Why Men Are So Hard on Themselves(with Luke Adler)

Jason Lange: Luke Adler: Jason and I are back today talking about our passion, our deep interest in healing, working with men, working with people who are ready for a more meaningful, powerful life. So we're happy to be with you all, and we've been tuning into something that is part of our lives and, but more noticeable in these last weeks, and that's this experience of stagnation, of being. Of being stuck, of kind of, you know, waking up either in one day or gradually and just having this sense of, is this. Is this it? Is this. You know, I followed the script of life. I've kind of done the school thing, or I've gone and got a job. I've, you know, been. Been a good man trying to do the right things and trying to live with morality and ethics and give back a bit. And inside there's a dullness. There's something kind of stuck. I mean, it's not like it's all that way, but there's just this background feeling, and today we want to drop in with that. So, Jason?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I think this is, you know, something I've seen, come up with a lot of my clients, and I know you've seen, come up with your patients and just this idea of, you know, stagnation of things not moving and feeling stuck. And I think for a lot of us men in particular, this can be very strong. And, you know, our work these days, in terms of the shadow work we've been leading, a lot of this points to, you know, emotional stagnation of when just emotional content or residue gets, you know, stuck inside of us and doesn't move. And, you know, I personally think there's a pretty strong link between that, this type of stagnation, which means, you know, this lack of movement of our emotionality and a lot of the just, like, hopelessness, depression, numbness, kind of like, iciness that a lot of men I know feel. You know, we've definitely worked with guys, you know, who have come to us and, like, you know, or, like, I. I want to be able to feel. I wish I could cry. Like, right. We've heard that before from guys we've worked with, like, but I just. I can. And I think that's an indicator, a pointer to someone who has that. That stagnation it's like that, that lack of movement in their system. And the thing about this stagnation is it, it just, it has a huge cost on us as men, physically, emotionally, spiritually. And I think for the masculine in particular, you know, stagnation and stuckness are amongst the most painful states we can be in. Right. Of like, it's not only am I like suffering or not feeling good, but I don't feel like I can even move the ball forward. Like I don't know how to get any motion or movement in my life. And then suddenly we feel trapped or stuck in our life. And that is a dark, challenging place for men to be and something that, you know, we're really trying to tackle in the heart of shadow program that we run to give guys an opportunity in a very safe space to begin some of that movement, to go into these challenging parts in themselves. But I was super curious to talk to you about this, Luke. So for listeners that may have forgot, Luke's a doctor of Chinese medicine. And stagnation, as far as I know, is a big part of some of the work you do from that level. And I'd be curious to hear. Yeah, just from the Chinese medicine perspective kind of what that is. And then my sense is we can tie that pretty heavily to a lot of the work we're doing.

Luke Adler: I mean, the catch all phrase from common culture to describe stagnation is, is this idea of stress. And so stress is just one single word that really points to a complex layering of stagnation and stasis or as we're describing, something not moving. And you know, we could look at any system in the body and go, well, what happens when there's stagnation in the lungs? Well, then fluid accumulates and you get mucus, it's harder to breathe, you have to cough that fluid out. And it's harder to speak, it's harder to articulate. And that's a manifestation of stagnation at a physical level. Now you could correlate that to grief or to being overworked or to maybe not speaking up. And again, you could look at that in the digestive tract, right, stagnation of food. Or you could look at that in the liver. The liver is more stagnant. So you might feel, you know, a little bit more cranky, a little bit more irritable, etc. So every system in the body, whether it's the skin, whether it's the fluid systems, the major organ system, the lymph system, the joints, if there's stagnation in any of those systems, we go from a state of, you know, flow and warmth to a state of initially inflammation. Things get hot, things get agitated. And if that prolongs for a significant amount of time that actually that area will stop being hot and will become cold, which means you'll lose function, you'll lose warmth, you'll lose life force. And then, you know, the pathway to cold is the itises. So, you know, essentially all of illness originates with some kind of inflammatory condition in most cases. Meaning things heat up, they get, they get hotter than they should be. So it's like having a little fever somewhere in your body. And if that heat prolongs, you get at, you get. The tissue starts to agitate. It's almost as if you're rubbing it, rubbing your skin externally. If that's happening internally because something's getting hot, then that tissue will thicken, it'll get thicker. We call that fibrosis. So a thicker tissue has, has. Makes it difficult for blood to flow because it's getting thicker, it's getting tighter, and then the vascular system gets compromised and you have less blood flow over time. And that's where you would see like a colder condition arising. So when we talk about stagnation, there's a, there's a, you know, a biological process that is correlated with that. And of course there is always an emotional component. Always. And it's not to say that, you know, if you address the emotion, the body immediately gets better. It helps a lot, you know, but yeah, if you, if you don't address the emotion, then the body has to, has to adapt to that stored, that stored stance that we're taking emotionally. I don't want to feel sadness, grief, you know, my, my lust, whatever. I don't want to feel it. It's not been permitted in my belief system, in my conditioning. Therefore, I'm going to kind of isolate that emotion from my heart, from my mind, and I'm going to start to create stagnation. I'm going to, to essentially begin this process of inflammation and then this process of losing function, eventually losing function. So of course, long term, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna not feel very good and that's gonna get worse and worse and worse. You know, that's gonna progress in a certain way.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I love I. Man, I just, it's just blowing my mind hearing it laid out like that. And it just makes me think of, you know, this thing I've said before, but now I'm like, oh, there's. There really is something there of. You know, oftentimes as I've gotten more sensitive to the work, it's like you can look at people and start to see their bodies are taking the shape of what's unexpressed or unfelt or what has stagnated. Right. And I think you can particularly see it sometimes in older people. And there's like a. Right. Their body's actually like, it takes like a shape. You know, I have some of that shape in my forehead. Like, you know, like some of my stress lines. Like, there's a, there's something to that. There's the, There's a holding there. Right. And that. This idea that. I love what you said because it's like, you know, anytime. Anytime we stop an emotion in our body, it takes physical. There's a physical structure, there's a musculature to it. Right. So we're actually stopping, like we're stagnating that energy by stopping it. And, you know, I just, I often think of the imagery with the word stagnation of like a, you know, like a pond that just has no movement and there's just all the gunk and it's got like the algae layer and it's kind of gooey versus like a stream or something that has that movement and it's just like crystal clear. The water is working with the rocks and the environment and like filtering it. And it feels so good to get in something like that. Right. I think that's kind of what we're pointing to here in the, in the, in the system of that. That can easily happen. And, you know, I'm thinking of a man you and I recently worked with that I think had a pretty honestly incredible, mind blowing version of this, of he had been carrying some tension in his chest for decades, like, decades, as long as he could remember, an overbearing, overbearing, overwhelming tension in his chest. And I believe you had worked with him, he had worked with traditional pharmacology and it had helped, but hadn't quite moved it. And in doing some pretty deep work, I mean, he went deep. This guy went for it. Something unlocked in him. And for the first time really in as long as he could remember, he felt space there.

Luke Adler: Yeah.

Jason Lange: And that's like. I mean, I'm still blown away, like when he checks in about that, I'm like, holy crap. This is like, this is why we do what we do. Because his, you know, felt body experience is very different now in terms of something moved inside of him. He hadn't quite ever Had a safe space, I think, to access and move that before. And you and I got to witness that in a really beautiful way on retreat. And it's, you know, it's. It's not always that simple for every man. Like you said, the emotional doesn't always immediately fix the physical, but you kind of have to do it anyway because they are so related that I think where a lot of, you know, I work with a lot of guys. I know you do too. And, you know, the stats are pretty crazy for how medicated we are becoming as a society. Right. And I'm by no means personally anti. Antidepressant. I think it's, you know, the right tool for a certain time and place, and it can be a total game changer. And I've seen it legitimately save men's lives in certain conditions. But then there's like a. That's it. Like a chronic usage. Sometimes people just. Just. You get on this and then there's no addressing what's underneath in long term. That in its own way creates some stagnation. You know, a lot of guys I've certainly seen and worked with, you know, and you might understand this better than I, but as far as I understand how most SSRIs work is, basically they're taking the range, the window of feeling, expression, you know, high, let's say positive and low and negative. And they just narrow it, right? They. They narrow it down. Which, when you're in a very dark, depressive or suicidal place, is an absolute lifesaver, Right. Because it brings you to a point of, you know, you stop the bleeding. It's like an EMT coming in and just stabilizing your system. Once you're stable, then, you know, a deeper healing can become. Can become possible. But I think that's the step that's sometimes being missed now is guys get on it and they stabilize, and then there's no one to take them forward.

Luke Adler: Right.

Jason Lange: To take them to that next thing. And then over time, that narrowing itself becomes a type of stagnation where guys are just. They're not feeling high, they're not feeling low, they're not feeling much of anything. And. And that makes life challenging in a very different way.

Luke Adler: Yeah. Yeah. When that narrowing occurs over time and whatever crisis began, the need for an SSRI or an snri, you know, abates, and all of a sudden life stabilizes and there's not. There's not the kind of urgency to shore up our chemistry because of. Because of some external stressor. Then all of a Sudden you find, wow, I'm actually. My well being is reestablished. There's not an external crisis I need, you know, to be kind of remediated from. And wow, I can't feel. And I've heard. I've heard men and women say this, who are on them once. Once things are better and the docs just kind of left them on the drug and because we know it's very difficult to get off of these things. It's very painful and challenging. It's doable, but it's hard that they find, wow, it's hard to express my love, you know, really transmit my love. And it's actually very difficult to feel, Feel that poignancy, feel that grief in a good way, feel, you know, my heart cracking open. And I've worked with lots of folks, even doing shadow work many years working with people who. They were on an SSRI and they would have a certain level of breakthrough, but they themselves would say, I'm not able to get there because there's this blockage. And I know it's because I'm on the Wellbutrin or the Prozac or the Lexapro or the Pristiq or whatever they were taking. And it was only when they got first thing, they kept doing the work. They eventually started to crack. But then once they cracked and realized, well, I can actually face this very difficult emotion that I once. That once overwhelmed me. Now I can face it. I do have the capacity for that because I've been held in a container that can guide me through it. Now I feel like I can come off the ssri, whereas before, when I tried to do it, I just fell apart. I couldn't manage all of the backlog of feeling that I had been buffering myself from with a drug. And so that's an amazing thing that this work. It creates an energetic context for beginning to feel again. And of course, that's very scary for most human beings, male, female, you know, on the gender spectrum. But for men in particular, for men in particular, feeling is. Is frightening. It's frightening. And just a quick anecdote. I was working with a gentleman this week who lost his. His beloved father. Wonderful, like, you know, atypical, really great relationship with his dad and comes from a very conservative background. Never. They never said I love you, but lots of love was expressed in other ways. And he basically was coming to me like, you know, I'm crying all the time, and I'm. He was looking for permission, like, is this okay? Is this. Is this the right thing? You know, I'm on this drug, and I'm on this drug because, you know, I got to keep it together. And I, you know, I said, yes, absolutely. You know, the work here is to grieve. It's to feel. And that was essentially all he was needing. And all I needed to say is just for the next 45 minutes, reestablish that, you know, feeling is permissible. You know, this is okay thing to do. It's not quite what this podcast. I mean, we're always talking about that, but in a certain sense, he had a belief, a stagnation, that even in this moment with his. His dearest father who. Who died, that he was supposed to block that up and not feel it. That. That was very unmanly. And so it was just a beautiful session. You know, take someone who. Who really believes that macho archetype, and then to say, hey, you know, yes, you need to grieve. You need. You need to do this work, and. And you will feel better if you do it, you know, and of course, by the end of the session, how do you feel? I feel great. I feel really good. I was like, good. Keep grieving, you know, keep feeling it. You don't have to do it all the time, but when it comes up and it's appropriate, take a moment, cry, think about your dad, talk to him, you know, and it's actually moments like that, you know, when you work with folks that have really been taught feeling is weakness or, like, that's not allowed in the. In the ethos of being a man, and they start to get like, no, I need to go there for my health. And then they do like, the gentleman we were just speaking about and find, wow, this really works. You know, it's. It's so hardening. I know for both of us when we see a man just start to embrace that this is a really a good thing to do.

Jason Lange: Yeah, it's part of the. You know, I think part of our mission is create a new culture for men to connect with each other in. And, you know, we cover in our program this idea of the man box and a lot of the conditioning we receive as men, which, yes, says, always be tough. Always be tough. A man is tough. And that often translates to, don't feel, don't feel, don't feel. And that has an impact on men over time. Like, we really see it. So then when men don't feel safe to feel, aren't given permission to feel, they have to get rid of those feelings through booze, through numbing, out through porn, through weed, through the many things we've all engaged with in our life in different ways. But it is so heartening to see, you know, men being able to step into that and from across the spectrum, right. It's not just woo hippies, right? When given the right tools, everybody can feel the value of this in the change that's possible when you're just given permission to be and feel. And, you know, it's interesting, as I've been sitting here thinking about what you were talking about with stagnation, I'm just spitballing here, so we'll see where this goes. But it strikes me that that initial process you spoke to of, like, there's an initial inflammation. There's like an initial heating up before, like, things kind of get stuck in stagnation of like. Like, I wonder if that's kind of correlated to emotional reactivity.

Luke Adler: Exactly.

Luke Adler: Right?

Jason Lange: You can just give it to someone and it works to some extent. I think the challenge of why that next step, when someone is stabilized doesn't always come online is the you know, the work you and I have experienced and do is highly personal. It is so unique to each. Each human being, each man in particular in our program, where it requires us developing a type of intimacy with them. Them developing intimacy and trust with us in the group. And in that context, we're often able to find, you know, these. These incredibly subtle, sometimes not, but oftentimes just like microcosms, these little wild moments that may not resonate with anyone else in some sense, but are so unique to that man's life experience that we can then work that in a way that I just think a lot of kind of mainstream doctors don't have time for, right? They come in, they read the chart, they say five things to you, and then they're out. And there's not that time where sometimes, you know, you and I are working with guys for 30, 40, 50 minutes to just kind of set the scene and. And create that opening. So then there can be that movement that really does release or move some kind of stagnant energy in pretty powerful ways.

Luke Adler: I mean, we're filling an incredibly unique niche. I mean, I was thinking about this this week. A dbt, CBT therapist who does this every day. They're working with three to seven people a day. And essentially they're very attentively listening, holding space, offering some reflection, maybe some feedback, you know, offering just an incredibly valuable service to people to have this safe, loving space and trained level of wisdom and insight to offer back to people. And that's not what we're doing. We're not therapists, and we're not offering that kind of work. What we're doing is. And in some ways why we can't do this every day is it requires so much energy and focus for us to be attuned to every nuance that someone is sharing. Their facial gestures, the tone of their voice, the movement of their body, what they're saying, more importantly, what they're not saying. And then to skillfully guide when there's a moment of opening, to guide them into their interior, where all of that hard wiring, those. Those hard nervous system structures live that say, I can't feel, you know, I can't feel my anger, I can't feel my grief. I can't feel whatever energy it is. And then very, very skillfully unlock these places. And of course, that often leads to big catharsis, big openings, which you and I are very well trained in how to. How. How to handle. How to take people into their trauma in a very safe, trauma, informed way and very intuitive. We're not taking a step by step approach and running people through an exercise to get anywhere. Like you said, we're right there moving with whatever's going to unfold and we have enough skills to move with you when something new arises. We're not, you know, we work within the context of just flowing with what's there. Not, okay, let's do what we want to do with you rather than what you want to do. And you know, the, the, that's kind of the, the magic of, it's not really a method, but how, how we work. Coming back just to a moment to highlight something you said, the, the what all this conversation is pointing to, we've alluded to it, is this larger, larger cultural context of what it is to be a man. And in huge, to really a huge degree stagnation. The stagnation we feel as men right now is an evolutionary challenge. We do not have any role modeling or templating for how to be men anymore. Do we persist with being kind of the macho, all capable big dicked man who can handle any challenge and is impervious to feeling, or you know, the nice guy who's kind of evolved to realize, well, that's really toxic, let me be more conscientious and when my reactivity arises, I'll just suppress it down, be in my heart, be very sweet. If those are my two options as men and society doesn't really like either of them anymore. Society doesn't like really respect the nice guy, doesn't really respect the macho dick. Where does that leave us? Do we vacillate between being the macho dick and the nice guy? Is that the new strategy? Like fuck you, I love you, you're so sweet. Get the fuck away from me. You know, sometimes in our work, like, you know, if you look at it from a distance, you say, oh, we're training the nice guy to be a jerk and the jerk to be a nice guy. And then somehow some balance occurs, but that's really not what we're doing. And you know, I think at the heart of stagnation and that the heart of shadow, our program where we're coming right into that nexus between the two options we have and we're feeling into this evolutionary push of what are men being asked to become? And we're literally creating a container for that to occur. And I think that's the cool thing for us to riff on here, not just getting the stagnation moving. That's the first part. But then what is it that we're sensing is arising out of that. And that's something that we're seeing in our men's groups, our personal groups, and of course, the groups we're facilitating. It's very exciting.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I'd say it's a frontier. It's an actual emerging frontier and it's been so heartening. We just wrapped a cohort of our Heart of Shadow a month or two ago and then our first one, you know, nine or so months ago. And to see what they're creating after us, to me is what I was telling them, some of them the other day in a follow up session of like, this is what's fueling us. Like, seeing how you guys are continuing to come together and support each other is so inspiring to me, to Luke, of, like, wow. Because there's something happening there that you just don't see a lot of places in terms of a level of brotherhood and love and camaraderie and safety and, you know, authentic, like, calling each other forward to be more that, I think, is this new frontier that, yeah, has that open heart, is grounded, is powerful, and has a certain emotional fluidity to it that we have not seen modeled to us. Right. I think this is one of the real frustrations for a lot of men I work with is there is a lot of attention right now on the toxic masculine. Right. This idea that, you know, all the evils of the masculine is done. But as my friend Keith once pointed out, like, nobody is talking about, well, what's the positive version of that? Right? Like, so what, what can we replace that with? What is the healthy version of that? There's, there's almost no cultural energy there right now outside of some of these small containers of men's work, I would say where there is this realization that, yeah, we need to carry something forward. And, you know, I think we're living experiments of that, of what it means to, you know, go into the challenging emotions, to go into the stagnation and learn to move it and then be inspired by it.

Luke Adler: Yeah, it's really interesting, you know, because for, for, for so long we've been depending on women to fill this emotional gap and, and have that soft space where, you know, we can come and like, be more honest with our, with our women in our lives. And, and you know, women are, certain ways are like, okay, I don't really want to be that for you all the time. And so then we go, we, you know, because we go to other men and we get a certain kind of relief from men, but largely that, that Culture is utterly persistent. And it's a little tricky for sometimes for me, you know, I hang out with you and friends that are like you and I forget that, that the default culture is still that way. It has not changed at all. And every once in a while I find myself back in a sporting environment or you know, with, with folks who aren't doing much work and I'm, I don't know that I'm shocked anymore, but it's a little bit surprising. Like what are we still animating this kind of stupidity and lack of insight and lack of heart and kind of self respect and you know, the, the, the evolutionary stage, this new frontier, it's, it, it has something to do with love, has something to do with firmness, with intelligence, with kindness, with innovation, with, with proper boundary setting. It, it, it truly is this, it's something I think as men, we're all sensing and at the source of the stagnation, that resistance is this longing to become, to become something we all sense is possible and is within us already. It's the pieces, the building blocks are there and in order to develop them, we need to template off of each other. We need to kind of show each other, not necessarily the way, but share with each other our longing to become something more magnificent than we've been. And I think as men, we all want that, we all want that and we all sense it. And it's by getting together in a group and sharing that longing, that desire to crack not just open, but into something more refined and reflective of our deep inner goodness that we, you and I, are discovering. Wow, there is a new man arising on this planet. And thank God, because we are on, in some ways a leaderless planet. This is a leaderless planet. There are not leaders who are truly creating a future that we want. In fact, it's a caricature of dumbness and stupidity that we see in some ways at that level of politics and pop culture, strongman culture, you know, the utter expression of, you know, diminishing others. I mean, it's, it's ridiculous. And of course to me it's like a cosmic joke of, hey, we're here to grow. And let's put like the exact opposite up on that for display, you know, and so that's why for me, you know, our work is it comes down to a form of, of activism. You know, we're doing this not because it makes us feel good, but we think this is the best thing we can do for the, for, for our species, you know, for humanity to perhaps stay on planet Earth and keep existing. This is where we're putting all of our ducats. Because men. Men have to play a part in this. Women are like, all right, y', all, like, you know, we can do what we can do, and, you know, we need to carry our. Our part as men and kind of rectify this cultural impasse we find ourselves at.

Jason Lange: I think that's so important that. Yeah, the. The right. The argument I make a lot right now is the world doesn't need less masculine and men. It needs more, but it needs this evolved, healthier manifestation of it that is integrated with the feminine and shows up for the feminine and cares for the planet and each other. And that's definitely a core part of, I think, what inspires us. I also want to highlight, you know, what you were saying about the group, you know, know, bringing it back to stagnation. I think one of the reasons you and I, you know, we both do some individual work with guys, but the. The sweet spot we've identified where, to me, it's like, this is the leverage point where the most movement often happens is in a group. And I think part of that is because as energy moves in one man, it starts to break the stagnation of others. And, you know, I. I haven't quite found the term for this, but there's. You know, I call it the, like, the vortex or the swirl or that. Just that experience we have in a group where one man goes in and moves something and touches something really real and deep. And then that starts to create a momentum, like an energetic impulse through the field that starts to shake everyone's shit up, right, and starts to move thing. And then there's this, you know, we've heard guys say, like, wow, I saw him go for it, and I realized, okay, we're not here to fuck around. Like, this is. This is it. This is real. We're gonna all go in here. And that inspired me to, you know, take on a piece of work or touch something that maybe I'd been afraid of or didn't quite know how to get into. And so the group itself becomes almost like a inoculation against stagnation, because as each man just has a reverberation, it shakes through the other man. And then the whole group is suddenly. It has its own energy, and it's shaking everybody up. You know, I'm thinking of those, like, old parachutes, you know, you'd get in a circle and, like, move the whole thing up and down. And it's like each man's doing his own little thing. And then it creates a huge wave that. That reverberates and kind of starts to break up that stagnation in. You know, I saw this just in one of our groups recently where one man was holding something, and it was really intense and personal and vulnerable for. For him. And he was brave enough to presence it to the group, and it had to do with the group dynamic. And it made that group stronger. It made that group more real and authentic, and it shook up the energy in a way, and it freed even more realness and vulnerability in that group. And it, you know, continued. Just when we thought, like, wow, this group's so deep. It's like, wow, he even broke through a whole nother level. And as you are often fond of saying, the shadow work in particular just keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper. And part of why we work hard to set up our groups so they'll have longevity is because of that opportunity to just keep going deeper and hitting, breaking up, in a sense, even deeper wells of stagnation, which we won't get into as much today. But oftentimes we start to hit stuff that's not even just ours. That is our lineage, our fathers, our grandfathers, our grandmothers, our mothers, our culture around us. Right. As well, in that we start to do this work. In many ways, that has a real impact.

Luke Adler: Yeah. I mean, you said it that the masculine vortex. I think vortex is a brilliant word because it truly is. It truly is one. Once it's activated, it has its own energy source, and it's perpetual in motion. It's like a flywheel. Once you wind it up, it can just keep going. It does need to be tended every once in a while. It won't go forever. That's why we set up certain structures around. Around these groups. The masculine vortex is. Is a life. Is a life tool. It's a life. It's not a tool. It's an engine. It's a life engine, you know, for. For your life to work better. And the six, seven years now going on that you and I've been in the men's group, it has been one of the core engines of my life. Stagnation does not collect in my life, and I have a low tolerance for it. I have a very low tolerance for stagnation. If I start to sense it, ah, I. I'm immediately tuned in. There's something here I'm not. I'm not with. I'm not present to. And I can immediately bring it to my men's group. I just know, that's where I can bring it. I can bring it to my therapist, I can bring it to some buddies. But my men's group, if I bring it there, it's going to get. It's going to get a lot of light and energy. And honestly, I think if someone would have told me what I was getting, I would have probably invested $100,000 in it. Maybe more like, maybe the cost of a house, because it's paid dividends so much bigger than that, you know, so the value, the value of this, you know, what we know, what we know over time doesn't matter how much money you have. What matters is the time that you have and who you get to spend it with and the amount of love that you exchange in that time. Whether you're a billionaire or you're making $30,000 a year, you have the same amount of time, and you have the same amount of opportunity to love. The money actually is worthless when it comes to what really matters. And this work and the masculine vortex is a container that increases the value of our time, such that how we spend it becomes much more meaningful and purposeful. And so, you know, if you're out there thinking about joining the program, I. I wholeheartedly encourage you to do it. We work with guys who, like, they're very, very wealthy. We worked with guys who have no money at all, but they found some way to pay for it because they sense the value of. Of their time and their love and how they want to spend it. And, you know, this is work that I know the rest of my life, I'm going to be offering this work because it's so meaningful. And as I say, as a facilitator and as a participant in it, it does get deeper and deeper and deeper. And it keeps me coming back because I'm always mining something valuable, whether it's within me or as a facilitator. I'm learning more as I work with more folks. There's always something new that occurs in every session we do. Something I've never, ever seen or experienced, but I'm totally ready for. I just welcoming the newness, the new gifts that are born out of the stasis, the stagnation that we all inevitably feel in life. The great indicator that something new is here to feel and to know.

Jason Lange: I love that. And as we start to wrap things up here, you know, we're recording this just around the solstice in 2023, as our year's winding up. And I was doing some reflecting on my year and yeah, even I can stay. I can say hands down that some of my biggest highlights this year were when we were on retreat and work with, like, when I think back to, like, oh, these were some of the most kick ass moments of my whole year. And I had a pretty great year in a lot of ways, but I was just thinking about that. I was like, oh, my God, that's so. It feels so good to just look back. And it was like, that was really time well spent and so precious. Precious. And so at this moment, we do have another cohort of the Heart of Shadow coming up. You can always find the latest information about our latest. We do run it multiple times a [email protected] but as we're recording this, we have one launching January 23rd, 2024, and it is filling up. So if you're curious about enrolling, definitely check out heartofshadow.com there's tons of information on the program, the retreat, everything that we do there. There's also a place you can chat with me if you have questions. You can book a call with me if you want to talk it through and make sure it's the right fit with you. And it's. It's gearing up to be a. An awesome group. We've already had a bunch of guys sign up, and if you're looking for a change, if you're feeling that stagnation and you're like, I can't do this for another year. I need something different. This really is an engine, you know, an opportunity to change that. And I love this idea of the masculine vortex and, you know, this engine of, you know, really love. I think, as you've put it before, like, the. The love that's generated in these groups is, like, so refreshing. Just in a world that I often don't feel that so much, and I'm like, I feel into these moments and these connections I've witnessed these men create, and I'm like, okay, I. I have hope. Like, I really just genuinely do when I see what's being built in groups like this. So definitely check it out and join us. And we look forward to. Yeah, getting in the room with you and doing some deep work.

Luke Adler: That's right. Jason. So great to be with you and just always a joy to be in your presence and, you know, hoping you have a great, great next week or so. See you soon.

Jason Lange: You too, man.

Luke Adler: All right, brother.

Jason Lange: If you're interested in working with me around dating relationships or your masculine presence in the world, just go to evolutionary men apply.