Shadow Work & Intimate Relationships (with Luke Adler)

Jason Lange: All right, and welcome back. Excited to be back here for another episode of the Heart of Shadow series I've been doing with my man Dr. Luke Adler here, who's my co facilitator in the Heart of Shadow program. And today we wanted to talk about relationships and our experiences as men who are in long term relationships and how shadow work can impact that and relate to that and how the work we're doing in the Heart of Shadow program and the work Luke and I do with each other has, you know, changed the way we're able to show up in our, in our marriages, ourselves, and just the many ways we see men struggling and how. I think shadow work can often be, you know, another great tool to put in the toolkit when it comes to relationships and, and struggles and whatnot.

Luke Adler: Yeah, when we, when we talk about our edge, you know, feeling alive, feeling vital, that has to include our relationship. And if we don't bring shadow work into that realm and just leave it as designated roles that we're going to play, whether it's managing a household, a family, finances, then inevitably that living vital energy inside of our connection starts to dull out. It starts to get deadened just like it does within ourselves. If we're not kind of attuned to what, what is our growing edge in life and relationally? I mean, I guess we'll talk about men to start. You know, if we're not owning our, our piece, if we're not taking responsibility for our pain and our wounding, then inevitably we're going to be projecting that onto the relationship and vice versa. If our partner isn't owning their, their wounding and their peace, they're going to be doing the same thing. Now, if we're caught in the nice guy syndrome, we might have a tendency to want to keep the peace and be agreeable with our partner's point of view about what's wrong, what's not working, where we're not showing up. And although that might seem like, hey, this is great, like, actually, I heard a man, I was working with a man last week and he said to me, I'm so grateful because my parents never fought when I, when I grew up. They kept that all private. And of course, gentleman's coming to me because he and his wife of 40 years are now fighting over something, and he's literally paralyzed in his nervous system. He doesn't know what to do, which is why he hired me. And if we don't know how to tussle and grapple with our partner and own what there is for us to own and perhaps point out what they need to own too, then we're inevitably going to lose some of that. That polarity charge where I'm kind of alive on my side, you're alive on your side, and together you've got this bigger living, kind of vibratory thing that isn't just two people sharing space who are maybe good friends or maybe, you know, good at suppressing one another, but become something that's much more vitalizing, which is what our program's all about. It's about feeling alive. And, you know, we, we. We have to extend that into our relationship with our partner.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I think that nice guy thing, right? I work with a lot of nice guys. I'd consider myself a recovering nice guy and happy wife, happy life, or, you know, please and appease, as Dr. Glover puts it. This is a thing we really can get easily trapped in as men. And it's, you know, I kind of call it the, like the. The junk food of relationship. It's like you can reach for it and it might kind of help things in the moment, but long term, it's. It. It's never really the right choice and it damages us more. And if there's something I have definitely seen working with guys over the years and couples really, is that, you know, a nice guy who never stands up for himself and is always, you know, pleasing and appeasing his partner, over time, the. That partner will often lose respect for that man. And when she can feel he's tolerating, right, her stepping all over him or not treating him well or whatever, that respect goes down even low. And nice guys get really stuck there. And then they try to be even nicer, you know. And a big part of certainly my journey in shadow work has been learning to reclaim some of my power and agency in, you know, what. How that really shows up for me is just boundaries, right? Being boundaried in terms of being able to stand in my truth and share, like, my limit on whatever white, whatever might be going on with my partner and I. And this has actually shown up for me recently where a big part of work I had to do in my relationship was reeling, realizing how unboundaried I could be in terms of my nervous system and my Partner's, uh, my partner just through some of her experiences, can sometimes have a more vigilant nervous system. And I would take that on. So if she wasn't feeling okay, I would take that on as, oh, my God, something's not okay in our relationship, or I did something wrong and then I would. It would put me in a stress state and then I would often withdraw. That's kind of my stress response in our relationship. And then that would make her more vigilant. Oh my God, is there something wrong? Like he's, he's kind of disappeared. And this was a dance we've done many, many times that really started to come to a head recently and had to do some pretty deep work around to, oh, wait, I actually gotta practice differentiating her experience from mine. And lo and behold, as I'm able to do that and just kind of be in my own boundary space and not take that on, I became more grounded and relaxed. And then she actually became more grounded and relaxed because she could feel I was more in my space and actually looked at me and said like, wow, it feels really good actually, when you're in your boundary itself like that. And this is the kind of thing I've had to practice in men's groups and in, in the type of work we lead of being able to connect to what's true inside of me and hold onto it no matter what's kind of going on outside and including conflict. Right. And I certainly was also a house that never really had healthy conflict modeled for me in terms of my parents did get a little more vocal as, as I was growing up, but it like never went anywhere. So I learned that same kind of pattern in a way, but from the other side of, well, what's the point of arguing? Nothing ever changes was kind of the message I internalized from my system. And I've had to learn again that, no, actually there's a time and place for this. And you know, you and I are friends with a lot of, a lot of couples therapists and one thing most of them say is like, yeah, the couples that really make it, they know how to fight well. And what I mean is like, be in conflict with each other without losing each other's humanity or connection.

Luke Adler: It's well said. So beautiful. Um, yeah, thank you for being so vulnerable about your process too, with your wife. And it definitely stirred in me, you know, a recent process where we've been in, where, you know, I have a six year old and a nine year old and, you know, those first, you know, Those first four, five, six years raising a child or so intense and pretty much a time of survival. And my wife Emily's been, you know, telling. Telling the girls that, you know, daddy's been tired when you were younger, Daddy was really tired. And. And I kind of clued into that because that my daughters will be like, dad, you were really tired when we were little. And I'm like, why do they know that? You know, why is that? And that's a. That is something that Emily's told them. And it's. It started to. Started to irritate me. I'm like, why is that a story that's in their heads? And so part of me's been, you know, kind of a yes man. I want to keep the peace. So I'm not challenging my wife when she's saying these things, like, you know, you were really tired, you weren't around, et cetera, because I just don't want.

Jason Lange: To get into it.

Luke Adler: But inevitably, here's a. Here's a. Here's a consequence of that. She's enrolled our daughters in this whole narrative. Like, oh, my God, my daughters are going around saying that Daddy's tired, Daddy's this and that. And I'm like, you know what? The weight of providing for a family, whoever has that role, but in our marriage, it's a little bit more traditional. Like, I'm. I'm the. More of the provider financially, et cetera, and she provides more of the nurturance. And that's how it's set up. I know that's not every couple, but it. It. It's how ours is. And I just got in touch with the weight of actually providing for a family is intense. To have that in your nervous system, to be holding that and living with that is. Is intense. And it's an intense weight to hold the nurturance and the care for children like that. I'm responsible. I'm the one ultimately responsible. I'm speaking with my wife, who is shaping these children that I'm in. The choices I'm making around their food and their education and the words that. The words and the semantics and the. The culture that I'm educating my children, that I'm the. I'm owning how that's going to affect how their. Their adulthood plays out. Um, and as I started to get in touch with my fire around it, I'm like, I'm realizing, honey, you know, back off a little bit. If I'm tired, it's because I'm holding this in my nervous system 24 7, just like in your nervous system, you're holding, shaping the future of our children's lives. And so give me a little space. Give me a little space and a little credit and. And please don't share a story with my children, our children, that daddy's tired and daddy can't show up in this and that way because this is a way in which you just don't get it. And in the same way that I'm not holding what you're holding. So it's an interesting exploration because for me, it started. There was a way in which I was tolerating this kind of narrative arc. And then I started to get agitated enough to want to speak up. I could see that go two ways. Either, like, you know what? I still don't want to keep the peace. Let me bite down on this even more and go into more of a deadened nervous system where I'm tired and sub or covertly resistant or become covertly hostile towards my wife. Really pull away with a deeply suppressed fuck you in there. And it's just. I think what's beautiful about shadow work is it's enabled me to be in touch with more of my prime, my primal and primary, and I would say even soulful reaction that I don't like that story being told about me. And it's not entirely true. There's context around it that that needs to be offered and more of a gratitude scenario. Like, aren't we thankful that daddy's doing this and that to provide for us without it having to mean that I'm like some dominant white male and she's, you know, more submissive? It's. It's none of that. It's just here's. Here's the reality of our lives playing out. And, you know, had I not had a. A men's group to express that, then my default would have definitely been more towards the peacekeeping. I mean, I've had enough training that I wouldn't have put up with it forever. But part of relational attuning is what within our dynamic is beginning to deaden us and interrupt our respect for one another, which originates with ourselves. Like, I'm starting to not respect myself because of what's playing out in our relationship. I'm engaging in a dynamic that maybe I saw my parents do. So. Yeah, so this big one, yeah, it's quite a.

Jason Lange: Quite a piece of work. And you can see how this. You could just. I can just feel the, the, the way it does relate to our lineage and our. The families we were raised in and how easy it is to create these stories and narratives and how without a little consciousness to interrupt that. Right. What was happening there was also, you know, your daughters were being conditioned to react to the masculine in a way that would have actually influenced the type of relationships they magnetize in the future. I guarantee that, right. If there wasn't a way to. To, to tell a different story here and to update that a little bit more so, you know, in a way it's not even just you standing up for yourself, but also for them of. Right. If they buy this story, which isn't necessarily a hundred percent true here, that's going to have a deep impact. So we need to talk about this, and it's going to not likely be very comfortable to talk about. And I think, you know something, I've been working with a lot of men on these days, and certainly myself, and that I love is one of the benefits of shadow work. And the type of men's group we have is, right. Increasing, as I've heard it, our capacity for confrontational. For confrontation. So what's our confrontational tolerance? And the more we can increase that in our relationship, often the healthier things can become, right. That willingness to both stand in our truth as, as two partners. And a lot of, a lot of men are afraid of that, right? Or they don't have a lot of that because they're afraid they're going to explode and react or totally cave. And we have to actually develop that capacity. We have to practice that. And what I love about having a group of men is that's a really safe place to do it, right. With each other. We can actually go a little too far, right?

Luke Adler: And then a guy's like, okay, okay.

Jason Lange: That, that was great that you move just like the fire of that through. And then another man can help us dial in. Now don't lose touch with yourself in that. And what happens if you bring that back, you know, 25%. And so there's, there's still directness, they're still holding, but it's not necessarily spitting fire. And oftentimes it'll be like, wow, oh, that actually feels good, right? That feels like I'm still available for connection and I'm not collapsing. And that like relational attunement we can get in the shadow work is so important because we can't often do that in the heat of the moment with partner where they're like, I hear what you're saying, but could you say that again with just a little less, you know, like, no, it just suddenly they get triggered and then it just spirals out of control really, really fast. You know, another way to think about this is the, the type of work, you know, in an environment we try to foster in our groups and that you and I have with each other is it's a safe space for us to bring our reactivity and then get clear what's underneath that and then bring that back to our relationship. So we're not bringing our reactivity to our relationship, which often does not lead to the best outcomes. Right. If I get overly triggered or to totally lost in it, but if I can be with that energy in a safe place. Oftentimes what a little uncover as, as you've talked about before is a, is a need or a want or a boundary or something that's really important to me that I do need to have voiced in the relationship and, and, and actually work towards with my partner in some way.

Luke Adler: Yeah, that's, that's eloquently laid out. That heat of the moment is just when you were describing that scene. I'm thinking about being in the heat of the moment with my wife and you know, getting better at being in that moment and feeling in me that that fire that could dehumanize her, begin to object, treat her like an object. And with the work that we've done, you know, in our, in our shadow work, as our, as our men's group, I, I can most of the times keep some awareness of my love for her in that moment. I mean, honestly, most of the time, like 95% of the time, not like 55% of the time and feel like I don't, I don't want to lose touch with her heart. And, and I, and I also get aware of, I don't want to become self righteous and resistant to her point of view either. I want to stay open to what she's saying and not, not get lost in the energy of our passion in that moment. And so obviously it's a very, it's in a very advanced move that I'm trying to pull off. But in terms of a relational edge, it's, it's so wonderful to just stay with it and then realize, okay, here there's just too much fire and we just need to take a little bit of a break right now. Pause and breathe. And you know, because we have kids now, now there's an awareness of okay, they, they've heard us tussle, they've been listening to this happen. Now we actually need to demonstrate reconnection and some apologies in front of them so the kids can see that, so that we're not fighting privately and we're not apologizing privately either, then it's all, it's all out there that whether they can see it or not, we're always on stage as, as parents and in a certain sense, as leaders. We're always on stage too energetically. This is being just transmitted into our environment. So that, that ability, I mean, to me, that skill set, that work, it's what all of our shadow work is for. You know, it's so that in those intense moments where I'd say we're learning our deepest life lessons and we're cultivating our most refined skills around conflict and confrontation and keeping the heart of the matter present, that is. That is some of the biggest growth we're going to do in our lifetime. And all of that has come through my work with men. It has not come through my work with meditation. Meditation is. Meditation allows me to stay in not just the nice guy, but the, the complete observer, you know, the, the witness consciousness, where I'm totally unbothered by it, but I'm not. I have no ability to engage right in the moment. So that's the power of, of men's work and skill. Well, shadow work and skill building around it is how do I get right in there and hold, hold right at the surface that my love and care is what's most important. And in order for that love to stay strong, I have to bring my honesty forward with as much love, respect and care from my wife, Emily as is needed without diluting what's. What's true for me. Because if I dilute the message, she doesn't receive it fully. If I'm putting too much sugar on it and making it sacred and syrupy, she's not going to feel. She's not going to get the transmission that, hey, I'm serious, this hurts me, this is bothering me, et cetera and so on, so that, that I, I think the relationship. This is where all of our work comes to, comes to bear and be, you know, the most important place. Whether you're a man who's trying to get into relationship, you or a man who's already in relationship. We're, we're all. We're practicing all this for that domain.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I love that so much. And, you know, I was actually just working with a therapist I work with sometimes, and it's been helpful for my relationship. And he, he said something yesterday that just really ties into what you're saying of like, yeah, we know we know we're growing when we start having different reactions in the same situations. Right. So when the same pattern, the same fight or the same thing keeps happening, but suddenly we are able to react differently. That's when we know something is showing up and changing. And that's what I hear you speaking to. Of, you know, this. We can meditate and observe the situation endlessly, but. Right. Why relationships are, you know, in your. And I mind, I think in a lot of ways, where the rubber meets the road is that's where your transformation shows up. Right. An intimate relationship.

Luke Adler: Our.

Jason Lange: Our primary attachment or partnership is often the one that the most intensity gets expressed through and the biggest challenges come up or, you know, even with our kids in our family as well. And why the shadow work is, is so important is, you know, it feels so cliche, but there's almost always traces of the battles we're having in our relationship now with experiences we had in our nervous system when we were young, right. They're, they are connected. It's just the way it is. And you can't fucking meditate your way out of that. People have tried. People have claimed they have.

Luke Adler: Right?

Jason Lange: And then it causes all kinds of problems. The mommy issues come back, the daddy issues come back, whatever that may be. And so the containers, you know, you and I create for men to work in are a place to work and come into contact and recontextualize a lot of that early wounding in a way that we can't always actually do in our relationship itself because our relationship is our primary connection, our attachment. So the. There, there's extra burden on it, right. That, wow, I, I have more riding on this. So I, I can't necessarily bring this forward without it, you know, sometimes intensifying things even more. But a men's group, and particularly the kind of men's group we create does create a safe space for that where we can start to work some of that. And it's, it's freed of the burden of it being with our partner, so to speak. Right. And so we can work through some of this wounding, get clear, get in touch with parts of ourselves. And then again, it's like we bring the, the clarity of that back to our relationship and we're able to be more adults, Adult, adult connection, right. In an actual dialectic, conversing with each other rather than just our wounded parts trying to protect ourselves or acting out or lashing out with each other. And that's something I've seen time and time again as the benefit of this kind of work in these kind of groups. And that, you know, as I've talked about on my podcast before, another thing I've seen show up and not all men, but some men is because of, you know, how shitty most male friendships and culture are by default. Like we've talked about it just often surface not very deep. Men don't often feel comfortable bringing their emotional selves to other men. A side effect of that for the, for, for this, you know, subset of men is the only place they do feel comfortable then is bringing it to their woman, to their intimate partner. And there's absolutely a time and place for that. I'm not one of those red pill, never, you know, show weakness or vulnerability to your partner, but if she's the he or she is the only place you can do that, it will create problems. And I think sometimes for nice guys in particular that I've worked with, they kind of get what I call the mother lover syndrome of like, I need you to help me feel better. I'm not feeling well, so here's, ah, here's my emotional vomit. Help me feel better and now will you fuck me? And those two energies are just not often compatible. Right, because there's the energy. I kind of need a mother to soothe me and then I need my lover, someone who's, you know, my partner, my erotic buddy and to. If you don't have other outlets as a man, it puts, and puts too much stress on that. And what I love about men's group is it's a place where we can show up and ask for mothering or fathering or grandmothering or a grandfathering, again with it, not having that same burdens that necessarily our intimate relationship does. And, you know, in one of our recent groups, there was a man who was having some challenges in, in his marriage. And, you know, it wasn't quite as extreme as what I just said, but he got in touch with a deep, old, hurting part of himself that really did need some attention. And the problem was not that that part existed. And it wasn't even that his partner wasn't willing to, you know, meet him in that. It was that that partner was in the shadow. So it wasn't coming forward with clarity and directness. It was kind of coming out sideways. And that's often what causes a lot of problems. So there we had a great example of this part of him that was in the shadow, became surfaced and actually got quite nurtured by our group. And then it changed how he was able to relate to that part, which then changed how he could relate to his partner because instead of that part driving his behavior, that part was a part of what he needed. And so he could drive his behavior to. To. To get everyone's needs met in. In some pretty powerful ways.

Luke Adler: It was amazing when that shift occurred too, because you could feel that part more integrated, more at the surface of his being. And it. There was like a dignity to it. There was a way in which it was right there coming forward soberly, cleanly, fully exposed. But there was strength in it. There was strength and power in it. And when. When those pieces, that kind of moth, mother lover energy gets entwined, when. When you see that in a. In a man, when you see that in a. In a woman, when you feel that kind of. You kind of subverted intention coming through, it feels. It feels a little. I mean, unclean is one word, but a little bit. A little bit slimy. I want to use that just energetically, like, oh, I'm trying to kind of get this, but I'm not bringing it forward. And I'm not bringing it forward because I'm actually not fully aware of it. But those of us around you can feel it. And so it can. It acts like a repellent, you know, kind of like, ooh, get away from me. Like, I. You're not being upfront with what you want. And of course, that can sound harsh and shaming and demeaning. And what we're. What we're offering in this work is not that at all. Not a context that's harsh, shaming, or demeaning, because all of these dynamics were shaped in our early attachment parts of our life. So in gestation, in mom's womb and those first two years, especially before cognition really activates, and then, you know, pretty much like 5 to 13, a lot of those secondary attachment patterns are getting established. So it's difficult to create safety in our relationships while we're playing some of those attachment wounds out. You know, if mom wasn't there, if dad wasn't there, if there was addiction involved, if rather than, you know, being attached to mommy's love, you became attached to. To food and gifts, that can be the birth of getting addicted to substances in place of the actual love, affection, and presence that we're really wanting. And because what we're all craving deep down is presence inside of a group like this, I hesitate to call it a men's group. It's a. It's a shadow work group where the context is about bringing deep presence to one another. And when we feel that the light of each other's presence, that, that contact of, of another's being, another's heart, their mind, their nervous system, it feels, it feels like we're being given a drink that we've been thirsty for our whole lives. And as we get it, it's nourishing. It can be a little scary too, because we're actually beginning to imbibe the thing we've been craving since we were, you know, just a neonate inside of our mother's womb. But the more we stay with it in such a group, the more we begin to heal. We start to feel, wow, I can bring my needs forward, I can bring my vision forward, I can bring my desire forward. And it's lovingly held inside of the presence of the other men in the group. And that power that, as we call it masculine vortex, which, which is another way of just saying presence, the presence of everyone in the group creates a safety where we can begin to play out our attachment wounds, you know, gradually and sequentially over time inside of a skillful, skillfully led group, at least initially. That's what we're, that's what we're providing. That then that safety carries over into developmental changes that we can enact in our relationship with our partner. As you see, without the group safety, without the presence of the other men, that, that's very difficult to happen inside of a dyad relationship, a primary attachment relationship where all we can kind of do is just react. Our wounds just kind of can react to one another without a skilled therapist. But even more so, I really, I really believe from my experience, a skillful group of present human beings, we can work through that so much faster because you have the intelligence, reflection, insight and intuition of everyone there. And then you have, you know, very skilled leaders like you and I who are, who are offering more of a directive, insight driven approach, you know, like tuning tuned in our horde here. But inside of shadow work, inside of a group that's committed to this over time, the, the developmental healing that can occur is really, is really rapid. And there's ways in which that really, it won't occur unless it's relational. You know, you can't do it on sacred medicines, you can't do it meditations, you can't do it on the yoga mat. Can't do it by working out, by pushing your body. You can touch some spiritual places with those methods. Beautiful. But that ultimate frontier of growth relationship, we remain stranded from it unless. Unless we engage in this kind of way. This kind of way, yeah.

Jason Lange: So in short, you know, I Think part of what we're speaking towards here is, and this is often counterintuitive or not, it doesn't immediately make sense to some men when I work with them. But it's like, yeah, if you want to improve your marriage, your relationship, your partnership, get more connected to other deep men, right? This is, this is, it's like the non direct route that, well, don't I have to go to da da da. It's like, yeah, you gotta, you gotta, you know, still be working things as a couple. But the only times I've seen my relationship change and thrive in positive ways in other relationships change and thrive in positive ways are when both partners are willing to do their work independently and then together as well. And so something like the heart of Shadow is a place for us men to do our part, right. To be doing our work so that we can then come back and actually be fully present with our partner to, to, to do that next level of healing or transformation. And the other thing I've just found about groups like this, and you know, my wife would certainly say this as well, is it's totally different to her, to her experience if I show up with some kind of vulnerability or insecurity or uncertainty about. Yeah. Holding, you know, the family or the many stresses we often carry as men in our life. You know, there's a way that I can kind of show up in that, like, oh my God, I don't know what to do. Right? That then kind of puts her in that energy of, oh, fuck, well, what do, do you need me to take care of you? Like, ah. And it stresses her out. It's totally different when I show up to her and I'm like, I am really hurting or feeling challenged around this. This is a part that's like, I, like, yeah, I'm, I'm scared about this. I'm freaked out about it. And I'm working with my men on it. I'm working with my men on it. They're, they're helping me deal with this and like, figure something out. Her whole nervous system relaxes because she's like, oh, I'm not the only one that has to hold you in this. I can feel the men that are holding you as well and that are thus holding us. And in a, in a, you know, in a surprising way that actually frees her up to support me even more, she's like, oh, it's not all on me, so it's okay. I can give what I can give and I don't have to be solely responsible for your well being. And I've seen that shift for a lot of men that when they have that it ripples into their partner's nervous system as well, that they can feel okay, there's a support network around you now. And this is one of the biggest changes I think that a man who's in a long term relationship can make is if you don't have solid men around you, you got to start cultivating them whether it's in our group or not. Because it will improve the quality of your relationship, it'll allow you to show up more fully and it'll allow our, your partner to, to trust you more, to be totally supported by the people in your life. And this is something that you can't fake. Right? Like you gotta actually put in the time in, you know, the potency in particular of a group like ours that you and I are in, where we stay together for years, is we learn more and more the nuances of each other's relationships and partners. And so our capacity to hold each other increases over time. Right. Cause we're also. Well, yeah, you know, you guys have been on quite a journey together. I can, I can feel that. And you're gonna figure this out. We can figure this out together. Um, and it's, it's, you know, it's so nice for me. Like my, and my wife feels it more and more every year and it relaxes her. And that's a win for my family system. Cuz then my wife's nervous system, my nervous system, and thus my, my kids nervous system are all far more regulated and relaxed.

Luke Adler: I can attest to that too. Jason, that is so, so beautifully stated. I want to hear your ideas on this next thought. This is my last thought. Why, why do men need to do this with other men? Why not have a co ed group? Why not, you know, work with women? And my first take on that is, well, for most of us, most of us men, you know, our, our fathers were not, we're not raised by men who were sensitive, in tune, communicating. We have a culture of men who were still in that old paradigm of, of work hard, push yourself, be productive, be invulnerable. Right? That's my father. Love him. And these men don't have the skills that we're talking about. We likely had, if we had a loving mother figure, we got a lot of love and nurturance from mom. If, if we were unfortunate, you know, some of us didn't get it from either parent. But culturally we're set up more to get that nurtured energy from a female figure. And so we would tend to go that way. Hence the kind of mother lover syndrome that is common out there, whether you're a macho guy or a nice guy. I, I know I work with macho guys and nice guys who still try to maternalize their girlfriends and partners. And the women, they fucking hate it. They fucking hate it. Right? They tell me this and like they're grossed out by it. So why does this work? Why is it kind of, why are we pushing towards men? And it's because there's a huge deficiency.

Jason Lange: There's.

Luke Adler: We didn't get that, our fathers didn't get that, grandfathers. I mean, in a lot of ways we're at least of our modern era, the first men who are being pushed to evolve into this kind of much more integrated way of being. And so it's being around our contemporaries, you know, men like you and I, men in their 50s, 60s, 70s, men in their 20s, 30s, 40s, who are actually templating. We're templating for each other. We're creating a template of what it is to be a healthy, loving, present, strong, visionary male. And we're learning to do that together. We're becoming that in a certain sense. We're becoming the men that this world is needing right now. And that women can't do that for us. They can't template that for us. They can template a kind of motherly nurturing energy, but they can't actually do what we need. That's why a men's group is, is crucial. It's really the only venue where this healing can play out. And I was so heartened as you mentioned our men's group. Again, Jason, because our men's group has been going for six, seven years each inside of this context. And like you said, the work we do has just gotten so much more nuanced and beautiful and attuned and we've, we've facilitated work that I, I could never even dream of creating. It's creative, it's insightful, it's nurturing on a human level, on a spiritual level. And that's why part of our mission is for groups to have continuity that it, this is why just a three day, a four day, a five day retreat for men or whoever, but for men in particular is not useful. This is why even having a retreat once a year, twice a year isn't useful. It's the continuity of a retreat with relationship building before and after, and then a commitment to meeting regularly. This is so important right like, my dad wasn't around growing up, so I'm used to being the lone wolf so I could have a great experience. And I'm like, fuck it, I love you guys. Bros forever. Peace out. And like, maybe I'll see you in a year, maybe not. But who gives a fuck? I am built to be a solo warrior. It does not work to heal our deepest wounding, our attachment wounds. It has. We have to have relationship over time. We have to make contact one another over time and build intimacy and trust. And that's why you and I put so much effort into the group's continuation. And we're fully committed to it because we've seen six, seven years of a continuous group of men staying together. It changes your nervous system, it changes your family, it changes the world. Because for so many of us, we did not have that. We might have had a person in our lives called dad, but his loving presence over time, I mean, God bless him, but wasn't there. It was interspersed, it was intermittent. Right. And it's not that we need our hands held all the time and our pat on the back. Good job, son. I love you. We don't need that all the time. When we need something that's consistent if we as men are going to heal. And that's, that's kind of like the big swan song of our work. Like, that's good. That's why we do it. That's why this program works. And that's why, you know, it, it's, it's harder for us, Jason. It's harder for you and I to do this. Like, it would be much easier to just have a five day. Love you guys. Peace out. You and I have to keep our nervous system on to some degree, even for the group we led, you know, a year plus ago. Like, we're still both attuned to those guys.

Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah. And the, the, their work still informs my work. Right. I mean, we share something now. But I think this is so important, what you just highlighted of.

Luke Adler: Yeah, it is.

Jason Lange: There is something special that happens when you do this work with other men. And you know what I mean by that is we're, we're all raised within a certain cultural context together. And so there's a feeling when we're in the room of, oh, everyone here gets it. Right. They just, they get it. They've lived their own version of the man box or the pressures of achieving or all these different things that tend to get put on men in the masculine. In our culture. Um, in that shared reality, there's Like a, just a deep exhale that oftentimes men feel when they're, ah, okay. Or sometimes even in terms of like really dark stuff, right there's the, the thing I've seen is, oh yeah, you know, da da, da. I was feeling suicidal. And there's other men who are just like, yeah, I've been there, right? There's just like a total been right there. And that in itself is where so much of the healing, I think, happens with other men. And you're right, we just haven't had enough patterning of, of the healthy masculine in a sense that, you know, a lot of people ask me, well, how do I do inner child work? How do I reparent myself? And my answer really is it's more this, it's. It's a group, right? What you, what we're doing is we're each bringing a piece of that medicine. And then the group itself is starting to hold that space of like the healthy, masculine, loving, fatherly presence. For sometimes in the group I might get a piece of it from a man around professional support or advice because he's just fucking crushed that part of his life. But then another man might give me something around my emotionality or the way he's able just to be so emotionally fluid and expressed in his body. And this is what's so beautiful about a group is it's pretty hard to find all these attributes in one person, but in the collective tied together, suddenly all these different aspects we needed from the masculine can be, can be met, can be nourished. And the other big thing I see here that I've been talking a lot about with, with, with guys I've been working with, that I think is so important about the healing of the group is many men have trauma around men and masculine in and of themselves. All right, Absent or abusive fathers, bullying, like this stuff is real and it is way more common than people realize. And one of the effects of that I've seen is that when we've been raised in an environment where we don't really trust the masculine because of our experience of it in other people, it makes it really hard to trust that inside ourselves. And so we, I do get a lot of guys who just, they, they can't connect to that part of themselves. They're afraid to, or they doubt it, or they don't listen to it because the examples they had of what happened when men did were often pretty dysfunctional or pathological. But what can happen here is, is we can reformat, so to speak, our connection to the healthy, masculine inside other men, and we can learn to trust it in them. Our capacity to trust it in ourselves goes through the fucking roof, right? It's like, oh, okay. There is a healthy way to be in my anger. There is a healthy way to be direct. There is a healthy way to be in my tears and crying. I've seen it modeled in these other men. So when it comes through me, I feel way more capable of just allowing it to come and not doubting, or does it have to look a certain way or whatever that might be? And that's just, again, part of the transformational vortex that this kind of program creates that then ripples not only into our intimate relationship, but really all of our relationships with our kids, with our friends, with our family, with our parents, if they're still around. And it's something I continue to be fascinated by. Right? Because, yeah, you know, just like in the work, just like in our groups, you often say, you know, it's always amazing. We get to experience there's more depth. There's more depth to the work. As I get to continue in my relationship, I discover the same, oh, there's more depth here. I thought we had worked that. Turns out there's a whole nother layer there that's from a whole different angle. And because I now have a place to work these things in myself and in my relationship, it's like the whole system is just fucking. It's not always pleasant, but it's evolving continuously. Right? And to me, that. That is a successful relationship that my partner and I, we continue to evolve, to continue to grow with each other, and I, frankly, could not do that without you. And the men in my life and shadow work in particular, to. To be able to become present to and surface these parts of myself that a. I'm not always willing to acknowledge or be often just disconnected or numb to myself, and I need them brought into the light through these containers so that I can show up more consciously in my relationship.

Luke Adler: Jason and I know that y' all are out there listening and that, you know, you gotta be resonating with us. If you listen to this podcast and you got this far, then you're resonating with what we're. We're putting down. And, you know, if you're thinking, wow, I've got so much work to do, there's so much wounding. Just get started. Just begin. It is such a relief. It is such a relief to get on that first zoom call and have the first few men start to share, and then you start to feel what Jason and I were talking about. Oh, my gosh. Here's a present. Masculine figure. They don't want anything from me. They're not trying to fix me. They're not trying to change me. They're not trying to fucking motivate me. They're just here. They're here with their heart, they're here with their head. They're here with their loving intuition. And that helps me relax. And inside of that relaxation, something in your nervous system starts to unwind. Some twist, some knot within us that. That had to be there because we weren't loved and held in some way. And as those knots release, even in that first zoom session, that sense of. There's like a sense of taking a deeper breath than you've ever taken before. And that just, that relaxation and attunement, it grows and grows. And as it grows deeper, pains and wounds reveal themselves. That's what. That's what we're here for. And when you jump into that, you'll find the next call is rich. The next call is deep. We get together for four, three and a half days in this gorgeous place north of San Francisco. And the sense of connection, friendship, deepening, loving presence gets stronger. And we get on the phone call a week later, it's still there. And after nine, 10 weeks, you've got this really deep, powerful container that we're here to continue to serve. So if you're here listening, we've got one spot left. And we'd love for. If someone's out there and you're. You're thinking about it, jump in. This is the time to do it. Next week, you're gonna meet nine other men, and you'll be. I promise you'll be more than grateful you did. And your life will start to change. It. It really will. This isn't. This isn't New Age bullshit. This is. This is real. This is something that. That we have lived and seen, seen work. So, yeah, if you have questions, you can reach out to us on our website, heartofshadow.com and, yeah, we'd love to be with you. Whether it's in this cohort or the next. We're going to be doing this again in six, seven months. So it's our commitment to keep this rolling. This is. This is in some ways probably the place where I think, Jason, you and I, we pour it on. We give. We give everything to this program because it's. It's our way of. Of contributing to the world improving. We really believe that men transforming is the key to having a more beautiful, just equitable world. So we love you guys and reach out. We're here. We're happy to get on the phone, call, get on a chat, whatever is needed. And women out there listening. If you have a man that's interested, nudge him, push him, push him. We're here. We can hold all the things you don't want to hold. We can hold it. We're really good at it. And the kind of relationship that's on the other side of. Of a man in this work is so incredibly deep and rewarding. So, lots of love, Jason. Thank you so much for everything you do.

Jason Lange: Yeah, thanks for being here, man. Till 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.