feel that not just the younger generation, but even my generation, there are men who are still clueless as to what women are looking for in a man. And I think you know what exactly it is and you're. And you're passing that along to your. So tell us, we got to wrap it up. Tell us where we could find you online if somebody wants to contact you. Especially you don't do any work with women or couples, right? It's just men.

Jason Lange: I do somewhere I can do work with couples. My wife, like I said, I work with my wife and we'll do couples work and she'll work with women and sometimes we co work together. So. But I Don't personally individually work.

Host: Okay.

Jason Lange: Women.

Host: So where can.

Jason Lange: Yes, you can. You can reach me and find out all my work and everything. I'm up to the programs I [email protected]. so it's not a dot com, it's dot men. Okay. And that'll have links to my social media, how to contact me, everything like that.

Host: Okay. And I'm already following you on Instagram, so awesome. When you get off, you'll see that anonymous Andrew podcast is requested to follow you or is following you. So great following you back. And please speak to your wife. I would love to have her on the show. I promise the women that have complained that I have too much information for the men but not enough for the women. So, so see if she wants to come on. And I, I can't thank you enough for your wisdom, for your information. And I hope one man today got something out of this because it's, it's one like my alcoholism is one day at a time. We, we can help men. One man at a. One man at a time.

Jason Lange: So.

Host: All right, Jason, thank, thank you for join. I would like to thank Jason Lange very much for joining me. I loved speaking with him. It was refreshing. I have been watching the male masculine energy dwindle in the past decade. You know, I watched some of these commercials where they make fun of men like they don't know, but they're doing in a relationship and the woman is. I can't even explain it, but if you're watching the same TV that I'm watching, and of course there's all these movements now and, and it's gotten to the men where now they have that MGTM movement where men go their own way because they're done, they're done with the women. And it doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't. So that's what Jason Lane is. I think Lang is trying to bring back the male masculine energy. And I've had a couple of guests on recently and I think the dating scene, the modern dating culture is complicated because men just have lost their way. It's, it's that simple. If we go back to the male who courts the woman, and even though the women today are making money and they're on their own two feet and they're independent and it's, they want or don't want a man to open the door for them or pay for their first dinner, yada, yada, yada. Anyway, I, I, I, you know, some of these topics get me fired up and, and I could do a rant on it and I'll save that for the weekend. So if you're enjoying this episode or podcast, especially the episode because Spotify can you can leave reviews on Spotify. But if you're enjoying my podcast and would like to leave me a review, just go down to Apple Podcasts if you're on Apple and leave a five star review which will help push me up through the algorithms and share this episode with a friend. And of course, what comes next? If you're going to get into a relationship or thinking or in getting engaged, are you making the right choice? All I ask is that you just take a couple of days and look back and look at some of the red flags. I could tell you about a date I went on a couple days ago and the date went great until two days later all the red flags that I ignored on the date started popping up, etc. Etc. And she was beautiful. But this time you. You're not gonna, you know, Shame on you, shame on me, shame on you, whatever that phrase is. I don't know where it goes, but I'm not gonna get caught the second time the last relationship did me. And so anyway, Anonymous Andrew, we'll talk next time. Ciao. It.