Better, not Easier

All right, and welcome back. So, on this episode, I want to talk about a phrase I've used on this podcast a few times, and that's been coming up a lot in the work I do with men, both one on one, and particularly in men's groups.

And it's this simple idea of better, not easier. What do I mean by that? Well, it's an actual shift in emphasis from this idea that, oh my God, if I do all this work on myself, on my purpose, on my growth, on my embodiment, life's going to become easier. And there's some truth to that, right? Some things do get easier. But in the work I do with men, I like to emphasize the aim is actually for life to get better.

What do I mean by better? Well, the quality of our connections, the quality of our presence, our fulfillment, our engagement, our desire to actually be present in the life we've created for us. That's better. It's more resilient, it's more robust. But it's not always easier, right? And the truth is, if you step onto the path of growth, right, just this idea of I'm going to live a growth oriented life, I'm going to move more and more towards wholeness in myself, in my relationships, in all aspects of my being.

When growth is your orientation, you're always going to come up against challenge, right? Because as you get mastery in something, you're going to grow into something else that transcends and includes that. That means it's not always going to be easy. And even when you're showing up perfectly in life, the most present, relaxed, embodied man you can be, shit still happens that's totally out of your control.

Challenges, strength, struggles and stresses are still going to hit you. They're still going to hit your system. So easier is not necessarily the goal we should be aiming for, but better. Better quality relationships, better physical health, better ability to move towards the things we want to move towards. And I see this really show up when I'm helping men in groups, specifically creating a men's group, creating brotherhood with each other.

And as I try to transmit what the power of that really is, is that a group will make your life better. It will not always make it easier. It'll be better because you have somewhere to bring your challenges, to bring your emotions, to bring your uncertainty. And you have men who are going to hold that, reflect that, and help guide you forward in your life.

It won't always be easy. Things will always happen, and sometimes within the group. But what you'll find is it's better. Wow. All these challenges I used to try to attack alone. I'm now attacking in community, right? The same stressor. It's just better to deal with it in connection than it is isolation. And this is the major shift that so many men are going through right now and that I've talked so much about on this podcast.

I. I heard this definition from Gabor Mate, who I've referenced before. He's an amazing, amazing teacher and healer and therapist, and he defines safety as not being the absence of threat, but safety is the availability of connection. Right. And if you listen to my episode with David Romero a couple weeks ago, he said, this thing, community is immunity, and it's all related here.

So stress comes and hits us in our system, but when we have connection available to us, it's much easier to handle. It doesn't blow us out, it doesn't completely drain us. It doesn't completely knock us off center. And it's better to handle the major stressors of life when we're in connection, when we're in relationship with others, including ourselves.

And I think this is one of the big reasons we're even attracted, particularly to intimate relationships. And I see this so much as I work with couples and men who are wanting to get into relationships or who are exiting relationships. It is shocking to me how for a large number of people, the baseline of their intimate connection is actually something that causes them stress. Right? So the relationship itself is a major source of stress and strife in their lives that puts them into fight or flight.

It's crazy, right? But it's kind of the, you know, lobster in the boiling water. Sometimes this stuff heats up over time, and we don't quite realize it until we get into a group or work with a coach who helps us see and feel clearly what we're actually experiencing. And then we're like, wow, I can't do this anymore. But point being, ideally, what a relationship should do, an intimate one in this course, in. In this case. But really, you know, relationships with other men, the huge subject of this podcast is it's going to make us more resilient against the stresses out there.

So this idea of better, not easier, one of the ways we can really create that in our lives is Cultivating strongly connected relationships, people we can stay connected with no matter what we're feeling or what we're experiencing. That creates real safety. And when we have that as our baseline, paradoxically, we're much more able to effectively actually handle life. We have the resource to deal with whatever's coming at us when we don't.

When we're isolated, as so many men do. This pattern I've talked about many times of when we're hurting, we want to withdraw or protect or toughen up and disconnect. In some sense, that actually makes it harder to do the things we want to do. It either shifts us up into fight mode and we're overactive, we're in our sympathetic state and we burn ourselves out. Or we shift down into parasympathetic freeze, where we just feel stuck or numb or unable to make a decision or unable to take action in our lives.

Connection, the resilience we're talking about here, the immunity of community, the safety. That's what allows us to get right in the middle. That's what allows us to have our ventral vagal, the front part of our vagus nerve in polyvagal theory. The part of us that allows us to be connected to others and to access all parts of our brain at once. We can be in relationship with the different parts of ourselves, and we can be in relationship with others.

And when we're in relationship, we're more effective. We can push the gas when we need to push the gas and lay off it and maybe hit the brakes when we need to hit the brakes. But it's smooth, it's not staccato, it's not herky jerky. It's not pedal to the metal, balls to the wall or engine blowout, stalled out. Focusing on connection in our relationships, our intimate relationship. And as I fiercely advocate here with other men that you can build trust with and community with.

That's going to allow you to get more done in your life. And I don't just mean, like productivity hacking here. I mean to live the life you actually want to live so that you don't look back with regret, right? That feeling of, yeah, I'm living it. I'm playing full out. I'm not always succeeding, maybe, but I'm trying. I'm taking my shots. And that in itself is so liberating, so freeing for us, particularly those of masculine orientation.

So it's not about making life easier. It's about creating the conditions for it to get better. And every time it gets better, you're going to want to grow more, right? There's going to be another layer of the onion, so to speak, to unpeel that might create more friction for you or my growth, or might create more healing for you or more growth for you. Or you could have been crushing it, doing everything, and then slam, you get hit and something comes out of left field and totally knocks you off course.

And it's in that moment your connections are your resource, right? That's the stabilizer for wow, how much is this really going to knock me off center? If I'm connected to myself, if I'm connected to community, I can hold steady, I can be with the impact of whatever's happening and still decisively move forward. That's what it's really about.

We don't want to freeze, we don't want to get stuck and fight. We want to be able to consciously respond in the ways we want. And that happens through this process of creating real safety in our lives, which is not no threat. It is not. It's all just easy. What it is, is there's connection available to me right now. And as human beings, connection to others is really our most powerful tool for regulating our nervous systems, bringing us back to a state of okay, ness.

I'm here. I'm able to be clear, grounded, present and able to take action that requires others. There's so many tools we can practice to cultivate that in ourselves. And they're never quite as powerful as looking someone in the eye and saying, I need a hand or I'm hurting, I'm struggling. And someone looking back and saying, I hear you, I'm with you. What needs to happen?

What do you need to feel what's going on. That's the real power of the type of connection we get to cultivate in men's group, in men's work, and here at evolutionary men. So start to think about it. Where are you wanting to make your life easier and why? What would it mean if you shifted the emphasis to making it better? So not removing conflict, but instead resourcing yourself more in connection, in community, in other people who give a shit about your well being, who are present with you.

I'd love to hear what you come up with. Definitely drop me a line at jasonvolutionary. Men. And until next time, if you're interested in working with me around dating relationships or your masculine presence in the world, just go to evolutionary men. Apply.