What It Takes to Really Change

Today, I want to talk about what it takes to really change. When men work with me on coaching for their dating or relationships, or join one of my men's groups to get some kind of support for something deeper in their lives, it's almost always because they want to make a change.

And here's the thing. I've been doing this work for a long time, and there's a couple really important distinctions to know about the different types of change and how we need to do them all. We actually need to do all of these different things to really create meaningful and lasting change in our lives to become better men. So, very simply, I just want to distinguish kind of four categories that are important to what I would call an evolutionary growth mindset.

We're going to start with the kind of most foundational one, the most important one, the element of growth that a lot of people know about and think about when we think of growth but isn't necessarily enough. And that's what we call waking up. So waking up is this idea that we become aware of what's really going on, right? We become aware of the moment in our programming and our conditioning and the nature of reality.

You know, we know this in mainstream culture as taking the red pill from the matrix, when suddenly we have this insight and awareness into, wow, things aren't what they appear to be. And so waking up is what most people associate with enlightenment or traditional spiritual practice, right? I see through the facade of the moment and realize none of it's true.

Waking up is the part of us that can become immediately aware of what needs to change in our lives, immediately aware of what's not working in our lives. And the thing about waking up is it's necessary for the rest, but not sufficient, right? I can wake up in a moment and realize, wow, I can't keep living like this, right?

I'm not eating healthily, or I'm in too much debt, or my life is unsustainable at work. So waking up is the realization of seeing the water we're swimming in and being able to make a different choice, getting a little distance from it. Now, the thing with waking up is, right, it's instant boom. I can immediately decide, I want to get healthy, I want to change my job I want to do X.

I want to find the love of my life. But that doesn't actually do the thing, right? That doesn't actually make that thing happen. But we have to have that awareness first before we actually get into the mechanics of it. So waking up traditionally is associated with things like mindfulness and meditation, right? We're learning to notice all the things in our consciousness that we used to be fused with firsthand.

As we wake up, we create a little bit of distance from them. We can see them as objects in our experience. And when we can see them, we can start to make different choices about how we're interacting with them or how they're driving us. The problem is waking up is not enough. So the second big piece of an evolutionary growth mindset that it takes to really change is what we call growing up.

And that's this idea that growing up is something that can only happen over time. Super important can only happen over time. So you can even think of a seed, right? An acorn seed. From the moment it's created, it has all the information it needs to become a big, mighty tree.

But you can't rush its growth. There's no way to go from seed to big towering acorn in an instant. It has to unfold over time. And that's what we call growing up. So growing up is traditionally what we see in media as the montage, right? This is where we're putting in our reps, we're putting in our training.

We're doing things over time to get better at them. It often requires a lot of failure, right? Trying something, it not working, and then it getting better. Growing up and waking up are two totally different things. And waking up does not grow you up, right? I can make the decision.

I want to be a master guitar player. Instant boom. I'm aware I want to be a guitar player, but then I have to practice. I have to grow up. I have to evolve and get better at my art. We do this a lot in men's work and in the type of work we do here at Evolutionary men, using the power of our breath and our presence and how we handle moments, right?

That all takes growing up. It takes practice. It takes putting in the reps. It takes choosing different responses to the moment. We as humans are continually growing. It's super obvious when we look at children. And there's lots and lots of research about child development, about how, you know, when a baby's born, it doesn't know there's a difference between me and you.

But over time, the structures in our brains develop and grow and support new types of consciousness. Now, one thing a lot of people don't know is that continues into adulthood. There's lots and lots of research now about all the different types of changes that happen when we continue growing as adults. Literally different structures and stages of consciousness that let us see more of the world.

Now, the thing is, you can't rush right to the end. You actually have to grow through them. And all of us individually follow the same trajectory that human beings as a whole have evolved through through the ages. It's pretty amazing. Hologram. Now we can wake up, we can have insight, we can have spiritual realization, right, that this is all changing, this will all pass.

We can grow up. We can actually practice getting better at an art or skill or a way of relating or showing up in the world or an occupation that can't be rushed. It has to happen over time. Now, it's important just to know about those two, to distinguish them. So you're not beating yourself up for the fact that while you may have a realization, things haven't changed, Right? That's a thing I see a lot of men do to cause themselves a lot of pain.

Growing up takes time. It takes practice, takes commitment, takes grit. In my view. It takes being in community, getting coaching, getting supporting, setting goals, accountabilities, getting reflection, getting support around all of that, and it supports further waking up. As we tend to grow up, we realize, oh, okay, things are different than they seem, and we continue to wake up.

Now, there's two more important areas, the third of which is what we call clean up. This is one I would also call healing. And cleaning up is different from waking up, and it's different from growing up. Cleaning up is basically dealing with the wounds we get along the way of growing up. So what do I mean by that?

A wound is, in psycho spiritual language, something that happens to us that causes an impact in our growing up and often splits that piece apart and maybe freezes it in time. So a lot of us have heard of inner child work, something we do a lot in men's work. And cleaning up, also known as therapy or healing, is where we have to go back and work on those parts of ourselves that are stuck or broken or not functioning quite right, that actually prevent us from growing up completely.

So to, you know, make this one very tangible, we can even just think about physicality, right? We might be training for a big race and then we injure our foot. Now, I can't reach my maximum growth potential, my maximum race potential, until that foot has healed. And the thing about cleaning up is it takes the most time.

Usually it's even slower than growing up, right? We got to really go in there and give it space and be gentle with it and allow it to come back to a place of wholeness. Now, that works with our interior components as well, right? Some therapies can take a long time. Takes a long time to dig into our past, takes a long time to unfreeze our nervous systems, Takes a long time to unwind trauma in our bodies. And you can't rush it now.

Just like some physical wounds, some emotional wounds never heal completely. You know, oftentimes I get guys coming to me saying, I want to get rid of this thing, or I never want to have to feel this thing again or this part of myself. And what I found is rarely do those things go away completely. It's more like a bum knee, right? It's something that used to work optimally. Something went wrong. We did our healing work to get it back as best we can.

So we can continue practicing, we can continue growing up, we can continue making art, but there's always going to be a little bit of tenderness with it. I'm always going to feel it in a different way, and I have to learn to work with it in my growing up, in my creating of art, and it's really just a part of me. Cleaning up is also where we have to do another way to put this is what we like to say, shadow work, right?

Reclaiming these parts of ourselves that split off that we're not even aware of. So sometimes traditional therapy or healing, we're aware of the wound, right? So we want to go get help on it. We want to go get physical therapy on it. We want to go get somatic therapy for it. But there's also a piece called Shadow, which is when we don't even realize a part of us got split off. A part of us got frozen in time.

A part of us is something we're totally denying or have abandoned or rejected in our system. So the thing about Shadow is oftentimes other people can see it faster than us, right? It's kind of hard to see your own shadow, but other people are like, wow, hey, there's that thing right there. Are you aware of that shadow? And you're like, what are you talking about? And it's through relating to the other person that it becomes apparent. So I've led many weekends for guys specifically around shadow work, right?

Shadow breakthrough weekends, where we. We go in there and try to figure out. What is it I'm not seeing? What am I not aware of that's been running my system oftentimes from an earlier age. And how can I give voice to that? How can I move that? How can I bring energy to that, to reintegrate it into my system? And shadow work and cleaning up are incredibly important. And they can take years, right? They're super challenging to do alone in a lot of ways.

And that's where community and group and coaching and accountability and therapists can all really, really help. And we need it because we can wake up and still have tons of shadow. We see this constantly with particularly spiritual leaders, right? People who have some kind of deep insight, but then have all kinds of shadow. Sexually abusing people, financially abusing people, physically or verbally abusing people. Waking up does not heal shadow.

Sometimes it can create a little bit of space to do that work. Again, it's not necessary, but not necessarily sufficient. But sitting on a cushion, years and years of meditating does not show you your shadows and does not necessarily heal those shadows. Just like sitting on a cushion for years and years and years will not make you a master tango dancer. It can support that, helping you create the most spacious ground of being to do that work in, but it won't do it for you.

And finally there's a piece called showing up. And that's how do we actually bring this into the world? We can wake up, we can grow up, we can clean up, but there's a way to do that all just focused on self. Showing up is really what happens in relationship, right? How am I showing up in relationship to the world, to culture, to my friends and family, to my loved ones, to my co workers and to the planet.

This is what we might call service. This idea that there's certain types of healing and growth that only happen in service. And then if we want to have an impact in the world, we have to take all this stuff we're doing and bring it out. So we actually have to show up for the moment, show up in the world. You know, this is where I like to think of.

We're doing waking up, we're doing growing up, we're doing cleaning up. And showing up is really where the rubber meets the road, right? It's where we leave the monastery and take it into the marketplace of how can I actually relate to others and then get feedback on my relating, which then I filter back into my waking up, growing up and cleaning up. None of these are enough alone. You can think of what it really takes to Grow as kind of a cross training.

And you need all, all four of these elements to really create sustained change. I've just seen it time and time again now. As you've heard before, I think one of the best tools for doing this is to join a men's group, particularly a group that meets regularly over time, where you can get support in your growing up. You're cleaning up your shadow, you're waking up and you can actually practice showing up, right?

Showing up differently with men showing up and using her voice, it's not a straight path, right. Sometimes working deeply in one area will unlock something in another area and our energy will shift there. So we may have a cascade of waking up moments. Just tons and tons of realizations and awareness about how our life's been working and what we haven't seen, which then leads us to go into therapy and get shadow work or join a men's group or do a weekend and then boom, we see, okay, these are the things that have been holding me back and this is what I need to change now.

I need to go put in the reps back in life, right? I need to actually practice over time, create my art in the world and show up regularly. So many modalities tend to just focus on one arena of these, but you need all four. And if you want to be an evolutionary man, you need to do an audit and make a checklist. What am I doing to wake up? What am I doing to grow up? What am I doing to clean up?

And what am I doing to show up in the world in service of not just myself? Don't want to just be spiritual narcissists, but. But we want to use our growth as a way to support and serve others. In the end, it's kind of the only thing that matters. So where are you in your journey of waking up, growing up, cleaning up and showing up? Let me know. Send in some comments at jasonvolutionary Men and if you want to join us on a journey, an evolutionary growth journey with other men, you can get some information about my high end coaching program for dating and relationships at Evolutionary Men webinar.

There's a free training there. And at Evolutionary Men events, you can keep up to date with some upcoming drop in men's groups where you can really get into a community of other guys who are doing all this type of work. See you 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. Apply.