What to Do When You Want to Withdraw

All right, and welcome back. On this episode, I want to talk about something I've noticed in my career as a men's coach, men's group, facilitator, and guide.

And I think it ties into what ends up being a source of a lot of pain for men, and that's the male culture we were raised in the type of relationships we've been conditioned to have with other men. So essentially, it goes like this, right? I lead men's groups. I lead a coaching program. I coach men. Men are often giving me money to support them. It's one way to think about it, right?

To support them in their dating, their relationships, their careers, their purpose, whatever that might be. That particularly brings them to me and the work I'm creating with other men in the world. And many times over the last years, I have been shocked and saddened by the following experience. So one of my programs in particular, I run meets every week. Every Wednesday night, we're meeting, and I've had the experience that on many, many occasions now, at some point, a man will share.

Wow. These last two weeks have been the hardest weeks of my life. Or I've been really struggling. I've been really down in the dumps. I got rejected from this girl, or I didn't get this job or whatever it might be, and that they've really been suffering and in some kind of pain. And that moment's always a little wild for me because I'm like, and why didn't you let me know during that time? Right?

That's a time I would have loved to support you. That's a time the men in our community would have loved to support you. But they didn't reach out, right? Until they maybe started feeling a little better or X or Y or Z. I bring this up because in that moment, you know, what it's about is not shaming them for doing something wrong, but helping to illuminate. That's an opportunity to start leaning in to me as your coach and the other men around you as a community. And that opportunity, I think, is often missed because so many of us guys just have it so deeply woven into our nervous systems to withdraw when we're struggling.

Right? Whether that's the lone wolf pattern, I've talked About before, whether that's. I don't want people to know I'm struggling because I have a certain image to portray or for a lot of guys I work with, that's just. Well, I've never known there was another option. I never knew there was another way I could handle this or my body, my mind, my heart, just even forgot that that was an option. And a lot of men don't reach out in those times because a, they either didn't have very present and attuned caregivers that really resonated with them in that space.

And what I mean by resonated is actually enter into the space, enter into the emotions, be with you in that without having to initially change or fix it. Just like, wow, you're sad. Yeah, sounds like that really hurts. And then there's just a being with you in that, which can be an incredible gift when our primary caregivers have the capacity to provide that for us and you don't because they just haven't been trained or their family of origin has patterned in different things.

Right. And there's also, you know, that kind of stage between childhood and adolescence and puberty where we don't know any better and we're still open like a lot of kids are. Maybe we start to bring our feelings. And there's a moment most men I know have experienced where they did that and suddenly they got shamed or made fun of for it. All the different words we've heard rather abused and used to demean men.

Right. Things I grew up hearing other men call other men when they were in an emotional place, right. When they were showing some kind of vulnerability. At that age, you don't know that it's actually those guys who are oftentimes in the most fear, fear of actually feeling what's happening in their bodies, so they have to push it out and deride it in others. Those early messages we often get from other guys really go in deep.

And I've many, many times in my own journey and other journeys I've gone on with men had to carefully unwind and unpack those moments to help make space for some new possibilities, right? Which is that that tendency a lot of us men have to withdraw when we're hurting or in pain, which, you know, truth is, it's not just a human thing, a male thing. This is part of, I think, the living experience of a lot of creatures when they're in pain, they kind of hide.

The thing is, we live in a time and place where those survival strategies like I've talked about before aren't necessarily what are going to support us in thriving. And so re patterning and reworking that tendency to withdraw when I'm in pain or suffering and changing that to that's exactly when I need to lean in. Lean in to other people around me that I trust.

Lean in in the case of the work I lead to other men around me that I respect and that can hold me in my pain and resonate with me in that pain. And oftentimes it's that act that facilitates deeper healing, deeper trust, and fuels us in a different way that often allows us to grow beyond where we've been stuck in life. You know, one of the many reasons, as I talk about I'm so passionate about group work is because it creates space and a field in a type of medicine of, oh, I'm not alone, not alone in this feeling, not alone in this suffering.

Here are other people that have also felt that, that have known that, that have struggled with that. There's something so simple about that, but so powerful and transformative for so many men. Just that feeling of, I'm not broken, there's nothing wrong with me. Other people experience this too. And the connection that comes from that is often what gives us the energy, healing and resourcefulness to keep moving forward in life.

The leaning in when we want to lean out is one of the strong capacities we can build as modern masculine leaders. Taking responsibility for our internal experience and our feelings and getting the support we need around that and knowing that just withdrawing and suffering on our own. There's nothing heroic about that. Often it's just us flagellating ourselves, hurting ourselves more deeply.

As human beings, we are socially driven creatures. We have an entire bundle of nerves going through the center channel of our body, the vagus nerve, that is all about connection. It is a nerve that is wired in with our sight, our sound, our visuals, particularly face to face eye contact and voice with other human beings that basically uses social connection to regulate our nervous system.

We are wired for connection to be made okay by connection, to feel nourished and safe and to actually go into a more parasympathetic state just from connection. So it's an incredibly powerful tool that's actually woven into our biology, our neurology and our socialization for how to resource ourselves when we're in trouble.

Right. And I've talked about before as a new father. I see this all the time with my daughter and raising her and that a huge part of parenting is when we're born. We don't have the capacity to self regulate. We don't have the capacity to identify our feelings. So our parents are kind of loaning us their nervous systems, help us breathe, to make eye contact, to cue our bodies that although that may have been stressful, we are safe.

It's okay. I'm here with you. Where we, we help our kids as parents understand their internal experience. Right. And actually develop the capacity to know what these different sensations in their body are and what emotions they're often strongly tied to that interoception, that capacity to be aware of our internal experience. It's pretty hard to learn that alone. We have to be socialized into that.

Right? Right. Wow, you seem really mad and frustrated right now. You're angry, huh? And then boom. See that land in my daughter's nervous system? Yes, I'm angry. Yeah. And then she feels met and understood not only by me, but by herself. Because now she knows what the experience inside her is and it's not as scary. And then we can work with it again.

These are just some examples of the context that leads a lot of men to not leaning in. We didn't have those caregivers to help us identify the feelings in our body. We didn't have loving, kind presence that was actually attuned to us enough to know something's going on. Hey, what's going on for you? You seem a little down. That helps draw us out of our own experience a little bit and helps us explore what's there and be met in a safe, face to face, nurturing connection.

So a big part of what I do when I'm working with guys is help create the space for them to lean in, to notice when they're having a hard time and to invite them to just share what's going on. You don't have to fix it. They don't even have to know. By just putting it out there, oftentimes deep magic can happen. And this leaning in piece, it doesn't even have to mean you are processing, right? You're doing psycho, spiritual or emotional processing on the problem or the issue.

Sometimes it's literally just being met by another human being. You know, I often tell the story of here on my website. I wrote an article called the worst date of my Life, which was about, you guessed it, the worst date of my life. In my 20s, when I was just starting to get into my inner work and I had a lot of unprocessed stuff in my body from lack of touch, from inexperience with women, from nervousness, from awkwardness, from not knowing my emotions.

And I was out on a date and, and it was going well with someone and I was desperate for physical touch. So I was too touchy, right? I was really kind of all over this girl and in her space because part of my nervous system was just so deeply malnourished from it. And as such, I kind of ignored some signals that it was just about creating a little more space around it. And we're on our way out and I'm grabbing her, walking down the city street, trying to pull her close, and she just shoves me, pushes me off and says, get off of me.

And my whole body collapsed. I just totally collapsed into about a four year old boy, could barely talk, went silent, didn't really know what to say, didn't even really understand what was happening in my body. And she even literally told me, it's not that I don't want that, it's just in public and it's just a little too much right now. But I couldn't hear any of that because my nervous system was shut down. So why am I sharing this story though? Because what happened the day after, I was in a men's group at the time, and one of my best friends at the time, you know, we were kind of connecting over text.

And it became clear I'd had a really awful night. And it also became clear that I didn't quite have the capacity to name it. I was still a little collapsed in it. And you know what he did? He just invited me over to his house, sat me down on his couch, and we played Halo for the entire day, Played a video game for the entire day. He just literally sat next to me so I didn't have to be alone, which is what I had done my whole life in those types of experiences, withdrawing into myself and his presence alone, that being with him.

We barbecued some food, we played some games. It relaxed me, it helped ground me, and it brought me back, brought me back into my body to the point where I could start to talk about what was going on, even though we didn't really go into it that deep because I was still early in my journey and I hadn't really fully understood it. But just the presence of another human being alone was deeply healing for me in that moment. And that's just one example of how powerful it is to lean in when our instinct is to lean out when we're hurting, suffering, or in pain.

And men's groups, as I so often talk about on this podcast, are one of the great resources for doing that because we kind of have our speed dial set up, we have guys that know us and we often also have guys that are tracking us. Because even if you bring your full consciousness to this, sometimes the pattern will win and you might just start to withdraw. But present and attuned men that are tracking you and give a shit about you will notice and may try to draw you out and make an invitation which will make it easier for you to lean in for that connection.

This is one of those tonics, this is one of those medicines that I think is a complete game changer for guys. It's when I'm suffering the most. Don't wait until you're feeling better to connect with people you really trust and love. That's exactly the time to reach out, to lean into others. Their presence, their trust, their listening, their nervous systems, their eye contact, their voice.

That's all going to support you in coming back to yourself, to grounding to yourself and becoming present to yourself and to just feeling safe in your own experience and feeling some energy and resourcefulness and knowing that, well, this isn't the end, as hard as it might be. I think it'll be okay, right? We'll figure out something. We'll figure out something to keep moving forward. So I can't stress this one enough.

Next time life gives you a hit and you want to recoil and pull away and go silent or hide the pain you're in, really slow down and think about, who do I trust I could bring this to right now? Who do I trust? I could just lay it all out. I'm really struggling right now because of X, Y or Z.

And then they'll hear me in that, they'll resonate with me in that, they'll be with me in that. That's a game changing capacity to develop as a man and in particular to have other men around you that you feel comfortable doing that in. Because here's the deal, it'll reduce your suffering faster. If nothing else, it's just more efficient way to live.

If you want to get some help and support in times when you're struggling, you can check out my drop in men's groups at Evolutionary Men events. And if you want to join my intensive dating and relationship men's group coaching program, check out my free training at Evolutionary Men webinar. Learn to cultivate deeper masculine presence. Until next time.