And welcome back on today's episode. I want to talk about two primary energies that are absolutely crucial for our development as human beings and, yeah, as men.

And these two energies show up right away from the second we're born and all the way through our lives. And I see them quite often as fundamentally important to the work that happens in men's groups and in men's circle. These are energies that all of us know, but some of us got more appropriate doses than others.

Essentially, what these energies are are the energies of support and challenge. Now, when I say the energy of support, that's the energy that we tend to associate with the mother or in the work. I tend to be involved with the feminine. That part of all of us that is capable of.

Of loving someone and nurturing them exactly where they're at. That's super key, super crucial, exactly where they're at. Now, we can use the biology of the womb as kind of an example here in terms of a safe place where we're nurtured, where we're loved, and where we're just supported.

It's a bit of a buffer. We don't really have to go anywhere, Right. We get to just be where we're at. And that energy of support is incredibly important for us as human beings. It's foundational, right. The knowing that without having to do or be anything specific, we're inherently lovable, we are worthy and deserving of love.

That's an energy that I've been profoundly blessed to have witnessed and experienced myself in so many different men's groups. Seeing men being able to just love each other and nurture each other and support each other exactly as they are, exactly where they're at. It's quite beautiful and it's quite powerful. We all need that as human beings.

And ideally, we got that from a primary caregiver growing up, whether that was our mother, whether that was our father, whether that was someone taking care of us. That energy is what's important, not the sex of whoever gave it to us. It's the energy of that feeling of, I am supported. It's okay for me to just be. Someone will catch me now. I've worked with a lot of guys who have never had that, ever had that energy, never Been loved exactly where they're at.

And it can be incredibly transforming when they first enter a space where that's true, where suddenly they're met in that way, they're cared for in that way, they're seen in that way. Now, the other energy and the one I'm going to spend more time talking about today is the energy of challenge or the energy of possibility or the energy of movement.

What we might call the energy, ideally, of the father. And this energy is a little different. It's just as powerful, it's just as necessary, but it is different. The energy of challenge is less about just being loved where you're at. It's about being loved into your full potential. It's really important, really important to get the nuance of that being loved into your full potential.

As I've been doing this work and leading men for the last many years, this is one I'm starting to see more often. Fewer guys, having a lot of guys that tend to come into the type of work I help men with, whether it's starting men's groups or getting into relationships, they haven't had this energy so much. They maybe did have a caregiver that supported them where they're at, loved them where they were at, nourish them where they were at.

Maybe they didn't have enough of that, but they might have had a little bit. But this energy of being loved into our full potential, this father energy, this capacity of helping us orient and move forward in the world, it's one that I feel like is just not very present for a lot of men. And it's one that I've seen. It's not being present for a lot of men. And it's one that I've experienced is not being present.

For me growing up, you know, one concrete place, this kind of shows up in a generalized way. Again, the whole world doesn't work this way, but there's generalized patterns that tend to show up. Whether they're cultural, natural, or whatever, they do show up. And that was just between mothers and fathers. And how do they carry babies, you know, in those baby carriers you can wear on the front. And what they found was a lot of mothers tended to carry the babies facing in.

It's all good. I got you right here. I love you right here. I'm with you. Whereas a lot of fathers tend to carry the baby facing them out, facing them out into the world. We're gonna go into the world together, and I'm gonna be here at your back. I'm gonna support You, I'm gonna love you into the potential I see for you in this world and I know exists for you in this world. And that feeling of having that support at your back is really what's crucial to this challenge.

Energy. This is the energy of let's figure it out together. This is the energy that in its healthiest form in my mind is, oh, that didn't work. You made a mistake on that, or you failed at this, or you don't know how to do this. That's okay. Let's figure it out together. How can we do. How can you do something different next time? What did you learn from that?

The feeling of that is, you may not know this thing now. You may not have experience in this thing now. You may have made some mistakes or whatever, but I know you can figure it out, and I'm going to help you figure it out to the best of my capacity. This is such a crucial energy for us men. It's the energy that normalizes for us, that we don't always have to know that we're allowed to not know and make mistakes when this challenge, let's figure it out energy isn't present.

What I have seen in my own life and with a lot of the men I've worked with, is their bandwidth kind of shrinks to a pretty narrow window of what I would call tolerance, right? Tolerance for failure. I'm not sure if I can do that. So I'm not going to do it. I'm going to take very small, very safe steps because I don't necessarily trust myself.

I've never fallen and figured it out before. I never had anyone to support me in that. Now, what I see for people that do have this is paradoxically a willingness to fail more. And when you're willing to fail more often, you're going to succeed more because you're taking more risks, you're taking more chances. And so it's that energy, this challenge energy, that is the other piece that I've seen show up so beautifully in men's group, right?

It's not a shaming energy. It's, fuck, yeah, man, I know you can do it. Let's figure it out together. It's that energy. My hope would be every single human being gets to experience at some point in their life growing up from a primary caregiver, right? It's actually how we learn resilience. The point is not to be able to do everything or be perfect at everything. It's to feel secure in our capacity to figure things out when we need to.

To be resourced, to know how to figure things out and how to ask for help. If we don't have that, and we've never had that, it becomes really hard to do. But something really magical happens for us men when we have this experience of, oh my God, I don't have to be perfect, my God, I'm allowed to make mistakes. Oh my God, these people, these men, or whoever it may be, they're gonna help me figure it out.

And it's one of the most amazing things I've seen be created in men's group. That energy, that energy of, you know, I love you, man, and I know you're not happy or I know you're not fully expressed. You shared that with us. I can feel that with you. So I'm going to challenge you to step more fully into yourself. Right?

This is that loving someone into their potential. Like, yes, you can have the things you want, yes, you can go for the things you want. And you're gonna make mistakes along the way, and we're gonna help you figure it out. Let's figure that out together, right? You can feel that energy of, oh, I get to figure this out with someone at my side to help me, someone at my back to help me figure that out. And as we do that, we build that confidence inside ourselves to not be afraid of not knowing how to do things or making mistakes.

Because what we've learned is the deeper, more important patterning of someone can help me through this. I can be guided through this. And eventually I know how to guide myself through this. Now, it's pretty hard to guide yourself through that uncertainty if no one else has ever guided you through that uncertainty and really held you to a standard and loved you towards the potential of what you could be.

Now, I don't mean like domineering, controlling, like you need to be this way. It's more heart to heart, soul to soul. You've allowed me to feel what's possible for you. You've allowed me into your inner world of dreams, of wants, of desires, of visions. And I co hold that with you because sometimes we forget. But when someone else can hold us to that, they can call us back to.

To that standard, right? I know you're not happy in that relationship. You've told me you're not happy in that relationship. It's time to really allow yourself to get out. And I know it's going to be hard, I know it's going to be painful, but I'm here to help you figure that out together. You don't have to do that part alone. Right? Boom. There's that energy. There's something I've coached men through. Let's figure it out together.

Can you feel the power of that? Can you feel what it would mean to have that energy behind you? Right. For a lot of men I've worked with, if they did have connection with their fathers, a lot of times they were shamed when they didn't know how to do something or when they got a bad grade or when they messed up. Right. A lot of fathers make the big shame mistake, which is shaming the person and not the behavior.

Right. And when we do that, it causes deep, deep damage when we shame the person instead of what happened. Now, a little bit of shame is not a bad thing. Wow. You really didn't prepare for that test, and that had big consequences for you, didn't it? That's a pretty rough grade you got. What can we figure out together so that doesn't happen again? How can I support you? Can you imagine how different life would be if that's the energy you were getting, or when you tried to go after someone you were attracted to or took a risk in a game or who knows what that might be the energy of?

It's okay. I know you can do this. And let's just figure it out. Let's try something else and then get back out there. Try something else. Get back out there. Try something else. Get back out there. The beauty of when we get that energy enough is we're not afraid of trying stuff, messing up and getting back out there, because it's part of us. We learn that we're okay no matter what, and that oftentimes our failures, big word for a lot of us men, are not failures of character or worth.

They're just training in all these different areas. We just need more training. We need more experience. We need more tools. We need more time and safety to try them. And when we can be given that energy and allowed that, supported in that and celebrated in that, it can totally liberate us as men. We need both of these. Right?

I love you exactly where you're at. You don't have to do anything to receive my love. And I also love what's possible for you. I love that potential you hold for yourself, and I'm going to help hold you to that standard. And as you get out into the world and try things, I'm going to encourage that and I'm going to support you when you fall, and we're going to figure it out together. You're ready to get some deep support and yeah, some challenge.

Let's figure it out together. Energy. Come and join one of my drop in men's groups at Evolutionary Men events. And if you want this for your love life, watch my free training at Evolutionary Men webinar. Until next time.