Shadow Work to Save Your Relationship

Jason Lange: All right, and welcome back, everybody. Once again, super excited to be joined by Dr. Luke Adler, my friend and brother at arms, in the work we're doing here in the world. And today we're here to talk about shadow work to save your relationship. Yeah, that's right. A lot of times we're coming on here and we're talking about shadow work in terms of an inner movement for ourselves and for some kind of healing. But the truth is it's impossible to divorce that from the relationships we're in. And if I've learned anything in my decade plus of this work now, one of the only things that will often get a man's ass off the couch to ask for help is when it comes to his intimate relationship in terms of he doesn't have the one he wants or he's in one that he wants. And he can see that if something doesn't change, that relationship is probably going to come to an end. And we're very fervent in our belief that, you know, all this work we do, all this deep healing, spiritual growth, all of it, it's all spiritual narcissism. Unless it's showing up in our relationship, Right? Unless we're actually changing how we show up in the relationships we value the most. And so Luke and I are here to dive in today to why we think shadow work is one of the most potent tools you can use to save your relationship and completely change the way it's playing out between you and your beloved.

Luke Adler: Yeah, you might be on the verge of actual, actual separating in a relationship or breaking up or divorce. And there's another way that this manifests in that the relationship lacks closeness, it lacks intimacy, that you're, you're, you've actually already passed that place of connection. You're not connected anymore. There's not a sense of aliveness in your relationship. There's not a sense of fun and happiness and joy. It could be very likely that you're kind of following a set pattern in the relationship, a set of agreements just to kind of get along, going along to get along, as they say, but you're not satisfied, you're not happy. And perhaps your partner isn't either. A fear of rocking the boat, a fear of bringing forward what you really want. Maybe your partner brings forward what she wants a lot, and you just agree, maybe kind of a nice guy archetype. And how can shadow work shift that? How can shadow work help bring more aliveness back to your relationship? This is one of the things that shadow work does, is, doesn't just reignite your vitality, it, it unlocks it. We use the phrase unkinks like a hose unravels a knot in your. In your physiology and your energetic system so that you have more vitality. And it will do that in your relationship too. Because relationship, when we're in a committed relationship, it's just an extension of who we are and it becomes a joint, cooperative space of being in existence. So if there's a kink in me, then there's a kink between Emily and I, and vice versa. If there's a block in one, there's a block in both. Right? This is what relationship is about. So shadow work is the exploration of what's clogged, what's clogged in the pipe of our being. And getting that unclogged is really our work to do. And one of the things we say in our work is that we are body positive. We trust the body's wisdom. We make this great traverse from the head to not just the heart, but the entire body. And our work is about getting into the body, exploring it in terms of our awareness of it, and getting things to move. So if you're on the verge, if your relationship has got a trickle of energy in it, and this is something I hear often people are afraid to. To change because they don't want to lose their circumstances, their financial security. And they've really shifted from a relationship to more of an association. I'll do this for you, you do this for me. And of course that's good. It's wonderful in a certain way to just have security. And what we all really want is something more. And that moreness has to do with deep, deep joy and love. So, yeah, let's keep going on this one, Jason.

Jason Lange: Yeah, so, you know, we've been doing the Shadow work series for a while now, but I'm getting the sense it's a good time to just revisit what, what is shadow work. And I think you just named one of the simplest descriptions in things we've actually seen. So this esoteric thing, shadow work. What is a shadow? What's in my shadow? Okay, it's great. We can go down the list of the different things about bringing what's unconscious into the conscious, helping ourselves see our patterning, our wounding, the many routines and habits and protections often developed in childhood that are still running the show for us now. But really what it comes down to is what's blocking the flow of love. That's it. And yeah, it's kind of woo, woo. It's kind of hippie, but it's real. Like this actual flow of vitality and love to different parts of ourselves, to each other, into the grander world we're part of. And shadow work is about identifying those kinks, right? Those places where energy and love stopped flowing in and through us. And why this is so important in relationship is frequent listeners know. You know, I've been on my high horse about two things lately. One, like, I love polarity. I love teaching polarity. It is fun, it is sexy. And the challenge with polarity is almost never polarity. It's this. Where is love no longer flowing? And where am I so kinked up in my being that I'm carrying, particularly us as men, so much tension that there's no room for any flow of love or life force or polarity between us. When we're open and spacious in here and radically present with a partner, polarity flows. Erotic tension will fill that space. But when there's all this fucking relational tension between me and you and the resentments, and you do this and I do this, and there's no space for that. So that's for one. Shadow work is the most potent tool you and I have found and experienced in our own lives for how do we clear out these kinks, this tension, so my presence and my love can just be here? So it's a lot of times polarity and erotic tension is just about removing blocks, right? Just about removing blocks. Then the other thing specifically for us guys is how this shows up is just, you know, hit me like a lightning bolt the other day, and I just did an episode on this, of course, where what stuckness is in so many guys we work with, and I can see it now, even in relationship, is what happens when we do two things. When we try to hold it all in inside of us, our feelings, holding it all in. But then we're also holding and keeping other people out. So there's energy going to. Holding you out. There's energy going to hold me in. And then life becomes this unbelievably compressed space in between those two things where it's like, ah, I feel totally fucking stuck because there's no movement. And shadow work, particularly in the men's groups you and I set up, they accelerate that movement. We're letting what's inside us come up, up and out. And in the process of that, we're actually inviting the other men in. And then when every man starts doing that, something incredible happens where the places inside of us that felt stuck or unlovable or just scary. Start to become okay, start to become less of a terror. And we get to get really clear about what stuckness, what holding, what protective patterns am I in that almost certainly I'm carrying from my childhood or previous relationships. And this is really the work for us men to bring into relationship, because if we're not relating to ourselves differently, it's going to be really hard to relate to our partners differently. And shadow work, what we're talking about here, this process of getting more connected to ourselves, and I think you named it beautifully, right? We start in the head, we come into the heart, and we go all the way down into the body, right? There's some teachers I worked with back in the day, their whole thing was, I think how they named that was waking down. It's not about just waking up, right? What you and I have talked about, shadow work, is about becoming intimate with all parts of ourselves. What we're talking about here is waking down into our bodies fully and connecting to what's there. And why that's so important is if we're not connected to that, there's no way in hell we're going to be able to speak our truth about what's actually happening. And nothing, I have found, vitalizes a relationship faster than when both partners feel safe enough and courageous enough to speak our truth. Here's what's actually happening inside me. Here's how I'm actually experiencing us. That level of vitality and what's real in the moment is the thing that can reignite a relationship. And it's the thing that often, like you said, kind of falls to the wayside over time where we're relating to each other as functions for getting our needs met and as roles, right? Where it's actually, I play this role in our relationship, you play this role in our relationship. And we're not actually relating to each other. So in this role, I need to share this. In this role, you need to share that. And we start relating to these kind of projections of each other. And the nice guy, control and manipulation starts to come in where I want you to feel a certain way so I can feel a certain way. So I'm going to share some things and not share other things because the truth is, for me to speak my truth fully is destabilizing two those crusty rolls, right? It means something's going to start moving when we start speaking our truth again. And shadow work, in the way you and I lead, it helps us get really clear about what truths we need to speak. In our relationship.

Luke Adler: Yeah. The thing that's scary about speaking your truth, just to highlight what you're saying, Jason, is that it breaks up the implicit agreements. These are rarely explicit agreements, meaning they're rarely spoken about or contracted out. They're implicit. They're these roles, these grooves we settle into in our relationships. We're all behave this way, you behave that way. And as long as we keep doing that, there's a sense of stability when we get in touch with what's real for us. And by in touch, I mean feel it in our bodies and then share from that place. It's scary, of course, because we challenge the. The implicit story that we've been telling ourselves around who I have to be to keep my relationship safe. If my. My partner is complaining a lot and criticizing me a lot, and. And I don't like it, and perhaps I'll distance myself, maybe I'll defend, maybe I'll eventually go quiet. The thing that's scary about getting embodied is that we have to break our agreement. We have to break the implicit agreement. We have to start to tear down that story that we're telling ourselves about who I have to be to make this relationship work. What we've discovered in the work of embodiment, the work of actually trusting your body, is that, yes, initially it's. It's scary to feel and then communicate from that space because you're breaking the agreement. But there is a safety. There's a safety that arises when we land in the body. And here's the big distinction. There are several forms of intelligence in our being, but the two that operate primarily around conflict are your. What we call your corporeal sense of being, which is your. Your physical sense of being in your body, in space and in time. And let's make it relational. My physical sense of being in my body and my sensing of my wife and her body, the space between us and her mood and my mood. And that's just something I'm sensing. I'm not thinking about it per se yet, but I'm sensing it. When I get into conflict or conflictual pattern, what tends to happen is I go into strategy. How can I fix this? Which shifts my awareness into my. My cognitive being. So at that point, I'm not. I'm not in my corporeal sense. I'm not in my embodied. There's a kind of embodied intuition. When someone's in pain, I know how to move towards them with sensitivity, meaning physically move my body towards them and create attunement and safety. When we land in our body and speak from the place of what our body knows. We also land. We land in a place of stability. And if there's a sense of fear, of rocking the boat, that fear can dissipate because I can actually start to invite, like you talked about, polarity, Jason. If I'm strategizing on a polarity with my partner to ignite some feeling in her, and I'm not in my body, I'm not actually here, then there's not going to be the safety to invite her into this experience. The shadow work is body positive. Shadow work is corporeal. It invites you to land in your body and start to feel your embodied knowing or your embodied intuitive knowing around how to be, how to be in relationship, how to be attuned in relationship, how to be sensitive in relationship. And this is what's missing around navigating real connection with our partners. Of course, to get there, we have to work with the kinks. And that's all of the traumatic imprints that are there from, yes, our conditioning in childhood. And this is where you can be on the brink of relationship collapsing because you're in your, you're in your fight or flight response, your defense pattern. You're one up, one down, walled off, love, addicted, polarity around survival. And there might feel a certain kind of agentic nature in it, but you're not fully integrated into the space of, of actually being relational. Where the space for her, there's space for me. And when we're in that defensive pattern, then we're either, we're either the predator or the prey in the, in the, in the relationship. And you know, you, you just think about that primal example of predator and prey. That's what we default to when there's dysfunction, even if there's functional. This is strange, functional dysfunction. Like we've agreed to roles and we've agreed to tasks, and it's functional in that the tasks and the roles move our life along. But it's dysfunctional and that there's no love and there's limited love and connection. And truly it's more of a predator, prey dynamic. And it might be that we are the prey and the world is the predator. Vice versa, of course, that eventually spins upon the relationship predator, prey dynamics. And so shadow work is about, is about shifting into something that's spacious and relational and embodied. And it's practice, it's training. It's not magic. It's not, yes, there, there are spiritual attributes to it because when you're in tune with your body you're in tune with your environment and you're paying attention and you're in the flow of what, what, what's workable. Because you're there, you're looking at it, you're hearing it, you're present. And this is what we teach. We train people how to do this. It's totally trainable. It's really our. It's really our intrinsic nature to be this way.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, I think you just hit the nail on the head and, you know, part of what we're teaching and growing into when we do this work, particularly with an emphasis on relationship, is that shift from controlling to relating. So controlling is what we do when we think there's something that might happen that will cause us to feel something we're afraid to feel. That's it, right? There's an action I could take and my partner will react in a certain way. And then I'm going to have to feel something that feels so overwhelming to my system. I am going to do whatever it takes to control the outcome, to try to protect myself from that feeling. And that often shows up like you've been teaching so beautifully lately in either I'm going to take the dominant one up position or I'm going to take the submissive one down position, which is still a form of control. Right? Just whatever you want, babe. Just whatever you want, babe. I'm controlling her reaction in hopes I don't have to feel something. So what we're doing in shadow work, and this is so key, is we're building the capacity to stay present with whatever we're feeling inside or that's coming from us on the outside. So shadow work. One of the ways I've gotten more free in this work is learning to actually come into contact and stay present with all the emotions inside me. Grief, shame, fear, disgust, rage, anger. Right. All of that. If I'm afraid of feeling that, I am going to be trying to control any situation. And here's the kicker. If I am afraid of feeling that myself, I sure as shit don't want to feel it in my partner. Because if she starts going into her fear and I'm not comfortable with fear, I am going to go as fast as I can to try to get her out of that or her disgust or her anger. So in shadow work and in the way we work with guys, part of what we say is, well, let's go right towards that inside of ourselves. And so you can actually have the embodied experience of what it means to stay present without getting overwhelmed and collapsing into it or without trying to stuff it, shove it, and posture your way over it to dominate the feeling. But just, wow, this part of me, this emotion, this can be present, and I can learn to stay with it. And that capacity to stay within in ourselves helps us stay with it in someone else. And as we don't fear those feeling states, we don't have to try to control things anymore. And thus, what does it become easier to do to speak our truth? Hey, here's. Here's. Here's what's alive and true for me right now. Here's what I need. Here's my boundary. Here's where I'm hurting, whatever that is. And that, like I said, tends to vitalize relationships. And, you know, if you're out there and you're like, I don't know about that, speaking the truth, that's gonna. That seems like it's gonna fuck up my relationship. Where I've. Where a lot of people I know have seen. This is what happens when a relationship ends, right? And often, once a couple has decided our relationship is over. Many men I have spoken with and worked with get very confused in this moment because the relationship's over. And suddenly, without having to, oh, my God, we got to protect that. Both partners start speaking their truth. You know, the whole time I was really this or this or honestly this. And the honesty starts to flow because there's nothing you're trying to protect anymore. And oftentimes you'll start to feel really close to the partner again. They'll be like this holy. Like, oh, my God. Like, wow. We're like, da, da, da, da, da. And it can be very confusing for men because on the way out, there's often this opening towards the end and how I have experienced that, and what I'm really mapping that to is it's because truth is being spoken. You're actually relating to each other in that corporeal sense again that you were talking about and not the concepts of each other, but you're getting real with authenticity. And when we get real with authenticity, connection tends to flow. And this is really so much of the work where we're like, okay, I'm in this relationship. I'm oftentimes what kind of brings a relationship to a head or brings up these discussions of it might end is we feel stuck, right? Maybe we've gone to talk therapy. We've seen the couple's therapist, We've addressed. We know all of the things, and yet here we are. She does this, I do this, and then I do this. And she does it. And we just get right into that fucking dance over and over and over again. Shadow work is the process of taking that awareness and bringing it into a bodily knowing where we have choice as to how we're going to respond, where we can actually interrupt the pattern and say, oh my God, here's that part of me that gets so scared. I feel like I'm 2 years old. And that is so unacceptable to me that the only way I know how to protect myself is to attack you. And I don't want to attack you right now. And this is the work we can do as men to come more into relationship and for so many guys. I mostly work with heterosexual couples and men, so I'm going to speak in that language here, but this really applies to anywhere. For so many guys, their woman, often what she wants is to feel us, the men, more and to be felt more. She's longing for a heart connection. But us guys, we're never trained in how to do that, how to wake down, how to come into our bodies. And so we can really start to change things when we're willing to go first, right? This is, I think, the great work of masculine leadership these days is don't wait, go first, be the one to go vulnerable first. That is the new leadership. And the truth is that can really change things fast. Because here's the deal. Not every guy out there is going to want to hear this, but relationship is almost never 100% someone's fault. When it's not working. We all, we both have pieces of it, right? It's never just her, it's never just me. And anytime it's just you, there's shadow there. I guarantee it. Now, let me just caveat and say this equation only works with partners who aren't borderline. If a partner's borderline, it's just a different equation you're working with here. But a men's group, a shadow work group, can still actually help you see what's really happening. That, wow, no matter how I show up here, I'm not going to be able to come into right relationship unless my partner can do some work. But if we're willing to acknowledge, as painful as it is, that, wow, part of what might not be working in our relationship, I am contributing to in how I am programmed, how I am, when really willing to bite that off and go right towards it and say, I gotta work this, something else becomes possible and it can completely start to change your relationship, which best case and worst case is best case, you really do your part in change as a man and your partner reciprocates that and the relationship is saved. Worst case. But you know, in some ways still a best case, you do that, you really show up, you give it your all, you finally bring yourself forward in the way you've had an intuition, maybe you needed to, maybe she's even told you all these years and she doesn't open to that. You can then leave the relationship in a very different way where it's not I should have or only if I, or I wonder, but wow, I really brought it. I brought myself. I played full out. I brought my whole game here. And turns out we're not aligned. That becomes possible when you're willing to take a look at and face those parts of yourself where you've been clogged up, where you've been kinked up, where love has not been flowing, and where you can really get in touch with your truth and feel resourced enough to be able to speak it into the relationship. Because you're also being held in something larger, which for us is the men's group. We help men create.

Luke Adler: Yeah, that's the real genius of the way that we work, is it's not just. You're not just unkinking your being. I'll highlight in a moment, that's being witnessed and held by a group of other men. And that part is, is the key ingredient to not just sustaining the breakthrough and the healing, but shifting the circumstances in our lives. So that, that becomes. Goes from, you know, what we say is, goes from kind of a state experience of expansion to a stage you're now moving into a kind of permanent stage of being because you have your accountability, love and support. That's relational.

Jason Lange: Right.

Luke Adler: This is why we've designed our work to be the way it is. It's, it's. You're practicing, you're practicing that relational freedom with a group of people. And then it's much easier with that scaffolding than to then apply it and in many cases sustain it. This is the difficulty sometimes in relationship. And we commend ourselves and many men who, they do it, they feel it, they speak it, and then their wives ignore them or their wives railroad them, or it just doesn't change because sometimes that realization that embodied freedom, there's freedom inside of us, but the system externally is still stuck. And so it takes more than just speaking it. It takes speaking it over and over and over, several iterations, hopefully not, you know, not interminably, but many times for the system to change. And for systems to change requires great support. So you need, you need the support of a group of people that understand what you're doing and can say, no, Luke, you got this. You know, keep, keep going. Talk to your people about this, get a therapist, et cetera. Build the scaffolding around what's needed for the system to change so we see that occur. Shadow work works every time, and I'd love to have a better phrase for it, but it, it works every time, all the time, because it operates out of the principles of consciousness. And we've been describing this in different ways. Ways we talk about telling the truth. Jason. Jason and I talk about the success of the organization AA often. It is probably the most robust organization on the planet for lots of different reasons. But the main reason why it works is that they create a space for people to come in and tell the truth. No judgment. Well, maybe there is, but there's a spirit of acceptance and safety there. The Catholic Church also has their structure of confessionals where people go in and they tell the truth and then they say, okay, do these prayers, and you know, you are relieved from that burden. You know, our work takes that to another level. And this is why we talk about being body positive. Our work isn't so much about telling the truth as it's about feeling the truth. There's, of course, a massive difference because one could just be cognitive or performative, and the other is fully embodied. What we know about when you feel the truth and then of course, speak it from a space of embodiment is that consciousness or energy increases in the system. And that's that unkinking of, of the, the confession, you know, the, the somatic confession. It's like, I don't know, I've been, I've been telling myself this story, and then my body goes, you know, and the, the truth is felt and along with it comes energy. And then something else arises in that which you also described. You get, you feel the truth, you feel more energy, and then you feel good. Like you talked about the relationship breaking up. And then like, oh, I feel closer. What is that closeness that we're describing? Well, it's a phenomenon of consciousness itself. And that phenomenon is talked about at different words, but one of them is love, one of them is joy. The Vedic scriptures use the word bliss, which is kind of a little bit more of a spiritual connotation that there's something uplifting and connective that occurs when we feel the truth unkink the hose of our being. And then this quality, not just of energy, but of upliftment arises. It's the characteristics of consciousness increasing. Our work is centered around that phenomenon, and so it works every time. And it's not a strategy, it's not a technique. It's what happens when you feel the truth and what. What you're held in when that. When you're willing to take that risk, to drop from the headquarters to the. The heart, the core quarters of your being, is you're held in that. In that love, in that joy, in that upliftment. The spirit of life moves through the system, and we call that healing in certain ways. But really, the word for that is relationship. That's what intimacy is. It's getting intimate with the intrinsic nature of life, which is something that feels really good. And it's there, and it's available to all of us. It's who we are. It's our essence. It's how this whole thing works. Our style of work is about increasing the flow of that, and it's automated in a certain sense. And if you're willing to take that risk, to leap into that process, you will experience that. That's not something where I'm like, I hope you'll try this. It's like, no, no. Jason and I have been doing this kind of work, specifically together for over 10 years. So we're well practiced as individuals and as a team. Of course, we. We're. We're teaching partners around this. So this isn't something we have faith in or we need to convince people of. It's just, we live it. This is our life, and we're passionate about it. It's like, hey, you don't have to be on the verge of it. You don't have to be in. In a sexless, loveless, connectiveless relationship. It's that you don't have to do that. In fact, if you are in that dynamic, like you mentioned Jason, and there's this sense of like, oh, I don't want to rock the boat. I'll stay in my role. You're both doing that. If you think you're the only one doing that. She's doing that too. And there's a fear in the system that says, this is common. If I don't share, you know, maybe this is as good as it can get. Maybe I should just hold on to these crumbs and not. This is all I'm used to. This is all I got accustomed to as a child. My response to that is, no, that's actually not your destiny. And that's not what's true? If you really love this person, if you really love this person, consider taking the risk to set you both free. Really. And I know I'm asking a lot, but trusting that more is available, there's a certain leap, not a faith of trust, you know, and not saying it's easy, it's not. It's not easy, but it's doable.

Jason Lange: And frankly, I mean, long term, it is easier than staying in a stuck place and having the relationship fall apart. It's also more empowering to step into a place of, wow, I really can change things. Rather than, there's nothing I can do, there's nothing I can do. I'm stuck in a sexless marriage, there's nothing I can do. We're too financially entwined. There's nothing I can do. She's too traumatized. You know, whatever it is, all those stories are disempowered stories. And what we're saying is you can step in and you can actually impact things by your willingness to engage with your shadow as a man. And the frame we create in shadow work, and specifically in our shadow work men's groups, is this is where you can come to actually practice relationship, right? So this is it. This is where you can practice being more transparent, being more vulnerable, being more firm, speaking your truth. We do that in this incredibly safe structure of support with other men, where we have agreements and we have practices and we have ways of clearing up things that most people do not have out in the world. So what it allows us to do is step into a space and try something new that our nervous system has never tried before. And in getting these reps in with each other, guess what? It becomes a lot fucking easier to bring it back into the relationships that matter most to you. And particularly, most likely that intimate one where there's so much at stake, there's so much baggage, there's so much charge, there's so much wounding. So it can be really hard to just step into a space like that and practice something new. But when we get our reps in in a place of safety, containment and love with other men, it makes it easier to bring it into relationship and it gives us a space to go to, to deal with what happens after. Fuck. I tried something new and oh my God, it really did rattle us or I tried to share it and oh my God, it came out totally wrong and I think I actually made things worse. I have a place to come back to, to be held and supported and find your center again as a man. And that's really the power of an ongoing group as well that can hold you and your relationship in love and give you clear feedback over time as to, wow, we've seen you really show up. Like, you told us what was going on, what your edge was. And we've seen you show up, man. And it's not changing. So it might be time to make a different kind of change or we might hear the, yeah, man, you know, I don't know. You keep coming back with the same things, and I still don't feel like you've ever really, really stepped in in a different way with your partner. And I think you would regret it if you just bowed out right now. This is the kind of wisdom that can come toward us when we're held by a group that loves us and loves our relationship. And shadow work is that process of getting clearer and clearer about who we are, what we want, and being able to speak that forward in a direct way while, you know, wrapped in love for self, for our partner, for everyone around us. And we have seen it change men's relationships, right? Because when those kinks start getting unblocked, that is where the energy, the love, the vitality, the life force starts to flow again. And that's often the very thing that had a partner fall in love with us in the first place. When we were inside of ourselves and we weren't containing it all and trying to control it, all our passion flowed, or whatever that might be in energy, in the system, aliveness. It is attractive. It's something we want to be around people who are alive and open and not turning away from their pain or their feeling or their joy. And shadow work is a pathway to doing that. And you will come out of a program like this more resilient and able to be with all of the intensity in your life. And when you're not afraid of it, when you're not afraid of feeling, then you can really lead your partner, right? So if she comes at you in a dysregulated way, this was, you know, big movement I had to make a few years ago, and then that would trigger my dysregulation. Oh, my God. My partner's not okay. Oh, my God, now I'm not feeling okay.

Luke Adler: Ah.

Jason Lange: I can't do shit for her in that space. But when I've built enough resource and boundary in myself to feel, wow. My habit is to make this about me. It doesn't always have to be. My partner is in pain right now and dysregulated. I can be with that so now I can come in and I can really love her because I'm actually okay. I got Luke, I got my brothers at my back. I'm okay. And I can love my partner exactly where she's at. And that will change your relationship.

Luke Adler: Well said. Jason, I want to say one thing. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. I'll keep it brief. There's a. There's a mood out there. There's a mood out there. I've been. Weird things have been happening around me. I was like working in my yard the other day and I have this deep alley and someone walked into the alley, just started talking me up about how lonely they were. I never met this person in my life. And I could. Several examples that I won't get into. But there's a mood out there. There's a mood out there in the, in the, in the environment of like, I don't know, it's just. I think I might just go to sleep. You know, I just. Maybe this is as good as it's gonna get. You know, I shadow work. Why would I do that? I just, I. I found this kind of comfortable place with my, with my garden with Netflix and with porn or, or just not even any of those. Maybe just, just my routine and, and you know, the political scenes too loud and obnoxious and there's instability everywhere. I don't, I don't want to look at any of. I don't want to. Why would I feel any of that? I, I found some comfortable place to live in my relationship, in my life. And Luke and Jason, even guys who have done our, done our program that are just like, maybe they're not showing up to groups as much. And it's like, I don't want to face it. It's scary out there. I don't. I don't want to deal with all that instability. I hear you. I hear you and I feel your pain. I feel it. I can sense it. But I'm offering a full throated rejection of that stance because here's what the nature of intimacy is about in the nature of life. The nature of life is about love and it's about joy and it's about happiness. And that runs independent of the bullshit we're seeing with leaders in the world. It runs independent of the instability politically. It runs independent of drug addiction and addiction. Addiction in general. This is free from that. And it's yours for the taking if you want it. And yes, you have to orient yourself in your body towards it, to onboard it, to get it to come into your body, your cells, your skin, to feel it. There's a. There's a bit of work to do, but it's. It's far less work than the work it takes, like you said, Jason, to withstand the bombardment and the barrage of the stupidity and ignorance that's there at the surface. That. That play of. Of confusion. That's not. That's not for us. What's for us is connection, love and upliftment and, yes, contributing to a better world with better outcomes for everyone. You know, and so I just want to touch that, and I'll. I'll stop.

Jason Lange: I think it's beautifully said. You know, the choice I think so many of us face is connection or comfort. Connection is not always comfortable, but it is alive, right? We actually feel alive in our life, in our experience. We're engaged with it all. And that kind of connection, that kind of aliveness, I know for me, that's what makes me feel fulfilled, right? Like, oh, I'm in it. I'm here, I'm engaged. It hurts. Sometimes it feels great. Sometimes it feels bad, but I feel alive. You know, it's the feeling of, like, after a good workout, it's like, wow, okay, I'm here. Like, I feel my body. I'm alive. Was the workout fun? Not always. Sometimes it sucks, right? But it's about that engagement, and that's where we can be the most free as men, where we're not no longer living in the what ifs, and we're not just living in that narrow spectrum of being what we're asking men to do right now. Stepping into something like shadow work is to come into full contact with your relationship and yourself as life is to look at it, to actually look at it in a sober way and not pretend it's just going to fix itself, right? Or get lulled into that comfort. And then once we've made full contact, as my wife says, then we open ourselves up to feel the full spectrum, okay? If I want more passion and joy, and in good times with my wife, I got to be willing to get into the dark, the muck, the mire, the pain. And when we can expand into one, we're going to expand to the other. And suddenly, life, there's so much more to life. Instead of that compressed little place I talked about of when we hold it in and we keep them out, here's my little spot of comfort, okay? I know exactly how this goes. You guys in these relationships, you're ready to save. You know how your way of being you know exactly where it's going to take you in your relationship. It's not rocket science. It's this is how this script plays out. And you cannot control your partner. You cannot make a partner change. What you have control over is how am I showing up, what script am I playing? And shadow work is going to illuminate that script, put it right in your face and then wrap you in a ton of love and resource and support so you can start playing a new role. We've got just a couple of spots left here for our fall 2026 cohort. We got an amazing venue lined up down in Austin, Texas. Some incredible men coming in. And if you're done waiting and you don't want to leave it to chance, you don't want to leave your relationship to chance, join us. Something will move. Just head over to heartofshadow.com awesome, brother. Good to be with you as always. And until next time.