How to Repair After a Fight (with Jayson Gaddis)
In this episode I'm joined by Jayson Gaddis, author of Getting to Zero, to talk about how to repair after a fight with your wife or partner.
Men's Groups & Brotherhood
Jason Lange has been sitting in men's groups for over twenty years and has facilitated hundreds of them. A men's group is a set of men who gather on purpose, with their attention on each other rather than on a golf ball, a screen or a job. That is the whole distinction. Most male friendship runs through a third thing, which is why you can spend a weekend with your oldest friends and drive home without one person asking how you actually are. Most men feel that absence somewhere under the ribs long before they have language for it. A group puts the attention back where it went missing. You get support, which loves you exactly where you are, and you get challenge, which calls you past it. Most men have had plenty of the first and almost none of the second.
If you found this page, you are probably functioning fine and connected to almost nobody at depth. That is the common version, and it is what the culture trained into you rather than anything wrong with your character. "The Myth of the Lone Wolf" covers what isolation actually costs a man. "Men, Loneliness, and Social Isolation" puts numbers on it. "Building a Men's Group That Lasts for Life" and "Men's Group Experience" get practical, including why the Men's Group Experience is peer led, since paying a facilitator to hold your group quietly makes you a customer of it. The full archive is below.
Every Men's Groups & Brotherhood episode
The Mistake Men Keep Making (with Dr. Daniel Ellenberg)
In this episode I talk with Dr. Daniel Ellenberg. He has directed men's groups for more than forty years and earned the Practitioner of the Year award from the American Psychological Association's division for the psychology of men.
Inside Folsom Prison: The Hardest Men, The Deepest Work (with Gethin Aldous)
Lifers at Folsom sit in circle and break open in front of each other. If those men can go there, the story that this work is soft does not survive.
Strength with Heart: Sensitivity as Superpower (with Keith Martin-Smith)
Keith Martin-Smith grew up where shutting down was what men did, and his father never once cried. Twenty years in circle later, what came out the other side of that.
Why So Many Good Men Feel Empty
You built the life you were told would do it, and you still wake at three in the morning with an ache. Why men are this lonely now, and what actually feeds a man.
Shock Absorbers for Your Life
You invest your money and let your relationships compound at zero. Why a circle of men is the shock absorber that decides how hard the potholes in your life actually hit.
3 Ways Men Disconnect (and the Fix)
Three disconnections sit under most of the flatness men bring me, and the first one is from your own body. What each looks like, and the way back from each.
My Top 16 Men’s Group/Work Moments
Sixteen moments from men's groups and retreats, including the one where I asked eight guys to pile their bodies on top of mine. What each of them gave me.
Held by Men, Forged by the Fire (with Ted Riter)
Ted Riter spent thirty years as a rabbi before a collapse in his own life sent him into men's work. Grief, sacred masculinity, and what depth actually asks of you.
What Therapy and Coaching Can’t Give Men
Therapy gives you insight and coaching gives you a plan. Neither one gives you eight men who watch how you actually show up, which is the gap a group fills.
Awakening the Masculine Spirit (with Amir Khalighi)
Amir Khalighi has spent three decades walking men back into their bodies and out into the natural world. What embodied masculine means in practice, and where men get lost.
Men’s Group Experience
Paying someone to run your men's group makes you a customer of it. What keeps a peer led group alive for years, and how to start one without waiting for a facilitator.
The Marlboro Trap (with Luke Adler)
The cowboy alone on his own acreage is the image most of us were handed. Dr. Luke Adler and I get into what that fantasy costs you every time you refuse help.
No More Mr. Lone Wolf (with Dr. Robert Glover)
Dr. Robert Glover wrote the book that woke a lot of us up. He and I get into what nice guy costs you, and why a group of men does what solo work cannot.
Why Success Alone Won’t Save You (with Luke Adler)
The dating gap and the jobs numbers are the symptoms everybody is counting. Dr. Luke Adler and I get into the emotional illiteracy underneath them that nobody is measuring.
Building a Men’s Group That Lasts for Life
Subscription men's groups die the month the facilitator moves on. Where to put the locus of control so your group is still meeting in fifteen years, and what ownership does to men.
What Are You Grounding Into?
Grounding as a state lasts about as long as the exhale. The question nobody asks is what you are grounding into, and whether that structure can actually hold your weight.
Brotherhood: The Missing Nutrient
The part of you that adapted to survive your family still runs the show under pressure. Dr. Luke Adler and I on why it only grows up through love from other men.
Turbocharge Your Growth with Masculine Feedback
Somebody telling you about the spinach in your teeth is uncomfortable for eight seconds and useful for years. Carefrontation, and why your blind spots need other men to see them.
Two Things Every Man Craves & Needs
Purpose is the felt sense that your presence matters. Belonging is knowing where you get missed when you do not show up, and most men are running short on both.
The Weakness of Macho Men
At some point your body fails in a way you cannot push through, and you fall back on whatever support you built beforehand. Why posturing is still fear wearing a hard face.
Stories From Men in the Heart of Shadow (Panel Discussion)
Three men who went through The Heart of Shadow talk about it from the inside. What they walked in carrying, what cracked, and what their lives look like now.
Why Evolutionary Men?
Almost every men's organization is named for one kind of man. This one is named for men, plural, because bootstraps have never been how a man actually grows.
Checking In VS Jerking Off (with Luke Adler!)
When the pressure builds you can discharge it alone in four minutes, or you can bring it to your men. Dr. Luke Adler and I on what each one does to you.
Better, not Easier
Growth does not make your life easier, and that was never the deal on offer. What better actually means in practice, and why connection is what makes it possible.
Moving Beyond Shame
Shame tells you the connection is gone for good, which is why you need somewhere to come back to after you blow it. What that place has to have in it.
Men, Loneliness, and Social Isolation
Lacking deep connection carries a health risk on par with obesity, and most men will not say the word lonely out loud. Why the quality of connection beats the count.
Three Reasons Men Join Men’s Groups
Some men arrive bleeding and just need the bleeding stopped. Three reasons men walk into a circle, and what each of them needs from the group once he is there.
One of the Awesome Powers of Men’s Group
Most men cannot say what they need until somebody asks and then waits. How a group of men gets you clear on what you actually want, at home and at work.
The Purpose of Men’s Work
Men's work is going mainstream and most descriptions of it miss the point. The outcome is aliveness you can feel in your body, and the rest follows from there.
The Male Loneliness Epidemic with Luke Adler
More than half of men say they are not satisfied with the friendships they have, and the number keeps climbing. Dr. Luke Adler and I on why it gets harder with age.
Some Things Aren’t Meant to Be Felt Alone
There is grief you can sit with alone for ten years without moving an inch. What co-regulation does that solitude cannot, and why your body needs another body present.
The Heart of Shadow with Luke Adler
Dr. Luke Adler and I on what shadow actually is, how it shows up as numbness or stuckness in a man's life, and why facing it works better with other men.
The Hero’s Journey and Men’s Work
Joseph Campbell mapped the structure under every story worth telling, and it doubles as a map of how a man changes. Why that always starts with leaving your ordinary world.
Surround Yourself With Men That Will Call You on Your Bullshit
Your self image is the last thing to update when your behavior starts slipping. Why you need men close enough to tune you up, and how to take it when they do.
What to Do When You Want to Withdraw
The hardest two weeks of your life are usually the two weeks you stop showing up. What to do when everything in you says go quiet and handle it alone.
Who Holds Your Story?
Name the people who know the whole arc of your life, including the parts you handled badly. Most men come up short, and that shortage costs more than they think.
How to Handle Stress
Kelly McGonigal's research says your belief about stress changes what stress does to your body. Mindset and resources, and why other men are the resource most men skip.
The Father Energy We All Need
Support loves you exactly where you are. Challenge calls you past it. Most men got plenty of one and almost none of the other, and a group can supply it.
The Problem With How Most Guys Relate to Each Other
Men connect through a third thing, the game or the car or the job, sitting shoulder to shoulder. What becomes available the first time you turn and face another man.
She Doesn’t Want to Be Your Mother-Lover
When your sense of being okay depends on her approval, she is carrying a job she never signed up for. What it takes to fill your own bucket.
The Myth of the Lone Wolf
The wolf on its own is the one that got pushed out of the pack, and it rarely lasts long. What accountability from other men does for your reach.
Masculinity is a Transmission
Before the factories, boys learned manhood standing next to men all day long. What got lost in that shift, and where a man goes to receive the transmission now.
The Most Powerful Tool for Transformation
The wounds around shame and trust were built in relationship, which is the only place they get repaired. Why relationship is the strongest tool for change you have.
Every Man Should Be in a Men’s Group
A group of men who gather on purpose to support and challenge each other has done more for my life than any other practice. What it is and how to start.
WHEN LISTENING ISN’T ENOUGH
The work behind the podcast
Most of what Jason talks about here gets practiced somewhere else, with other men, over months. That’s what the programs are for.