Strength with Heart: Sensitivity as Superpower (with Keith Martin-Smith)

Jason Lange: All right, and welcome back, everybody. I am so super excited today to be joined by Keith Martin Smith, who is an award winning author, writing coach, and Zen priest. He is passionate about human connection, creativity, and evolution. And even more important than all that, Keith is one of my oldest and dearest friends who I've in some sense been sitting in with circle with for almost 20 years now, even though I had a little gap in the middle and has been a seminal part of my journey as a man and into men's work and growth and transformation. So I'm very excited to have him on here. It's kind of shocking to me in some ways. I haven't yet, as he is a deep, deep practitioner and men's work leader in his own right. And welcome, my friend.

Keith Martin-Smith: Very good to be here, Jason. It's good to see you over the Internet Tubes here. It's weird because you're only like three. Three miles from my house. So,

Jason Lange: yeah, we're back. Back in the same neighborhood and even closer as of a couple weeks ago, which is really, really exciting to me. So looking forward to spending even more good time with you.

Keith Martin-Smith: Hell yeah.

Jason Lange: But so, yeah, where I want to start, man, is, you know. Yeah, we've known each other, I think, since 2006, which is. That's right. Yeah. It's really just hitting me. It's probably literally about 20 years maybe.

Keith Martin-Smith: Maybe 20 years is July for me.

Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, that's so crazy. And so what I want to start with is, you know, what kind of drew you into the path to begin with, which is where we, you know, we merged together.

Keith Martin-Smith: Like the men's work path.

Jason Lange: Yeah, menswear growth, the whole jam. I mean, you have such an incredible resume in some sense of all your background and.

Keith Martin-Smith: Well, I mean, the. So I got into martial arts when I was like, in grade school, and then, you know, and then I sort of worked that through high school. And then when I got into university, you know, I switched to what I train in now, which is Northern Kung fu. And that just became a bedrock of my life. It's weird because I'm an enneagram5. And so, you know, typically fives are really disembodied sort of stereotypically and. But I found that embodiment practice, maybe because it's complicated and it was, you know, had all these lineages to it and all these different practices and internal and external facets, and it was just a. Has Been a beautiful system. And so getting into that in my 20s, I think, just grounded me in a way that served me throughout my life. At the same time, I was having. I started having spontaneous sort of awakening experiences as a teenager and again through my 20s that were very ungrounding and quite terrifying. I had no history of. I didn't know what mysticism was. I'd never heard of it. I'd never read any, like Hafiz or Rumi or anything like that. So I had no reference point, but either a conventional, dogmatic, Catholic one, which is how I was raised, or where I had defaulted to, which was a reductionistic, materialistic, scientific worldview where, you know, consciousness is just an epiphenomena of the brain and there's no meaning. You know, basically the world is a flat, dead place that we just pretend like, you know, there's. There's actually anything worthwhile here. And so I, I was in a place of really sort of terrible existential pain because the experiences with my worldview were completely incongruent. And. And then I stumbled into Ken Wilber's work, you know, the great developmentalist. And that put me onto a map that helped me understand what was happening to me. And really, rather than giving up on life, it gave me a sense of where I was and where it was possible to go from there, which, which was really just. I mean, I'll forever have a. A debt to Ken for that. In some ways, I think it saved my life and all that. Then, you know, I was married at the time and was in a 12 year relationship and a 5 year marriage in that relationship. And that ended in my early 30s. And I ended up in Boulder and ended up working for Ken Wilber, which was crazy. Which is where I met you and a bunch of other people. And that was where our mutual friend Casey gave us an invitation to join a men's group. And I'll never forget the way he asked me because he said, hey man, would you like to join this men's group that I'm forming? And my response was, why would I want to be in a group of men? It was just like, I, that sounds terrible. Like a group of dudes. Like, I've spent my whole life avoiding men. Like, I don't want to be in

Jason Lange: a group of men.

Keith Martin-Smith: And he was like, well, well, just come try it out. And with that began a whole nother journey into shadow and community and, you know, courage and, you know, all these things that we work on.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And just one other piece I would love for you to layer in, you know, as much as you're. You're comfortable, but like, where you actually grew up. Because I think it's really important in terms of your. The default mode, masculine culture I think you were a part of and the journey you've made since then. Oh, 100.

Keith Martin-Smith: Yeah. So I agree. My dad was born in 1936. He was the eighth of nine kids in the deep South. My mom, working class Irish. I grew up in a pretty rough, knuckle, tough, working class Irish family on the East Coast. And, you know, it was a place where sensitivity, you know, gentleness, kindness, these things weren't part of the culture. It was very much. My dad died four years ago. I never saw him cry in his entire existence. Never. Like, I never saw the man shed a tear, didn't do hugs, didn't do affection. My parents had a strained and distant relationship. They're. They're sort of their whole marriage. And my mom was tough. I mean, my mom was raised in the old world and she really believed, you know, spare the rod and spoil the child. So it was a. It was a challenging upbringing in some ways. I went to a corporal, corporal punishment Catholic school, so we got smacked around a lot. So I came out of that environment in my early 20s and I was tough. I was mean in a lot of ways. I was completely shut down emotionally. I didn't know I was shut down emotionally. I didn't even know what that meant. Um, I probably went eight or nine years. No tears of any kind. Maybe a little secret tear in a car to a song, you know, by myself, Deeply by myself. And I just thought that's the way men were supposed to be.

Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah. So key, because I think it's, you know, guys often hear about this work and it's important to know the context you come from. Right. Was one where the culture really reinforced and taught you to armor up. Right. And in a lot of ways in your life, you had to, literally, to survive. And I think that's the MO still for quite a few men, not all men. But I think it's important that, you know, oftentimes the skeptics out there, they're like, oh, men's work. Just sitting around crying. It's like, no, some of the toughest motherfuckers I know are in men's work. And their job is to lay down the armor. Right. Not to get tougher, in a sense. And I think you're a great example of that in my witnessing of your journey.

Keith Martin-Smith: Well, thank you. Well, it takes a Lot of courage to actually be vulnerable. This is where I would challenge anyone who's like, it's work for pussies kind of a thing. It's like, okay, tough guy, well, show up and actually tell me something that matters to you if you're so fucking tough, right? It's like that. The. The way men misunderstand courage in our culture is. Is sort of profound, right? It's like courage isn't just being the Navy SEAL out there. Like, yes, that's off. That's a lazy, low hanging form of courage. And yes, it is courage. But courage is also telling your wife that, like, hey, I'm not getting my needs met here. Or like, telling your kid, hey, you know, I really screwed up last night, and, and I'm sorry. And I want to. I want to make it right with you. Courage is looking out at your life and saying, like, I feel like I can have more. Like, I feel like, I feel like I'm here to do more in my life, and I want to. I want to live more. I want to feel more. These are all forms of courage, right? And I would challenge any man that thinks that being shut down is tough or better. You know, it's like you're only living at the top of the iceberg of your life. And I know from experience.

Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, with that, right? So Zen priest, martial artist, developmental coach, someone who's been working with men for decades. You know, how does all this inform your view of masculinity?

Keith Martin-Smith: It's a good question. I mean, you know, so I would go back to my Zen teacher, Junpo. I think, you know, one of the central teachings of him was that we are conditioned creatures. Human beings are conditioned. We're completely conditioned, right? Not partially. We are absolutely, completely conditioned. Biologically, culturally, psychologically. And until we know that you, all you are is a dog, a Pavlovian dog that drools when somebody rings a bell, you jerk off when you get horny, you react in ways. You. You spend your life reacting to things, right? Temper flares, or you shut down, you be the nice guy, you know, you be the not nice guy. Like, you just react to life all the time based on how you were raised, the way your physical brain is wired, the way your culture told you how men are supposed to act. And there's no freedom in that. And for me, the path is that you begin to understand that you have the capacity, if you slow down and you acknowledge that you're a conditioned being, that you're not so much A self as you're a process. You're this unfolding process that doesn't really have any real point that's stable or still inside of the ego. It's all flux and movement and thought and idea and projection. And when you begin to realize that, you can take action on your conditioning and you can begin to respond to life rather than to react to life. And I would say that's probably everything that I teach comes down to that. Hey, are you sick of reacting? Are you sick of blowing your top? Are you sick of shutting down? Are you sick of being filled with regret? Are you sick of not having. Well, great, then do something about it. Right? And how do you do something about it? First thing you do is you slow down and you begin to notice.

Jason Lange: Yeah, that. And what's so great about that, you know, I'm so with you, is it's so much more empowering as well, which a lot of men don't realize. Right. We can't control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond. And there is so much freedom and liberation in that. And it's an area, you know, not all men want to take responsibility for. Because once you take responsibility for that, the calculus of life is very different, right. In terms of getting away from victimization and blame and all that kind of stuff. And that, you know, it's that matrix moment of really seeing the conditioning and then, oh, wow, I can make a different choice here. And this is where I think, you know, part of what we'll be talking about where something like a men's group can be so powerful is because even once we have the insight, you got to fucking practice, right? You got to keep leaning in. In a group in particular is a really potent space to be challenged in that way, to keep. Keep leaning in when you want to lean out or do the posturing or do the collapse or whatever that might be.

Keith Martin-Smith: Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's. It's really well said. You know, we all tend to fall into default types. I think when we start doing this work, like, for me, I was to shut down, stand back, you know, hard to read, or at least in my own mind hard to read. You know, like, you know, the truth was I. I didn't. I never felt safe in groups. You know, that. That's like. That would be like the hard, vulnerable truth is, which I would never have admitted 20 years ago, ever. I mean, you could have dragged me across hot coals by my tongue. I wouldn't have admitted it. But, like. And in part because I Actually didn't know it. Like, it actually wasn't. I wasn't conscious of that. And so part of the group. Part of the intelligence of group work is that you'll have a nice guy who defaults to pleasing his partner and not standing up for himself next to another guy, who postures and gets angry really easily and who beats his chest next to another guy like me, who's withdrawn and aloof and sort of distant next to another guy who's highly performative, who's the sort of the showman, the joker, who, like, wants to be seen in his bigness or his humor next to another guy, you know, and it's like. And with all those different types, we get to see all the ways that we are conditioned and that we are reacting to life rather than responding to it. And it's a motley group of people. It's entertaining, and we get to see that. Like, yeah, we all come. We all end up in our adulthood in really interesting and different ways.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And I'm curious, as you've been working, you know, with men for a number of years now, what. What are you seeing in terms of the men who are showing up to you, in terms of, like, what. What are guys struggling with when they come to Keith Martin Smith?

Keith Martin-Smith: Yeah, well, it. It sort of falls a little bit into a generational thing where, generally speaking, the Gen X and boomers that I work with in some ways tend to be like me. They're like. It's about. They were conditioned in a similar way in the sense of, like, you have to get under the armor, and they have to get to your point. They have to get the experience of, like, beginning to open the door to their vulnerability gives them tremendous power. And, I mean, that gives you real power when you learn how to wield it. And the sensitivity that a lot of men actually have is a superpower, Right? It's like, you know, you look at the. The Delta Force guys or the Navy SEALs, right? It's like, these men are extraordinarily sensitive. They. You can't go out on a team of six dudes and be dropped off somewhere with no support and not be sensitive to the five other men around you, to your environment, to your eyes, your ears, right. What your skin is feeling, to how you. To what's going on in your body. I mean, you have to be sensitive to a degree that is sort of all the way out on a bell curve. That's sensitivity. Right. Being a warrior is being sensitive. We just don't have the tools to actually Realize how much it actually offers us and how powerful it actually is.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I talk about that all the time. For just for one thing, I think every guy, right, no matter where they come from, they want to be good fucking leaders. I want to be a leader. I want to be a lead. I want to be able to move towards the things I want. And, and if you don't have that sensitivity, you're actually making your life a lot harder, right? Sensitivity is just the ability to gather data, to make informed decisions, right? Like it's such a simple thing and it's a practice, right? It's a capacity. You have to train like you trained it, you know, starting martially and then in other realms as well. And I think that's a thing guys don't realize, right? Like we have a natural intuition and you can increase your capacity for sensitivity. So right now we can be sitting in circle together and you notice something's got, right? It's. Oh yeah, you're like, dude, you're holding grief in your belly. It's like, oh shit, I couldn't have done that 20 years ago, right? But it's like so clear once we've become sensitive.

Keith Martin-Smith: Well, no, not once we become sensitive. Once we admit how sensitive we already are.

Jason Lange: Yeah, there we go.

Keith Martin-Smith: Yeah, yeah. It's a really important difference, right? Because that's my whole argument with the Gen X and Boomer guys is that like you're sitting atop this powder keg of sensitivity. It's already to hear. All you have to do is listen. Goes back to this idea of noticing, right? It's the first thing I teach people. No awareness, right? Without awareness, there's nothing. And then for, for younger guys, for, for millennials and, and the, whatever they call them, Igen or whatever, the young, the young youngsters, these are generalities, but generally speaking, they, they're struggling with the opposite. They're. They've been enculturated to be like sensitive and soft and open and, you know, but it's in a collapsed, non agentic, not well boundaried way. And so there, the sensitivity is a liability because it isn't tied into what I would call a healthier masculinity that comes into this thing of courage that I already mentioned, right? The courage to, to take ownership of the sensitivity that you have to have good boundaries to be able to understand how to do confrontation in a healthy embodied way, et cetera.

Jason Lange: I think that's a great way to put it and something I've definitely noticed too, and part of, you know, constantly Thinking about what is a future AI laden future look like and just what you named confrontational tolerance. So the ability to stay in connection with other human beings who want something different than you, that is a superpower. I would say moving forward in the next decades, that again, you can train in men's work and in men's community. And you know, I'm curious, kind of taking it back to you, what have you found specifically, you know, in men's work? What have you gotten out of it that maybe therapy or even your spiritual practice or professional work hasn't gotten you? Like what, what's different from your side? I have my ideas about this, but I'd love to hear your cut.

Keith Martin-Smith: Well, I'm super curious about your ideas, but for me, um, it just, hands down, it's about connection. It. It's. That's it. Like I, before I was a men's work, I had one, arguably two friends. And, and I felt, you know, like I was the richest man in the world because I had one or two people that kind of understood me. And it was only when I got into the work and began to actually realize the depth of connection that I could form with other men that I realized how alone I actually was. You know, and we, I mean, the group that we're in, Jason, is, you know, it's a group full of superstars. You know, we have these, these incredible men across this, you know, a wide spectrum of personalities. And, you know, therapy is good one on one, because it's all about you. Like, I work on my shadows and my trauma and my story and my beliefs. But the beautiful thing with men's work is you have some of that. The men help you, hold you accountable, challenge you, support you, but you get to do it with them too. It's more reciprocal. It's actually more like friendship. Right. It's like you're part of a group, which means it isn't all about you. Like when you're in therapy.

Jason Lange: Yeah, totally. Well put in terms of. It's about peer relationships, right. Where therapy, and I would argue even coaching or mentoring is not about reciprocity. It's about the direction of attunement goes one way, it has to go both ways, and it's a place where you're going to get triggered. That's the other thing I love about groups is, I think you named it, these different roles play out. And particularly for a group that stays together over time, the family system forms.

Keith Martin-Smith: Oh, for sure.

Jason Lange: And, and all of the roles are just right there over time. And what's great about groups like ours that's been together for so long that I think is so potent? You know, I help a lot of guys start groups, and when you start a group, what men are mostly bringing in is shit that's happening outside the group, back in their life, relationships, their work, whatever, as a group stays together. Part of what you start to work. Ooh, what's happening inside the group in our relationships, you fucking did it.

Keith Martin-Smith: You ignored me.

Jason Lange: Or you got reacted. And then you start to see the triggers actually emerging, which is so potent because then you get to start to work them over time and in real time in ways that most men don't really have a lot of opportunities to

Keith Martin-Smith: do, right or never.

Jason Lange: Therapy doesn't quite bring that. You know, ideally, your therapist isn't getting triggered by you and unloading on you. If so, you know, you kind of need a new therapist. I think that's right, because it's a different frame. So, yeah, I love that you keyed into that. And I think it's the. The kind of missing third wheel for so many men around. There's between therapy and coaching and then the power of a group. Like a men's group.

Keith Martin-Smith: Well, that's right. And. And like, just to be clear, if anyone's watching this, they're like, well, I got, like, you know, I got my bros from the. From the fraternity, and we get together, you know, three or four times a year, or I've got a group of guys that I hike with or cycle with or. And like, that's all fine. It's not the same. It's not the fucking same. And like, I'm going to immediately push back and go like, okay, what's the deepest you've gone with them? What's the most you've called someone's bullshit to their face, you know, or had your bullshit called out? It's not the same. It's okay. If you have friends, we want you to have friends. Friends are important. But men's work by its very nature is different because I. The nature of the relationship is I have permission to call bullshit on you, right? And you that to call bullshit on me. And we have permission to get messy, right? It's like I might just be inside of a big projection. Jason, believe you're such and such with violin and blah, blah, blah, you know? And it's like, it has nothing to do with you. It's just me. It's just me vomiting my experience on you. And if the group is intelligent and nuanced, it can hold that stuff so that it might seem like we're working on you, but actually when we're working on you, I'm working on myself a little bit too. That's the other big benefit.

Jason Lange: Yeah, it's part of the magic of a group for sure. And you know, with the, the what you were naming between the generations, you, you have your own frame that's very similar to, to mine. And I think a lot of what's happening in the culture right now is men aren't sure. Okay, well, I know I'm not supposed to be like that, but what the am I supposed to be? Right? That's certainly where a lot of guys show up to me. So you, you, you kind of call this a strength and heart. Walk us through a little bit about. Yeah. How what that means to you and how you see it show up in healthy men.

Keith Martin-Smith: Yeah, well, strength of heart, you know, is that idea that, you know, to be strong is not to be shut down, as I said before, to be vulnerable, appropriately skillful in your communication, well boundaried context, aware and be able to share both your strength. Like hey, in this situation I need to be strong for my partner or my kid and actually like, I actually need to like maybe stuff it down a little bit and just show up and be in the strong, you know, erect, masculine and, and just be there for them. Or it might be like, actually this is an opportunity where I really need to. To be honest about, about what's going on with me and share appropriately, vulnerably, doesn't have to be messy. And I think that's one of the really big confusions is that a man that has strength with heart is able to share their vulnerability and their feelings in a way that isn't collapsed and it isn't putting it on the other person. It has a sovereign nature to it where when tears come, where emotion comes. I'm going to actually stay in relationship with you rather than, you know, what do a lot of men do? They, they essentially revert to five year olds. They hide their eyes or they lower their gaze because they're ashamed because that's what we were raised that it's shameful to cry, it's shameful to emote, to be upset, especially in front of other men. And so one of the practices that I do and I think our group is really good at doing is actually like when strong feelings come up, it's like you stay in relationship with those men. It takes courage. It takes courage because shame is coming usually. And so you stay in relationship. And to me, strength with heart is all those things. It's being able to discern who. Who's being called to come forth in your relationships with yourself. Right. There's so much confusion, I think, about what that actually means. And for me, a man that has strength with heart is that. Is that man that is incredibly attuned to his surroundings and can respond appropriately. And we've all seen pieces, you know, actors interviewed, places in movies, things on TV shows where a man is able to show heart inside of his strength. The archetype being like Aragorn, you know, in the Lord of the Rings, but like a real warrior who also has that sort of gentle gaze in his eyes, who is actually attuned to what's going on. That's part of what made his character so memorable, was that. Was that he was unlike all of the other human characters in that. In that movie. The hobbits had it, of course, but.

Jason Lange: Well, and it's a great example of, I think for a lot of guys, until they've experienced it, they don't get it. But then, you know, certainly the first times I've sat in circle or now witnessed other men who are present with a man who. Who does that, he's holding himself, he's in the emotion, the tears are flowing, but he's still fucking solid.

Keith Martin-Smith: And.

Jason Lange: And the thing that happens is he becomes more trustable, right? It's like, holy shit, you're so, so strong for going into that. I trust you even more now. And when men start to see it, I think they start to connect the dots of. It actually feels really good to be around those kind of men. Just in the same way feels really good to even fictionally be around Aragorn. It's like, wow, it's fucking inspiring to be with someone who has access to their power and their vulnerability, their care, their heart, their attunement, all of that. And it actually relaxes people when we're around it. It's one of the great gifts, you know, us men can lead with these days in particular.

Keith Martin-Smith: That's right. And as you said, it's a practice and it's. It's a polarity. That's what I really encourage people to see it as. It's. It's not a binary. So, you know, one pole you have care or heart, and the other one you have strength or fortitude or whatever. And we're always sort of flowing through them in a dynamic way and trying to, again, from an attuned place, sort of figure out what the situation Calls for when I'm back in my sort of family of origin, you know, the sort of hard knock Philly group, you know, funerals and these sorts of things. You know, I'm. I'm born the strength. I sort of default back to my conditioning. It's okay, right? It's like you have to sort of orient in a way that makes the most sense to you. And when I'm with my fiance or with my dog or with some of my close friends like you, I'm much more in this sort of heart vulnerability camp. And. And so again, the idea is like, it's not like you do men's work and suddenly you're blubbering all over people all the time or, or anything like that. But with the younger generation defaulting towards maybe too much emotionality and too much collapse, and the older generations defaulting to too little emotionality and too much posturing, to me, this is. This is where the work really can serve men across a wide spectrum of challenges.

Jason Lange: Beautifully put and right. I often use the word capacity. That, that kind of fluidity is. You already named it in the beginning. It's having the choice. It's being able to choose when I want to open or soften, which a lot of guys actually think I'm too tough for that. But they don't even have the choice because they don't trust it. They haven't built that wiring yet to really let go. But when we have that choice, like you said, it doesn't mean we go around doing that with everyone. We still have to be intelligent and wise about where we invite that into our lives. But that is an incredible capacity. And more and more, I think it's one of the places where men do get to lead, is attuning to, hey, this is a moment to put down the guard and soften. And it's often when men lead that other men can step into that so much easier. Right. It's like, ah, you've created this. I wasn't going to share that. But then Keith, the way you talked about, da, da, da. I can talk about that too. And it's one of the, again, many powers of a group dynamic.

Keith Martin-Smith: In particular, that's all the time in our group.

Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah. Right. Literally. Right? Like, I mean, someone talking about. But then Keith was talking.

Keith Martin-Smith: It's like the tone too, and like, boy, Jason was really vulnerable with that. Like, I want to. Like, I want to share and I, I actually want to be seen in my vulnerability too. And I think there's something else that's really important about this. A couple of things come to mind here, but the first one is that it's not like this is a fix. I am in many ways a lot like the guy that came from Philly. I am one of the quieter guys in the group. I tend to be the most armored. I tend to be the most caught in a Persona. I feel like I'm always shoveling myself out of that stuff. And, you know, I, I mean, I, I'm a highly trained martial artist. Like, I, I did that because it creates security, because I know I can kill another man. So, like, it's a way that I actually generate safety. Right. So it's like I say all that with the idea that, like, we don't fix these parts of ourselves, you know, we, we integrate them into a bigger whole. But, like, in many ways, I'm tougher than I was when I was, when I was 25 years old because, because I'm more integrated. I actually know where and how to push if it's required. And I've stood up to many men and, you know, fight situations and bar situations and on the street situations. And, you know, it's like, you know, I'm not afraid to stand up to someone, but I can do it in a way that's a lot more, again, attuned because ultimately what I want to do is not have this, not have conflict that's unnecessary.

Jason Lange: Oh, yeah, that's right. A great way to put it. Rather than being reactive with your strength, in a sense, it's, you know, what I would say is kind of the highest order of a lot of martial arts, which is to create safety. Yeah, right. I can, I can wield force to create safety when necessary. And that's a huge gift. A couple other things I wanted to get into here. One, I've talked about it a little bit on this podcast, but not, not a ton. And that's development. You know, one of the things I've always loved about our relationship is geeking out about such things. But, you know, you're. You're deep in the world of development. I am. Psychology. Yeah. Yeah. And using it, actually deploying it to, you know, support people in their growth. So, yeah, you know, just, just kind of high level, you know. What would you say is important? What is developmental insight and how is it important to mention?

Keith Martin-Smith: All right, it's a big topic, but essentially developmental insight is the understanding that we continue to grow and develop as adults and we continue to differentiate the Same way an 8 year old lives in a largely magical world. And a 14 year old lives in a largely concrete sort of materialistic world. That's an evolution of how they make meaning of their worldview. That process continues through adulthood for most of us. And so we continue to evolve and differentiate. And it has huge repercussions for men's work, for therapy, for relationship, for how we understand ourselves, how we understand others, and how we understand our world. Not knowing development is like being blind.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And why do you think it's important for a man to even understand this?

Keith Martin-Smith: Yeah.

Jason Lange: And how can it impact his relationships in particular profoundly?

Keith Martin-Smith: What development shows really clearly is that it determines what our capacities are. So at earlier developmental stages, sort of when you're, if you're in like sort of a purely rational, you know, logic sort of frame, you really, if that's where your center of gravity is, if that's how you're making meaning, you can generally see things like a cognitive bias. You kind of know that you can have a bias in the world, but you're unable to see projection, you're unable to see parts. So you can't see like an inner child or an inner kiddo. Like, if someone tells you these things, you can understand them. Like, it's not like you can't understand them, but you can't. You're not going to generate them on your own when you're actually self reflecting because they're beyond your capacity of how you make meaning. As we continue to develop egoically, then we can see more and more of the relative self. And so that means, oh, I can begin to see that like, oh, I have parts. Now, parts is obviously just a construct. I don't actually have parts. Right. It's like, it's a metaphor. It's this construct that allows me to see, like, from a certain perspective, I have an inner 8 year old and that inner 8 year old has a protector who actually protects him. And I have an inner, you know, I have an inner 14 or 15 year old and I have, you know, I have all these different parts. Right. And so when I work with couples, one of the things that I'll sort of help them see is like, you may have a part that is sort of fed up in the relationship, but it's a part. It's not, it's not you. Right. It's just. And like, so the capacity to begin to see parts allows us to differentiate that. You know, I, part of me might be mad at you, Jason. Like, wow, like, like maybe you scared my inner 8 year old and a protector came up. Right. But it's like, but that's different if I can hold it that way than if I say, I'm mad at you. There's your space. Right. So development lets us understand those things in ourselves and other people. And if we're working with people, if coaches or therapists are watching this, you have to understand development. If I have a client that is at that more rational state. Excuse me, the rational worldview. They really. Because they can't really see parts, then I won't do parts. Work with them. I'll instead do something more like cognitive behavioral therapy. We'll work on how they think as a self. Anyway, that's just a brief example, but it has profound relationships, especially if couples are mismatched. If you have someone that can see shadows and parts and their own trauma, and they're married to someone who can't see any of those things, it can create a really uncomfortable mismatch because the person that can't see them is looking at their partner and going, why are you such a woo woo, wishy washy motherfucker who's always. Who's never taking responsibility but always blaming your parents? That's how it'll feel to the, to the stage that can't see those things. They'll collapse it into something that they can see, which is like, you're. You're weak and stop whining and like, just take responsibility. I see that a lot with the couples I work with. Right. So that I have to work as a developmental bridge and help them create shared meaning. Right. That's. That's why it matters.

Jason Lange: Yeah. So, so potent. So, yeah, I mean, we, we could do a whole podcast, I think, just on this. But part of what I hear you saying is, you know, developmental insight is really our capacity. How much we can see in that as we continue to grow, we can see more. And the more we can see, the more choice again we have on how to respond if we can't see something. Right. If we can't see it, often we're just in reaction. And that, you know, development is this process of unfolding that we're all on that's kind of a mystery. We can do work to, you know, facilitate it. And you can't rush it either, you know, is kind of the crazy thing too. And I think that causes a lot of pain sometimes. But the last thing I just want to share about, I think it's really hitting me about why even having an awareness of developmental insight as a man can be so powerful is. Right. One of the great gifts of the masculine is the capacity to make other people feel seen. Right. When other people feel seen in attuned to by you, it engenders, you know, it causes a certain reaction. And I don't mean just, you know, in the sexual realm, but even trust and work and relationships. And again, you know, a lot of what I'm focused on these days is how do men future proof themselves in a rapidly changing world. And your capacity to see other people and meet them and reflect to them and have them feel heard, that makes you a really potent leader in this day and age where we're having to work with all kinds of people all around. So not only can it help you in your growth, I mean, it can help you in your relationships. And I would argue, and I'm sure you have examples of can help you in your career if you're the one that can talk to anyone, that makes you a pretty special person versus the one who just gets into fights with people about, no, it has to be this way. And I know it's. It's. One of the things I love about our group is it's. It's just woven in this kind of developmental insight in that, yeah, sometimes on a good day, I'm, you know, showing up as my highest self, and other days, yeah, I'm back to, you know, 20 years old, locked in my body.

Keith Martin-Smith: Sure.

Jason Lange: There's a. There's a certain awareness of that and it's, I think, an increasingly important thing because it also just helps you, like you said, deal with conflict.

Keith Martin-Smith: Yeah. And, you know, I would actually push back a little bit on the scene as a nuance, because I think when we're embedded in a conformist type culture, what would be called Amber and integral or 2.5 and Terry O' Fallon's model. But when we're, let's say when we're 15 or 16 years old, whatever, we're part of that, you know, part of the clique that we're a part of. The jocks, the skaters, the nerds. Right. Goths, whatever. Right. People who don't fit in. That was my. That was my group. My clique was the group that didn't belong with anywhere else. But in a way, you're seen in that group. You're actually seen through. Through the morals and the capacities and the. The ethical way of being and the rules, the unspoken rules that that group has. So you really. You're seen as part of that group. I think what we do in men's work and as a more sovereign man is people aren't seen, they're known. And it's a really big difference.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I like that. That can just feel the depth of it alone. It's like, oh, yeah. Would you rather be seen or would you rather be known?

Keith Martin-Smith: Because being seen is known. Exactly. Being seen as like, you see my Persona, all the things I talked about, you know, how I was sort of engineered, you know, in this life. And okay, you see that, great. But when you're known, it's that next level down, which is like, it's beyond that. Right. It's actually seeing the person in a much deeper, complex way and honoring that complexity and really working with them because you know them, you have the capacity to help them cultivate depth.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Keith Martin-Smith: And no one comes to people like me and you if they're not trying to cultivate depth. Right. I mean, no one's gotten this far in this conversation if they're not interested in self awareness and depth. So we have the beautiful benefit of, you know, the people that work with us self select us.

Jason Lange: Yeah, totally. Especially through conversations like this. Okay. Two more areas that I want to make sure to get to, as I know we're getting close to time here. Definitely one we share. So embodiment, right? So, yeah, you know, you're a guy who sat a lot on the mat and who. Who's trained a lot on the mat and you know, the two different kinds of mats, pretty radically different. So, yeah, talk to me about how embodiment is important to you and how it shows up in the work you do with men.

Keith Martin-Smith: I mean, if you don't have an embodiment practice, you are wasting your life. How about that? You're fucking wasting your life. And I don't mean like, yeah, I walk around the block with the dog three times a day. No, that's not an embodiment practice.

Jason Lange: This.

Keith Martin-Smith: You are in your body completely, right?

Jason Lange: You.

Keith Martin-Smith: We are fully in our bodies all the time. Most of us don't know it because we're all dissociated and up in this culture. So we just act like we're driving our body around with our head. And when you do that, you miss all of this data that was talking about sensitivity, talking about attunement, right. There's so much data that comes up through and just from a pure rationalist, scientific perspective, there's all this information on the heart brain, you know, and all these, all these sensitivities are happening and that actually give us information in our actual brain and, and the gut brain, right. So we really have sort of at A minimum. We have three brains, at a minimum. And having a deep embodiment practice gives you the capacity to be really alive in your own body. So you can feel, feel. You train. You train to be more sensitive. So I can throw stronger kicks, throw stronger punches. Well, how? Not by beating it in from the outside, right. But by. By cultivating awareness on the inside that allows me to generate more strength, more flexibility, more awareness. And all of these things matter, because when you go out into the world and you go out into your relationships, into your job, into your marriage, into your parenting, you're in your body the whole time. And so, you know, working with leadership, a lot of time, CEO types, right? They what the. The bleeding edge for them is like, get in your body. What does your gut tell you? What does your heart tell you? And they have all the fears, like, oh, if I get in my heart, it's gonna make me soft and weak. It's like, no, it's just more data. You know, it's an. It's another thing that you can get information to make a better decision. I know, for instance, like, I know conflict is coming because I feel it first in my body. So my partner says something, and it's like, oh, my stomach just tightens, and I feel something armoring in my chest. I. I am at the earliest stages of getting triggered, so I can now continue to react and let the train go where it's going to go. Or I can respond and go, hey, babe, hang on. I got a little. I'm feeling a little activation here. Can we slow down just. Just a minute? Again, it gives you a superpower, and it's, I think, health and longevity, right? It's like, you know, like, if you're in your body, you tend to know when shit's wrong. You don't just wake up one day and have a fucking heart attack. It's like, oh, no, I've been noticing 1% tightness in my chest. You know, we go to the doctor

Jason Lange: that's been feeling off, or certainly where I see it now, you know, more and more as I get into middle age, is the real superpower of not over training.

Keith Martin-Smith: My God.

Jason Lange: Like, ooh, I need to actually fucking listen now. When that first thing comes in, it's like, no, don't do the next rep. Because I've steamrolled it enough times now to know, like, oh, shit. And that takes two months to recover from. Now just going that one extra time where my body was saying, no. That kind of sensitivity, like, directly impacts longevity in those ways that I'm more and more discovering the practicality of like, wow, just knowing when to let off the gas now as a man is incredibly important. And when I'm numbed out or not in my body, I steamroll right through all that.

Keith Martin-Smith: Yeah, yeah. It's also incredible, like, for being a good lover.

Jason Lange: Right.

Keith Martin-Smith: It's like, because you're like, you're in your body rather than in your head around it. And when you're in your body, you can be more into the attunement with your, your lover's body as well, which is like, you can be attuned to what's happening with them. And so it's, it's more fun, you know, so it, that's a great way to put it. It doesn't have a downside, you know, it's like there's no reason. And so for guys that are looking to do it, it's like, so what does that mean in a body of a practice? Well, it's like, it's a practice. It's something like that has structure and community and discipline and some sort of a hierarchical process to it. It could be climbing, obviously, martial arts, yoga. It could even be something like a crossfit thing where you're actually sort of building up, you know, but you're doing it in connection in community. But anywhere where you're, you're not just going to the gym and throwing weights around, that's better than nothing. But, but being part of a practice is something that can get you through the really hard times in life and to help develop some of these capacities that we've touched on today.

Jason Lange: Exactly. And just to bridge into our last topic here, one I talk about a ton and some of the big work I do is shadow work. But to bridge, embodiment to shadow work. Here's one I didn't prepare you for, but talk to me about the relationship between embodiment and spiritual bypass.

Keith Martin-Smith: Well, yes, so spiritual bypass, of course, is when, you know, I'm a Zen priest, meditator, you see this a lot. In traditional spiritual communities, people focus on awakening and they do it in order to get away from their traumas and shadows and fucked up, fallible human parts. So that's sort of the 101, spiritual bypassing. When you're in your body, it's harder to bypass because your body tells you when things are wrong. So that little thread of anxiety that, you know, for me being, being really introverted, you know, which is just how I'm programmed. Right. I don't fight it or Resist it. It's just part of my makeup. But that manifests in the way my spiritual practice gives me the capacity to allow the contraction of me being in a group of strangers. Say, like, I can easily use my practice to go right around it and that. That somatic discomfort and just be in a space beyond self. But I have to ignore my body to do it. If I stay in my body, what I notice is that, like, oh, people make me uncomfortable. Right. It's. It's part of my makeup. It's okay. It's not right or wrong. It just is right. It's like. It's like I'm at a party, you know, even party people I know. It's like, oh, there's a tension in my body that I don't have when I'm by myself. Knowing that means, in part I can just tell the truth. Right. And see if there's anything there. And sometimes there's nothing there. Right. It's. I mean, you know, holiday party. I'm just there with people I know, but it's like, it's. It. I'm still burning energy in a way that. That probably most people aren't. Just being aware of it allows me to be in my experience more authentically and know when it's. Maybe it's like, it's time for me to go.

Jason Lange: Yeah. To attune to yourself in some sense as well.

Keith Martin-Smith: Does that answer it?

Jason Lange: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I was curious to ask you because. Yeah, it's so easy in the kind of more spiritual lineages to just transcend, transcend, transcend, transcend. And, you know, embodiment is really the practice of include. And that, you know, where I see this a lot with men, is trying to move to forgiveness too fast. So I'm going to ignore the anger, ignore the rage. I'm just. Okay. Nope. I'm supposed to forgive. I'm supposed to like, love everybody. And it kind of creates this like, fake, artificial, not trustable, ultimately not satisfying thing. If you try to skip, you know, the step of embodiment, which is. That really hurt.

Keith Martin-Smith: Yeah.

Jason Lange: I'm pissed at you. Right? Like, oh, my God. You know, and you gotta, like. You don't necessarily have to move that energy with the person. Again, something great a men's group is for, you still gotta move the energy and honor it. And then after that's been honored, something else is very possible. Right. In terms of the. The type of connection you can come back to. But the spirit, the. The drive to spiritual bypass, I think particularly in so Called nice guys is so strong, and it creates a constant state of abandonment. I'm just. The nice guys are always abandoning them themselves, right? Abandoning. With the truth in their body. They're not embodied in that sense.

Keith Martin-Smith: Yeah, yeah, it's a. It's a really big thing. It's like some of the guys that I've worked with, the other way that I see that is like, they. You know, they're like. They have the wound of benign neglect, let's say, like, their parents weren't. Princeton beat the shit out of them, right. But they just, you know, the keys under the mat, the frozen foods in the freezer. You know, Johnny's a good kid. You know, he does good in school. We just sort of let him kind of raise himself, right? And like. And when I work with people like that, it's like, they're like, well, I don't want to. I don't want to get mad at my mom and dad. Like, they didn't do anything wrong, you know? And, like, you know, it was fine. You know, it's like. And that's always one of my. It's like, oh, tell me more about how fine it was. But it's like, what I try to coach men through is like. And this is such a delicate thing, but you actually have to get to a place where you realize that in some ways you were victimized, and not necessarily a victim, but victimized. And until you can inhabit that and own it, you can't let it go. And a lot of men, which I think is a similar thing that you're talking about, they try to let go of the victimization and get to the step beyond where it's like, oh, I've let it all go and I've forgiven everybody. And it's like, you can only do that if you've actually felt how angry you actually are and how much pain it caused and all of that. But then you don't want to stay there, right? Because a lot of our culture can sort of, especially with some of the work that women can do, it can really reward. Like, no, no, stay in the anger around the patriarchy and anger at this and anger that, like, just stay there forever, you know? And it's like, that's just a. That's just a hell realm, you know? But, like. But you have to go there before you can come around to the other side of it and go like, okay, I see where I was complicit in this. I see where they were complicit in this. I can begin to Set all these things down and give myself liberation.

Jason Lange: I love that. So spot on. Longtime listeners. No, one of my first episodes was so I had a pretty good childhood, which is always like, literally that phrase. As soon as a guy says it, I'm like, oh, boom. And there's generally quite a bit there. Yeah, totally. It's like, it's a real thing. But I just want to name kind of what I hear you speaking to, which also tracks with, you know what? I try to work with guys around, particularly around the childhood stuff. And it's acknowledging impact. Yeah. So, right. Like whether your parents wanted to do this or that they came from a culture, they came from a lineage, it's really important to still acknowledge the impact it had on you. Because until you acknowledge that my personal experience is, it's much harder to take that full responsibility. Well, okay, that happened to me. I'm acknowledging the impact. But now that I can see that happen to me and I can just own that clearly, only I can fucking do something about it now. And blaming them back then isn't going to really do it now. But I have to acknowledge, yeah, the way I was raised conditioned my nervous system in a certain way, where this is the response I tend to have. Now I'm not around mom and dad anymore, but I keep having that response.

Keith Martin-Smith: That's right.

Jason Lange: Not their fault anymore. Now it's my responsibility to work with that. And I think that's part of really what I hear you talking about. And if you skip that first step, I think it actually makes it harder to fully own what's happening in the moment.

Keith Martin-Smith: I don't think you can.

Jason Lange: Yeah, there you go.

Keith Martin-Smith: I don't think it's possible. I've just seen it too many times. The beauty is that what it allows eventually is like, eventually the process sort of works out where it's like, you're like, okay, like, you go through the anger, you go through my mom, me up. I can't believe what she did. Her. Whatever it is. Right. You just, you get it. You just get all messy with it. Right. And hopefully you're working with a men's group and. Or a therapist that's helping you not be. Not to wallow in that. To get out of it as soon as you can. And then you begin to have the realization that, like, huh, you know, like, some of the ways I've been, like, not such a good guy in my life, it's actually not my fault. Like, it's because of the way I was raised. Like, it got put in me, but I need to take responsibility, but I don't need to be in this fault thing. And so this evolution can happen. Right. We sort of let yourself off the hook. Self forgiveness, which is really important. Right. Especially for those of us that have colorful childhoods. And then the next stage, what's the next thing that happens is it's like you look at your parents and you go, it wasn't their fault. Right. That got put into them. It wasn't their fault any more than it's my fault now. It was their responsibility. They were unable to take responsibility for whatever reason, but I can take responsibility. And so this, to me is one of the most powerful parts of men's work is this capacity to take radical responsibility for your life.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I love that. And, you know, it's super present for me. You know, my father recently passed and one of the things I'm most grateful for is I did a lot of rage work in terms of my relationship with him, you know, probably eight years ago in a pretty potent men's group. And it was real and I was able to bring some of it to him a few years later and really like, hey, I, you know, da, da, da, da, da. And why I'm so grateful for that now is it allowed me to be with him in a different way as he did pass. I didn't. I wasn't trying to do both things at once. That had already moved to a significant extent where I could then just relax into the grief of man, you had a hard life and you did the best you could, and here's where you move the ball. And, you know, I could be thankful for that, man, in gratitude for that. And I think that's an important thing that, you know, men, whether your parents are already alive or dead, to. To be able to do that work sooner than later allows you to get to a different place on the other side. But you can't fucking skip it, right? If I tried to skip it, all of that resentment would have been there in those last moments where I wouldn't have been able to just, you know, in my case, love my dad exactly where was at and for the life he was able to bring. And, you know, that's some of the. The deep work available in, in men's work and in the type of shadow work I think we can really do in these types of groups and these. In men's work in general.

Keith Martin-Smith: Yeah, yeah, really well said, man. And I, you know, I just, I really applaud that you were able to do that because what you're Doing not only you reparenting yourself, you know, when you do that, which is sort of what we're talking about here, you're giving your dad the thing that he was unable to give you, whereas most of us, right, it's like, we get stuck and like, well, they didn't give me it. And so them. I'm not going to give them it either. Rather than let me take responsibility for the karma of this family, the. For the way things just are, and, and see what I can do, this radical responsibility piece, you know, I did the same thing with my mother 11 years ago. You know, finally, after years of therapy, was able to say, like, hey, mom, can I tell you something? You know, she was like, I was like, you're really hard on me growing up, you know, and like, you know, like, like, like it really, it left a mark in a lot of ways. And then, you know, like, there was this incident and this incident, like this thing, you know, after I got married and like, you know, me and my new bride run out of the house crying and, And I delivered it very gently and very kindly and very. In a very attuned way. And she apologized, you know, and it was, it was profound. You know, she was like, I drank a lot back in those days, Keith, you know, like, I don't remember any of that, really much of it. And I'm really sorry. And that was the only apology I got. But it was, but it was huge. And it's part of this ongoing process of, of taking responsibility for the lives that we have. What else are you going to do? What else are you going to do, guys? Not take responsibility. Okay, fine. Have fun with it.

Jason Lange: Tried that, and it's pretty shitty. Also, you may also, I mean, makes you very open to manipulation. There is a lot of power weaponizing people's pain when they haven't taken responsibility for it, because then it's easy to point out, oh, it's their fault, it's their fault, it's their fault. And that doesn't make you very sovereign as a man in this day and age. So that is one way to, you know, really reclaim a lot of power. But so speaking about all this of like, you know, how does a man do that? You have a event coming up, and I believe it's online that I would love for you to share with the crowd here.

Keith Martin-Smith: Yeah. So, you know, if you're listening to this and you're curious, especially some of the things that I've talked about. So I'm. I'm going to be leading co leading a course at Spirit Rock online, June 7th. I think it starts at noon mountain time. But anyway, it's, it's a three hour course. It's ninety bucks. And so what we're going to be talking about is the three things that I touched on today, which is the first one is noticing. So for men, it's like, how do you notice, how do you begin to slow down and notice what's actually going on in your interiority? What does that mean? All right, so like, it's one thing I talk about it, but we're going to practice it. We're going to split into groups. You're going to get the experience of it. The second thing we're going to get into is courage. Now that you've, now that you're able to notice, what is your relationship to courage in your life? Where do you show up? Well, where do you show up in ways that you could grow and learn a lot? What would it mean if you were a truly courageous man? We'll explore that. Right. Again, this is not a lecture. It's going to be very interactive. Like, you'll get to work with each other, work with us. And the third thing which we've talked about today is connection. What's different when you do these first two things in a community of men who are able to mirror back to you rather than just reading a book on it or taking an online course on it, right? Or going, listen to me blabber, Jason and I blabber for the last hour about this stuff, right? It's like, what does connection actually mean? And we'll take you through practices of like, actually how to feel the difference so you get the sense of why it matters. And the hope is that this will give men the tools and the foundations to begin to understand what this work makes possible and hopefully to help them do things like form their own men's groups.

Jason Lange: Yeah, Love it. I'll be dropping the link along with a link to more information about you in the show notes. And you know, I'm pretty stingy with who I endorse in this world. And let me be clear, I fully endorse this man and the work he's doing. So if you, you know, that lights something up and you go do it, it's, it's going to be awesome. Keith is the real deal and is a deep practitioner. So thank you, my friend, for being here. Long overdue. We'll do it again sometime and I imagine at some point we'll be, we'll lead an event for men as well. So that'll be out there someday in the ether. I think that's coming for sure.

Keith Martin-Smith: Maybe not that far off, I would imagine. Yeah. Teamed up, we could. We could probably open some hearts and crack some sk.

Jason Lange: That's right. That's great. And so, yeah, man, thank you so much for being here. Your insight and friendship is always deeply, deeply welcomed and so potent in my life.

Keith Martin-Smith: Likewise. Jason's, great seeing you. Great, Great talking about something that we're both so passionate about.

Jason Lange: Absolutely. All right, guys, until next time.