Held by Men, Forged by the Fire (with Ted Riter)

Jason Lange: All right, and welcome back, everyone. I am super pumped to have another interview today, this time with Ted Rider, who is a spiritual guide, relationship coach, and relationship coach that helps men, women and couples unmask their truth and deepen their connection to self, others, and the divine. He's a former rabbi with over 30 years of sacred leadership and now leads transformational experiences from his wisdom circle for men to intimacy intensives for couples and high achieving women. And it's really cool. His work weaves ancient wisdom with modern embodiment and invites people into integrity, love, and a life that feels spiritually and relationally whole. And yeah, I'm super excited to be here with you today, Ted, because, yeah, man, we've been sitting in circle together for, I don't know, almost seven or eight years now. And you've been a major landmark in my guide as a man and a mentor and just vision of what an integrated man can be. And there's something I particularly appreciate about you, which I think we'll dive into here and that you, you note a little bit, we noted a little bit in your intro, which is the sacredness you bring. You know, there's a lot of Instagramable men's work these days and there's a particularly depth and actually spiritual component that I often get to experience through you and my relationship to you. So I am super excited to have you here today, man, and figure we can just dive in.

Ted Riter: Let's dive in. 30 years. That's a long time.

Jason Lange: A really long time.

Ted Riter: I know. I wrote that.

Jason Lange: Thirty years.

Ted Riter: Yeah. And you know, I'm, I'm more and more appreciative of it as time goes on. You know, when I stepped out of. And you knew me during this time, I was kind of stepping out of the full time rabbi world and.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Ted Riter: To coaching world and into intimacy world, you know, that I kind of pulled away from. I didn't want the rabbi title. You know, who wants to talk intimacy with rabbi, I thought, or who wants to go, you know, do like good men's work with a rabbi. That that's my own kind of stuff that I was carrying along and, and then over the last number of years, just really appreciated even more. And I think especially as I see so many of our colleagues who are trying to find their roots. Right. They're trying to find their, their Celtic roots or, or whatever it might be to find some kind of grounding. And some are really making beautiful connections, but I recognize that they're having to leap over a number of generations prior to find real like the depth they're looking for. And there's something around seeing them doing that and then recognizing, oh, it's here, it's handed to me by my parents, not by some, some, some far back ancestors. And just feel lucky, I feel really lucky that, that my exploration hasn't had to go those routes, even though it certainly deepened. It hasn't had to jump over generations.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And you know, I'm curious, maybe you can speak to that a little bit in terms of your personal journey. You know, what, what got you into men's work specifically? Because it's not, not the most obvious jump right from your tradition. And you know, maybe it's changing, but from what I know, it's not like everyone's lining up to do this kind of embodiment and men's work and spiritual intimacy that you do. Like, did you get into men's work.

Ted Riter: Kind of by accident, really? I've had a spiritual director, the same spiritual director for about 18 years now, something like that, maybe a little more. And we meet on a regular basis and, and he's started men's groups, he's written a book about men's groups. He's done all kinds of things around men's groups. And I was with him for a good eight years before I even wanted to talk about it. I mean, even though I had, I mean, he was right there supporting me in so many ways. It was not until really I collapsed my life that I knew in 2013 and started digging out of that that I realized I needed something else. And the woman I was dating actually brought me to a John Wineland event, to a co ed event. And he was doing with Kendra at the time in Berkeley. And I went there and, and I thought, this is ridiculous. But I stayed because I was there with the woman I was dating who knew him personally. And then a month or so later I went back to him and said, okay, I think you've got something that I need. I need to learn more about masculine, feminine. All these different dynamics that he was talking about that seemed so foreign to me. And so that's when started hopping on those calls for that proto emlt, right, the embodiment leadership training that we did together in. Oh no, you were 2018, right?

Jason Lange: 18, my first year.

Ted Riter: So this was 26 into 2016 that we started doing the calls and then the program started in 2017. And I realized really quickly, one was that I didn't trust men. I had this view of the real men were kind of just the evolution of that jerk from Sixth grade locker room, and I didn't want to be him, so I pushed away from that. And it was then that I realized, oh, I didn't trust men. I was fearful of men. And that was kind of the cauldron I needed to be in to really stretch that part of me. And I'm pretty convinced by this point that if I had been in men's groups, so if I had asked my spiritual director 18 years ago, like, hey, man, can you tell me more about this? That. That my first marriage would have ended much differently than it did. Wouldn't have been so messy. Maybe it wouldn't have ended, but it certainly wouldn't have been as messy as it was. I needed men. I just didn't know it. I needed men who would challenge me lovingly. Not just the jerk kind, but challenge me from this place of, hey, I love you and I want more for you, and this is what I see for you and, you know, kind of shake me. So that's what. That's what got me started. And so started with John. Worked privately with a coach, Zot Baraka, who was, you know, both. Both the emlt. And working with Zot privately was really a lifesaver for me. And so maybe. And really helped me redevelop who I wanted to be in the world.

Jason Lange: Such an amazing story. And yeah, that. Right. I heard this Terry, real term, how he calls it, carefrontation. One of the great gifts in men's work is right when we confront with care. Like it's care we're confronting. And I think that's a real potent thing in men's work and men's groups and something I've been delighted to have received from you. Just one of the loving views you'll sometimes, you know, just hold. Hold your finger on the button for a little bit until it's like clarity emerges with these kind of loving confrontations sometimes. And it's been such a gift to me in my life and often just made me think about things at a deeper level and slowed me down. You know, that's. I think that's another thing I appreciate about sometimes my interactions with you have just like, tell me more about this. And it's like, yeah. Really forces me to get clearer where I'm at. Which obviously, such a masculine gift. Clarity isn't it. Isn't it clear in that regard?

Ted Riter: The other big thing was our friend Robert Glover.

Jason Lange: Yep.

Ted Riter: I was told in 2017, go read this book. And I started reading no More Mr. Nice Guy. I started yelling at the book like, how dare you, for knowing me so well. And I realized that so much of it was my language or language I needed. And I called him up and said, hey, I want to come study with you. And so, yeah, started that relationship back in 2017 also. And recognizing that I wasn't the only one, I guess that was a big thing. It wasn't just that I needed men, but I realized that I wasn't the only one who needed men. I wasn't the only one who had all these fears of being in men's groups or being around other men or distrust or a lot of the nice guy stuff of holding these things back. Because if you really knew me, you wouldn't love me.

Jason Lange: Yeah, totally.

Ted Riter: Yeah.

Jason Lange: I'm curious for you, what comes to mind? You know, you spoke about your previous marriage, and now you're in another relationship. And one was kind of before men and men's community in your life, and one is now you've had men and men community. And what way have you seen that change, you know, impact your intimate relationship? Is it, you know, something you put a lot of time and attention to supporting men and couples around? But how would you link that you now being plugged into men to the. The quality of your. Your intimate relationship, your partner?

Ted Riter: I. I started dating Leslie around the time I started working with John.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Ted Riter: You know my feminine clean story that he.

Jason Lange: I'm not sure I do.

Ted Riter: John told me to do a feminine cleanse because I was dating a couple women, just very casually here, date here or there. And so there were three of them. And I said, hey, I'm gonna do this crazy thing called a cleanse, and I may not see you again. I'm gonna, you know, say goodbye to all the women in my life other than, like, my sister and my mother or people who are more transactional in different ways. But I'm going to really cut off all kind of energy like that. And two women were heartbroken, and one woman said, wait, but you're staying with this guy named John Wineland? I thought he's supposed to be an intimate, like a relationship coach. Aren't you going to need a practice partner? So that's my wife.

Jason Lange: Yes. Great.

Ted Riter: But I say that because I think it's so important. We started our relationship as practice.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Ted Riter: And I think that's what doing this men's work taught me, that we commit, we often fail, we recommit. Right. That we deepen and ground and root ourselves so that we can hold our own feminine and we can hold their feminine. We learned to Dance with those, with those energies. And having a place where I could experience that with my Leslie, who ended up being my wife was super important. But the connection back to the men's work was that that's where I got a lot of the tools. That's where I got a lot of the tools that broke down those, those cultural or family, whatever lessons that I had learned along the way about how we were all exactly alike. Men and women were mirror images of each other. It helped me start to understand just the beauty in differences and how to navigate those. I think also the men's group was the place that I really grieved. I really grieved how I had shown up for the first 40 plus years of my life and worked through a lot of the shame, both the sexual shame that I had growing up and through the marriage and how I ended the marriage and the shame around that. So in order to go into my current relationship in a clean manner, I needed to cycle through all that stuff, cleanse all that stuff from my own body, not just my head, because rationally, I, I could do it all. But as how, as I was storing all in my body, I needed to really metabolize it all, to let it go so I could show up differently for my wife. And that I don't. I don't think there was another place I could have done it. Maybe some therapists. It was really the power of a men's group because it was a bunch of men. It wasn't just like one person I was talking to who I was paying to be my coach or my therapist. It was a group of men who didn't really need anything from me. I didn't owe anything to them who were able to reflect back and to. And to hold me. I mean, I remember this one time we were at a retreat in Amsterdam and we were around a fire at night, and I remember totally falling apart, like, not being able to stand and having two of my brothers hold me and just hold me as I sobbed and as I, As I grieved, as I, As I mourned for, for everyone I had hurt, for how I had felt hurt, how I had hurt myself, my former wife, my daughter, everyone. I can, I can picture that as years, years ago, but I can, I can picture. I can feel the heat of the fire. I can, I can feel the two guys, Morgan and Soma, holding me.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Ted Riter: And wow, what a gift.

Jason Lange: Yeah. It's such an incredible transmission because that's, you know, I imagine only in your own journey. But, you know, Rabbi now as a men's leader work with a lot of couple men in particular. And I see this in guys I work with all the time. The. Whether it's no more Mr. Nice Guy, whether it's from the stuff from Way of the Superior man and John or you know, any kind of shadow work. When the illumination happens to. Oh my God. I can. I can actually see now consequences in the impact I was showing up and how my former lover or spouse or my children and Right. There's such a unique threshold there of the pain of feeling. Wow, I really contributed to this. You know. Certainly was for me and you know, maybe some shame or some. If I had only known right. If I, oh my God, if I had only gotten this work when I was 25 in, you know, certain energy with that and the simultaneous. We were all doing the best we could. We didn't have these tools. You know, it's like this dance of, you know, being kind in that. Well, we. We work with what we were given and most of us weren't modeled, you know, particularly great skills in this arena. And so there's that acknowledging or taking responsibility for we impacted. But then also, you know, I guess in some sense forgiving self. Well, there's only so much use, you know, I mean, you've. You've witnessed me in my shame over the years. There's only so much use in the continual lashing. I should have. I should have that at some point. You know, I think men's work is really. Has really been profound for me and kind of lifting up out of. Well, I didn't know but. And then this is where the power of the group is. Now that I know and I see it now, it does become my responsibility. Make sure, you know, in whatever ways I can, I restore harmony to situation or don't fall back into those patterns and get help, you know, from guides and counsel and brothers, particularly the peer brothers. I think that's what I heard you really speaking to is certainly pro therapist, pro coach. And there's something different that happens when you're in that peer circle. Accumulated experience and you know, in some sense less of a hierarchy and more of a brotherhood in it, you know, that really can penetrate through or at least has for me quite often.

Ted Riter: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So you, you. You touched. There's. There's so many little gems and all the things you said that. That part about, yeah, stop, stop beating yourself. But all these things I think are on a spectrum. Right.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Ted Riter: Of responsibility. And there are some people who are very quick to Say, hey, they did the best they could with the tools they had. That was a really important thing for me to learn. My parents, my friends, or me, myself. I was doing the best I could with the tools I had.

Jason Lange: And.

Ted Riter: And there's something around, you know, not punishing someone for something they didn't know.

Jason Lange: Yeah, totally.

Ted Riter: That's a. That's a really.

Jason Lange: That's a good way to put it.

Ted Riter: That's. Well, I actually. That was Abe's. That's our friend Abe, who said that once.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Ted Riter: You know, don't. Don't punish me for something. Or maybe it's something about me. You know, don't. You know, don't punish me for something I didn't know. Like, oh, that's really cool. But, you know, the. The idea of they did the best they could with the tools they had, or I did the best I could with the tools I had. There's a beauty in that. But I see some people who jump to that really quickly almost as a bypass. So it's really. Both are important. Both the let me grieve, let me even feel shame. I mean, there's a value. The shame on some level, the shame or guilt, which is a heavy. Which is, I think, a healthier nuance of that of self blame. But the guilt and the shame let me feel that, let me really sink into that. And let me also hold this part over here of. And I was doing the best I could with the tools I had, or that. Or that person in my life was doing the best they could with the tools they had. Because I see a lot of people in kind of conscious community who just jump to the best they could. Yeah, there's a. There's a gift in that. But they're missing the truth that we need to sit in the grief. We need to sit in the celebration too. I mean, it's the whole. The whole array of. The whole array of feelings. Those are all good. Sitting there for a little while.

Jason Lange: Yeah. It's so true. Talked about that before. Of one of the interesting red flags I've come to notice when I'm just getting to know Mandy might want to work in a group or something. Is the pretty good childhood. And then they kind of immediately go to something about that almost always points to this kind of spiritual bypass that are like bring to forgiving my parents. Because I know they were trying. And it's. Again, it's not that we don't want to acknowledge that. Not punish them. Right. Things they didn't know. But I think the danger. What I have seen is if we then ignore the impact, it makes it much harder to feel that grief or that frustration. And then it's like a fault forgiveness because we haven't really metabolized it. They were doing the best they could. And the way they raised me, the experiences I had, whatever, had a massive impact in who I am. And I'm now having to deal with the consequences of whether it was intentional or not. You know, I sometimes joke, you know, if you and I are a roughhousing in the backyard and I accidentally hit you head in the head with a bat, right. This is my thing. It's like, you still want me to say sorry even if I didn't do it on purpose, right? It's like, oh my God. Sorry. I hate you because it still hurts. It hurts no matter what. Whether my intention was to hurt you or not. It's like, oh my God, I'm so sorry that that happened. You know, I didn't want that to happen. I think there's a part of that here. And I do see nice guys, right, in particular fall prey to this in terms of not wanting to really point the finger at all to any. You know, they were doing the best they could. It was their generation. You know, I also see this all the time now still. Here's if you do with even just spanking, which I consider child abuse. And when I talk to guys and I put it that forward, they're like, what? No, like that was just the kind of thing at the time. I was like, it was the thing at the time and it's hitting your kid. You know, that's my personal opinion. But there's something. But there's like such a. But it was kind of the thing then. And yes. And you know, feel what it did to you. Your relationship to pain or men or fear.

Ted Riter: Yeah, I know that story. Yeah, I had to process that in my own upbringing. I've never done that with my kids. Right. I was. I had to process that with my own childhood of like, yeah, that's what people did. And you know, the severity of it from 1 to 10 was pretty low physically. But I still remember it. I still. I still remember that that switch of bamboo that would come out or fly swatter. That's kind of just gross. Come think about it on so many levels. But. But yeah, I've had to. To process through that. And there's part of it of, hey, they did the best they could with the tools they had, bypassing those feelings, which is really just, I think a discomfort with Discomfort. And I think often what happens is if I'm just. I'm uncomfortable with my own discomfort, then I'm going to try and negate yours. Yeah, like, okay, you cried. Let's move on. Okay? I said I'm sorry. Let's move on. You know, it's like, let. I want this thing to end so we can get back to peace. So it's a. It's a good practice just to be able to sit in the. Oh, wow, this hurts. And then to be able to sit with my daughter, my son, and, oh, this hurts totally.

Jason Lange: I'm going to be with you in it. The key there of present with you in the pain rather than trying to get rid of it, dissociate from it, medicate away from it, or change it or make you wrong for it. You know, that's a big one too, that, you know, I've had to learn. Transparent. What my kid needs is just for me to be present with them in their feelings and not rescue them from them. Huge edge for me as a nice guy, you know, in my relationship now as a parent as well, of. Okay, you know, kind of have to let you have your experience because. Builds inner capacity, but you don't have to do it alone. Right. Alone in your bedroom. So many of us dead because our parents just didn't have that skill set, the awareness, you know, around a lot of what we're now present to. And, you know, I think the. I have a particular passion now as a. As a father and the two young ones is. And then on that end. And then the men's work on the other end, it's like, you know, if I was to do a moonshot kind of thing right now, it'd be. I would spend like $2 billion on, you know, 0 through 5 for kids. Because, you know, most. A lot of the work I now get is from men who spend decades unwinding some of this wounding that happens.

Ted Riter: So early childhood things. Yeah, yeah. And that's not even counting the intergenerational stuff. I mean, I'm a. I'm a real believer in epigenetics of those. The things that are passed from prior generations. It's not even our story that we're holding on to. And yeah, it's another billions moonshot for that one.

Jason Lange: Right.

Ted Riter: But you think back of all the trauma. Right, Think back of all the trauma and, you know, all looking back at trauma through history and thinking, you know, like, my father was Vietnam era, and prior to that, Korea and World War II and World War I and in this country, civil war, and you go back, every generation had some kind of big traumatic world event. So no wonder we ends up with all this in our lap.

Jason Lange: Totally.

Ted Riter: And you know, and it, and hey, it keeps you and I in business, right? So.

Jason Lange: Well, yeah, I mean, I think what's key about that is, I mean, you know, you're, you're steeped in lineage and a tradition and, you know, I'm probably a good example of someone who's not in a sense that, you know, I was raised kind of Midwestern, Sunday morning Lutheran, Christian. Never really kind of, kind of anchored in, in a sense, but that, you know, I would argue the best lineages we do have in some of the traditions were, hey, what are some of the ways we deal with grief or our pain or some of these traumas communally? Because it's pretty frigging hard to do alone. Right. And as that has kind of dropped out of, you know, Western culture and so hyper agentic here in the states of, you know, what's the American dream? I want to live alone in a house with a lot of property, in a white picket fest and never have to see anyone. I can, you know, there's some great gifts to that. I get, I get the impulse sometimes and it's not at all how we process.

Ted Riter: Yeah. And that's one of the places where I love Jewish tradition.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Ted Riter: There are so many things in Jewish tradition that require a minion, which is a quorum of 10. And a funeral requires a minion. You can't do a funeral by yourself saying that there's a tradition. That the death practice in Judaism is really beautiful. This is not what I thought we'd talk about today, but I think it's really beautiful and it ties in to this idea of community because I want to talk about. We need to talk about initiation also. So in Jewish tradition, we help bury our own dead. We clean their body. It's a ritual for cleaning their body. We bury them ourselves. We put some of the earth back into the ground and we're surrounded by 10 people or I guess nine other people. And in, through that say our prayers, we, we continue to say those, those morning prayers. Prayers of morning M O U R N for, for a full year for a parent and then yearly, a couple times a year, actually ongoing and always part of community. So what we often see in the conscious. I started to say community is the conscious community. It's not a community. And the conscious movement, I would say, is a lot of individualism losing, I think the importance of what does it mean to be part of something bigger than yourself?

Jason Lange: Great.

Ted Riter: You're doing all this personal healing work, but how does that actually impact the rest of the world? What's your, what's your purpose in all of this? And I think that's, that's really important. It's something I think we're not seeing a lot of even in men's groups for that matter. What's your responsibility to this larger group? After we finish, you know, the last day of this month, we finish our group. Like, what. How are you connected? Was it just a one and done kind of thing? You know, what's your. What have you been initiated into? And I think it's a big, big question that most. I'm not seeing a lot of people grapple with. What are you being initiated into? Not just manhood, but really, you know, traditional initiations were not, oh great, now you're an individual.

Jason Lange: It's like, yeah, totally.

Ted Riter: Now you're an adult who has these more responsibilities and more opportunities perhaps, but, but you have to think beyond yourself, which is, you know, as. Which is such an important lesson. Your, your kids are really young, but you've been with enough, you know, kids as they've grown up to see that there's an age where we hope they start thinking beyond themselves. They start thinking about their siblings, they start thinking about their family, their community, their world. And that's I think, where the initiation should be going. How do you take that step into bigger responsibility in the world and recognize your.

Jason Lange: I love that because I think that also connects to something I see in a lot of, you know, men I work with, which is some of the kind of depression and loneliness and isolation comes from a lot feeling part of like, like I'm. Oh, I'm actually part of a system in some extent that. That needs me or that I have some responsibility to. And you know, it's kind of the, again, it's like the, the pathology of the hyper individualism of like pretty. It's probably more doable now than ever before to be a paper free man who has no connection or obligation or you know, you just order everything off grubhub. You don't even have to see people. Right, right. But that breeds, I think, a kind of depression, you know, which is both from, I would say community in terms of people. And you know, I know we, through John and our work and also just through nature, like when we're actually disconnected. I'm not part of the land. It does something. It does something. And as men get Immersed back into that and realize, oh wait, there's this whole thing that an intrinsic part of that I actually have an impact on. It starts to bring something back alive. As we see that in our local communities and families and stuff, I think that's so big too. And me that's one of the main gifts being part of a group is this kind of belonging and purpose thing that can get activated where, you know, in, in a good group. Right. If you're not there, I feel the impact of that. Or, you know, if I'm not there, you feel the impact of that because it actually does bring more depth to my life. And there, you know, the groups I've seen thrive and survive and the ones I'm part of and have helped create that there, there is like a, it's.

Ted Riter: Not a light.

Jason Lange: Agreement we're making joining a group in a sense where there is something I would, you know, word gets used a lot. But sacred to it in that there's a real commitment there that means something of commit to showing up to you in whatever ways. You know, the container is going to be different. But that I think a lot of men actually are missing. And as they start to feel it, it's, it's powerful and there can be a shift. You know, I've had to work with a few guys around what I kind of call feeding the meter. There's a certain kind of guy that sometimes shows up to men's group just when they really need something if they're in crisis.

Ted Riter: Yeah, yeah.

Jason Lange: And it's like, well, are you feeding the meter the other times? Because that, you know, I, maybe, maybe you heard, I know this. But I'm pretty sure there was like some crazy study I, I that was like the thing that actually is the most fulfilling and makes us feel the most rewarded is not even when we receive kindness, but it's when we offer kindness and it's received. Then we're like in the relationship. Right. And it's like, wow, I showed up for you and I served you in this way. And now I feel deeply connected to you is even more connecting. Some of the research shows that, wow, people showed up and served me. And that's again one of the gifts, I think of men's group and something that's been totally blown my mind. I'm, you know, I moved cross country recently and rent rejoined a men's group I was in previously. And these guys are to the grave. So they are talking about, you know, we're going to start to die together, you know, over the Next decade. That's a very different kind of context than I've ever been plugged in, you know, having been outside of, you know, ages and traditions and strong communities in that sense, and actually quite relaxing to me in a way that I was. I was shocked about to be able to start to talk about these things and not fear that in the same way. So it's very. I was really fascinated that you brought that up and kind of started to connect it all together.

Ted Riter: Yeah, I love that you're talking about this. I have a new group, new cohort, cohort number six. Really excited about that wisdom circle that starts Wednesday, so in two nights.

Jason Lange: And.

Ted Riter: And I've been interviewing all the men for it and really pressing the importance of showing up every time, feeding the meter, as you said. The last cohort I ran, it got loose. It started to feel kind of. I mean, I think the guys got a good experience out of it, but for me, as a leader, I could see there was just so much more, so much deeper we could have gone if I had held it tighter. And it was my fault. I kind of let the guys off the hook. And I think part of it is because I knew some of them from outside friends coming in and my nice guy stuff. I wanted to be the nice guy and not be a hard ass. And I let them off the hook. And I think that suffered. But, yeah, we suffered for it. I think they all had a good experience. Number of them are coming back. But in the conversations I've had leading up to this new cohort, I've really stressed, hey, how important is to be here? I require now three things. Used to be just two things. It used to be a willingness to be vulnerable, which is not necessarily a facility of being vulnerable, but just a willingness. And then we'll kind of teach you how to do it. And then what I would call a generosity of practice, meaning that when the other guy is being vulnerable, I'm a hell yes. If you need me for this, I'm going to be generous. Even if it doesn't really feel good, awkward, whatever. I'm going to show up for you. But the third thing, which I recognize I have to add is you got to be there. Something I always took for granted until I realized, oh, guys are calling. Oh, five minutes before, hey, something important came up. Like, no, something more interesting came up. Or something that was going to protect you from being vulnerable came up. Or something that whatever came up. You know, emergencies certainly happen, but it was just feeling like these were non emergencies. And so a guy Asked me the other day, he said, hey, I'm going to miss one of these. One of these 12 sessions. Is that going to be. Will it be hard for me to catch up? I don't think it'll be hard for you to catch up, but that's not necessarily the point. The point is what you were talking to about earlier, Jason, this idea of if you go vulnerable or someone that. In that. That group really just pours their heart out or whatever it might be, and then you don't show up the next time, it just feels bad. That's. That's. You're. You gotta, like, feed the meter. You gotta stay in the mix. Otherwise, just don't show up. Thank you. Bow goodbye and. And maybe next cohort.

Jason Lange: You know, to. Again, we both work with a lot of nice guys. And it's also one of the interesting manifestations of some of the challenges around boundaries. I see that. It's like if. If you can't make the time to be here for yourself, that's the whole jam, you know, in some sense, where it's. It's like learning to prioritize. Where I put my attention right, is. Is really demonstrating what I'm committed to. Yeah, I love that. You know, my. My local groups, I've sat and, you know, we had to get pretty strict where it's like, yeah, it's not an emergency and you're in town, you have to be here. There's no. I don't feel like it today, or there's too much work. It's just like, you gotta be here. And, you know, there's always gonna be exceptions then. But that's kind of the. We want to take the deepest claim we can and create an expectation, because it does. I've noticed it, too. It gets leaky. One person skips, and then two people skip. Then you can feel people aren't quite valuing it maybe as much as you. So that's. Well, why. Why should I fucking show up if not gonna show up? You know, and then it. It just gets leaky, and then groups dissolve pretty fast.

Ted Riter: And so here's the gift.

Jason Lange: Without that commitment.

Ted Riter: Here. Here's the gift. In a men's group, a good men's group, they'll challenge you about it. You know, what was more important than showing up? Explain to us what was more important than showing up. You know, you owe us a hundred bucks for not showing up. Whatever it might be, there's a consequence to it which doesn't exist in other parts of your life. So you don't show up fully for your wife or your kids, and they kind of shrug or they may be disappointed or whatever it is, but they. They let it go.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Ted Riter: And they let it go and they let it go until it just hurts and it just becomes, well, yeah, dad was never really there for me or my husband. I don't really feel connected to my husband. And so in a men's group, we're not doing our job. I wasn't doing my job. We're not doing our job if we're not really holding them accountable. We're. We're doing a disfavor to their partners and their kids and their colleagues and whomever else is out there in their life. Because not showing up or showing up half ass, I mean, that. That's possible too. Like, I'm sitting here.

Jason Lange: Absolutely. My mind is like.

Ted Riter: It's way out there. It's, you know, I'm like looking at my phone when no one's watching kind of thing. It creates a ripple. And. And I think that's one of the biggest lessons for me in some of this work is that we create a ripple everywhere we go. In some cases, every place. We don't. It's like a negative absence of ripple or whatever it is that's felt like, oh, where are they? But that's one of the things I really try to teach, is that when you walk into a space, you're creating a ripple that you need to be conscious of. You have to change it. I mean, sometimes you can be okay with it, but you need to be conscious that you're impacting other people. So. So. So I did this. This practice with my daughter for a number of months. She was maybe, I don't know, 13, 14 at the time, and kept saying really judgmental things about people. Oh, look at what they're wearing. Oh, look at da da da. Even just like that kind of the stranger. The stranger judge. Which she was doing from a place of humor, right. And it was. There were some funny parts. And I realized, wait, there's. I want to. I want to see if I can adjust this. So I started talking to her about, okay, when someone wearing some. Whatever bizarre clothes they may wear in the Bay Area. So not so not so unusual to see someone walking in with just like really something outlandish, recognize them, but then knows the people around them, what's the ripple that they're creating? I want her to become more conscious of what's the ripple that she's creating in life. But rather than judging them, use that opportunity as like, oh, here's a little flag. Oh, let me look around. And who in the restaurant, in the grocery store, in the theater, whatever it is, like, how do they turn even? Maybe they look. Maybe you just see them kind of move their body, not even knowing why, really, just to start recognizing what's the impact that you have. Own your impact, even if you're good with it, right? Yeah, I want to turn heads totally.

Jason Lange: Right.

Ted Riter: Or I don't, or whatever it might.

Jason Lange: Be, just bringing that consciousness to it.

Ted Riter: And so it's the same thing with showing up for my daughter or my wife or my son and really be thinking about something else or bring in some kind of energy. What's the impact of that? Who I want to be. Right.

Jason Lange: I love the ripple thing because it's something, you know, you were one of the men that helped train me in. Like, literally, how does my body move through space? What is that going to do? You know, when leading a workshop and people are deep in work, it's a. It's a real thing, right. And as you become conscious of it, it's like, holy shit. A lot of times, you know, I'm not super tall, but I'm like 6:1, and I had to get conscious of my body. Moving through space can be a big body compared to some people. And, you know, it was one of those awarenesses that, that struck me over time. But the thing I really love about what you were putting, pointing to around a ripple was the both sides of it in terms of, you know, you could also say, like, wake. If we're thinking of like a boat in the water or something. There's. There's. There's kind of the negative aspect of I've just fucking got my motorboat in the lake and I'm not paying attention and I'm making it a mess.

Ted Riter: Right.

Ted Riter: Yeah. And we do see some people who. Who step into these groups, both men and women. Right. Doing whatever kind of deep work on themselves was therapy or coaching or some kind of group program. And they recognize, oh, my partner isn't on this path. And. And there's great ways to lead them. Right. Sometimes, as you say, like, they just. They just naturally, like their BMI follows or, you know, you're. You're going through your motorboat on this wake and. And like, they're in this little floaty and they're like, oh, this is fun. Right. Totally enjoying the ride. It may worked out beautifully. And sometimes there's a place of, oh, we're just on a different trajectory in life.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Ted Riter: Which I see happen sometimes. Way there's sad, there's great. There's ways to lead your partner back into it. But sometimes there's a recognition of, this is a different path we're on.

Jason Lange: Yeah, we're not fit.

Ted Riter: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Again, I think where the wisdom of the group can be so useful of, oh, am I cutting the rip cord too early? Or. Yeah, no, like, you really showed up. And, you know, know partner is just not in that growth, orientation or mindset or willingness. So. Yeah. You know, it's quite impressive to me every time I'm sitting in a wisdom circle, you say that. The quality attunement and feedback I get from the men when I'm trying to suss a decision or something like that out. Pretty accurate. Pretty wild, right? How people can kind of feel like you kind of haven't done your thing yet or.

Ted Riter: Yeah, yeah.

Jason Lange: Like, no, you know, I think. I think this might be for you to make a transition. It's not changing. And we've witnessed and trust us in that sense.

Ted Riter: Yeah. And trust is the Thing.

Jason Lange: For.

Ted Riter: Real embodied work and transformation. Transformation. It's not always going to solve the problem the way you want it to be solved. Right. So you can't be attached to outcome. If I do this, my relationship is going to be great or I'm going to make riches or I'm going to do whatever. But really immersing yourself is an act of trust that I'm going to grow, I'm going to be more aware, I'm going to grow, I'm going to create new, healthier patterns. And my hope is that everyone around me will love it. And I trust that whether they love it or not, whether we're still on a path or not together, that this is the direction to be going. That's kind of scary. Kind of scary.

Jason Lange: We don't.

Ted Riter: I can't guarantee anything for men who start my men's groups, nor I'm. I'm guessing you.

Jason Lange: Yeah. This conversation yesterday.

Ted Riter: Yeah, yeah.

Jason Lange: As you know, what's the roi?

Ted Riter: What's the ROI on this? Like, I don't know.

Jason Lange: You gotta do it for you, right? I mean, it has to be for you that regardless of the outcome, you want to do this because you want to take control. You're showing up again, right. It may not work out, but there's something different to. I really can feel in my body, in my bones. Showed up, I gave it all I had. I tried, I put it out there, I change things on my side and then it's a different kind of freedom. Right. When something doesn't work out, not the, you know, certainly for me, that, well, I didn't really fucking do it. So I don't know, you know, place I would often get stuck. Okay, I went for that. That did not work. I put everything, you know, I really tried, but, okay, so now I can let go of it. That just wasn't a good fit. Relationship, working, partnership or new idea. Right. For a program and something I've had to get used to try stuff. Some of it works, some of it doesn't seem like a good idea. Take it personal. Yeah.

Ted Riter: But if you look at the arc of it, I can tell you that my life has improved immeasurably.

Jason Lange: Yeah, same.

Ted Riter: Just this weekend, Leslie, my wife and I were talking about, wow, this is the life we created. We created wasn't the default one. It wasn't the, the, the. I'm just living at the effect of the world. Right. I was really like, this is the thing we created. And it doesn't mean everything is always rosy. We have the same challenges. I think most people have in life and wow, what a beautiful life this is. I'm, I am so thankful the, the woman that introduced me to, to John and Kendra's event is not in my life. And I'm so grateful that she introduced me to not necessary to them, but to a different way of approaching life that has been so, so beautiful, powerful last dozen years. So thankful that I am where I am. And yeah, sometimes I look back and I see the guy who's in his mid-20s doing some of the same work. I'm like, wow, like your whole brain isn't even fully formed yet.

Jason Lange: Right, right.

Ted Riter: And then I look at the guys in their 70s who are just discovering the power of real deep work and.

Jason Lange: Think, okay, never too late.

Ted Riter: This is where I am. And yeah, it's never too late. And so yeah, love doing this work. Got to meet you through this work.

Jason Lange: Honor and pleasure and be mindful of time. So we'll start to wind things down here. But I'm curious, for men mostly I have male listeners, but sometimes some women too. For anyone that might be interested in keeping up with you and some of the, I mean you do some just kick ass work and programs, what's the best way for people to follow you or get, get ahead of what you're up to?

Ted Riter: I don't do a lot online so I, I do some on, on Instagram. You can check me out at TED writer talks. R I T E R1T in that lane. TED writer talks. And on, on Internet tedrider.com I have programs for men that are primarily here in the Bay Area. I'm just starting to think about, okay, it's time to actually do some retreats. But right now they're in the San Francisco Bay area and I do other programs with couples that often people fly in for. So do little retreats here and there and then mostly just one on one and, and really are, are loving that. I'm actually going up to, to Tahoe right after we get off for a little mini retreat with a client. And you're looking, I'm there. Come find me.

Jason Lange: All that in the show notes. Definitely worth a follow, y'. All. Ted's wisdom is deep and we barely scratch the surface today. So do it again sometime my friend. But great being here with you.

Ted Riter: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Always a pleasure.

Jason Lange: Till next time, guys.