In this episode, I explore the difference between temporary state experiences and permanent stage transformations, emphasizing that while retreats, workshops, and spiritual practices can provide powerful glimpses into new ways of being, the real work lies in integrating these experiences into daily life through consistent effort, community support, and structural changes that facilitate lasting growth.
That all said, join me for a live event at my Labor Day Men’s Retreat or in the Heart of Shadow program.
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Welcome to Evolutionary Men.
I'm your host, Jason Lange. Let's get started. All right, and welcome back. So on this episode, I want to go into something I've talked about a couple different times, but feels really relevant for me right now because I'm about to lead another live retreat for men in a couple of weeks. And what this comes out of is something I've talked a lot about on this podcast, which is the difference between a state of experience and a stage of being or living.
So a state is something temporary that comes and goes, right? A stage is like when we build a new foundation on which we can rest upon, and we never kind of regress back into so much. It's like a set point we can come back to. And the thing with live retreats or workshops or plant medicine or any powerful spiritual technology is often they focus on the state experience.
So what I tell a lot of guys I work with is the simple but hard truth. The retreat. Or you could substitute workshop, breath work, plant medicine, journey, etc. That's the easy part. And sometimes that's a little absurd because the work we do in retreats or that you can uncover doing breath work or in plant medicine can be extremely potent and powerful and sometimes challenging or sometimes very uplifting.
And when I say it's the easy part, I mean the real work of life is how do we bring these temporary state experiences back to our lives and integrate them as permanent traits. So these new stages, and we see this show up a lot in the personal growth and transformation world, right? We can get addicted to state chasing, or there's this feeling of the quick fix.
Oh, I dove in this weekend and I fix this thing forever, and I'm going to come back forever transformed. Now, there's a partial truth there, right? But I think the reality of a lot of people in this world and what they've experienced is the disappointment and let down of what happens on the other side, because there's this expectation that it's all fixed, it's all better because of how deep I went in the retreat, the workshop, the plant medicine, etc. But the real hard work of life is creating the structure to keep evoking what we discovered in that state in a permanent way.
So you can think of the state experience is giving us an embodied reference point for what's possible, right? It's like we have a stick and we stick it down into the pond and suddenly we know how deep it is, we know how deep it can go. Before that we might just think it's super shallow. And now that we know how deep it is, our practice in life is to keep jumping in and going back to that depth over and over again. And particularly in sustainable ways in our day to day life.
Integration is another way we talk about this, right? We go out, we have some transformative experience, receive some kind of lesson, stretch our nervous systems in some way it's never been stretched before. And okay, now what do I do with that? How do I integrate that into my daily life? So this isn't something that was just a one and done experience, but it's something that actually feeds and integrates, empowers my life.
And that's why a lot of the work I do really invokes the power of community and group, right? Because we can go have these deep, powerful state experiences with each other and then inevitably you're going to get home and I talk to guys about this when they do work with me in person. There's going to be a moment when you leave the container of whatever deep transformative work you were doing and reality is going to slam back in your face and there's going to be a closure or a contraction even though you thought, I got it this time, I'm enlightened, I'm different, it's never going to be the same again.
And when we aren't prepared for that slamming into reality, it can be really painful and it can be disheartening because we think, I thought I had changed this and I didn't. Here's this problem again. But the truth is that's just how life works. And the more we plunge into those state experiences, the easier it be it becomes in a sense to build the scaffolding, to make it permanent in our life. And a group can reflect that to us and hold us through that journey and remind us of what we experienced in that retreat, in that workshop, in that ceremony container.
Because we all held that transformation together. And so there can be a back out in the world of hey, no, I remember who you are because I saw who you were, I felt who you are in that retreat experience. So don't lose heart. If it's not appearing in your life right now the way you want, you can get back there. How do I know? Because I'VE seen you be there before. And so in a lot of my work there's follow up, right?
We like to continue the connection in some capacity. Some programs are heavier on that than others. But what I found is, is that's really where the magic happens. And even if it's just a one off retreat like I lead over Labor Day, the connections you make with men in that experience often continue beyond the event. And as long as you're willing to feed those connections, so to speak, the experience keeps working its magic in you.
Now other programs, I do structure that in even more and really try to facilitate men staying together for the long haul and doing that tough integration work over time, right? When it's not sexy anymore, when it's not fun anymore, when you haven't gotten enough sleep, when no one's providing nourishment and food for you every day, when no one's telling you, here's what you need to do in providing you the container and structure when we're back out in that wild west of our lives, that is where it matters.
That's where all this deep transformative work, that is where the rubber meets the road. Is this showing up in my day to day? Am I responding to the same situations that I've experienced over and over again in different ways? That's how you know you're changing. My therapist told me that last fall and it really stood with me. It's like, wow, yeah, I'm still having some of these same experiences and struggles and changes, but how I'm showing up and responding to them is different, which means I'm changing, I'm transforming and I'm taking some of these temporary state experiences I get from doing deep work on myself with my therapist, with my men's group in retreats, using plant medicines, and bringing it into my life to be an actual different way of being.
Now the thing is, particularly in the social media quick fix environment, it sells to promise the quick one time fix. Do these five things and never struggle with loneliness again, right? I've created some of this content, but it's always more challenging than it appears. You're not gonna fix everything in your life in a weekend retreat or in a single plant medicine ceremony.
It takes years to build up our wiring and it takes time to undo it as well. And stage integration as I'm talking about, it only happens over time, right? It's a persistence, it's a coming back to something over and over and over again. And while it's really appealing to imagine this five day workshop Will change it all for me.
I'm here to tell you it probably won't. What it can do is open you up to the new possibility, give you a little bit of time travel so you can experience a different way of being and know that it is possible. It's not hopeless. There is something else available to you if you're willing to stick with it over time. To do that often hard and boring.
What I call the unsexy work of changing the structure of our lives. So we do the retreat. We think, that was so hard. I fixed myself, then we got to go home. And that was actually the easy part. Right. The hard part is, how am I going to change how I live? How is the structure of my day and my life going to start to change to support me getting back closer to that energetic state experience I had in the retreat.
And that's not always fun. Sometimes that can be grueling. Sometimes it can lead to conflict as we set new boundaries or come to terms with needing to end relationships in our lives. There's so much possible there, and it's hard and we cannot do it alone. No man I know that has made profound and lasting change in his life has done it alone. There's always some kind of relationship involved in that transformation.
And that's something I'm incredibly passionate about. Men's groups in particular being a powerful tool for they're a kind of relationship that helps us integrate for the long term, powerful and lasting change. So I hope to see you sometime at one of my live events or retreats or workshops or hope that you get out there and experience the power of a sound bath or a plant medicine ceremony or deep breath work or a meditation retreat.
And know that the dirt journey doesn't end there. That seven days in silence, that's actually the easy part. What's hard is how do I bring that silence into every moment of my day to day. When my kids pissed at me, when there's a bill that's late, when I haven't touched my wife in weeks, that's when it matters. And so we go practice and go in as deep as we can in these state experiences so it can show us what's possible, can give us that preview that we then navigate back to day by day, step by step in our lives.
All right. Well, I hope this helps. If you've ever had this experience, know there's nothing wrong with you. Integration is the hard work. And if you want some help, reach out. I'd be glad to help. Until next time. If you're interested in working with me around dating relationships or your masculine presence in the world, just go to evolutionary men.
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