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

Jason Lange: All right, and welcome back. So I'm once again super stoked to be here with my man Luke Adler to continue kind of our Heart of Shadow podcast series. And today we. We're here to talk about something I think we've both experienced in our own lives, but absolutely something we've seen in many of the men we work with, which is this tendency to be extraordinarily hard on ourselves as men and kind of what the roots of that are, what the consequences of that are, and how we think that can be worked with.

Luke Adler: I was struck, Jason, just this week, I was working with a gentleman who. He was telling me everything he's doing for his career. He just had another child. His wife has some postpartum stuff. And, you know, he's working eight, nine hours a day, goes home, takes care of the kids, cleans. And then he just kind of off the cuff, says, you know, I'm so lazy. And it was shocking. It was shocking to hear that phrase, I'm so lazy. And I said, what. What are you. What are you talking about? Tell me more about that. We flushed it out a bit, and, you know, he started to point out the incongruencies, and he fought me on it for a good 10 minutes, that he was lazy and he shouldn't be taking time to just have some, you know, idle time between clients, between patients. And, of course, it's. It struck me, oh, my gosh, here's a guy who's done a ton of work, very kind, very sensitive, very open heart, and he is extremely hard on himself. There was just no room. No room for him. And all these people that he's serving, his patients, his clients, his. His colleagues, his wife, his kids, there was no room for him. It was like this underlying belief if. If I'm not. If I haven't given every last drop of me, then some. I'm doing something wrong, I'm screwing up. And here we are. Here we are.

Jason Lange: Yeah. It strikes me, you know, I once heard kind of the summary of the pain of men and the masculine, a lot of times is just this fear that we're not enough. We're not enough. And that's, you know, an example of I'm only as good as I am achieving or outputting or accomplishing or executing. And that even though I may have a long list of things I'm doing, the list I think I should have is even longer. So I'm failing, right? And I'm a piece of shit. Or however lazy as he says. We start to kind of name and deride ourselves. And I think this is such a common tendency for a lot of men to just constantly be judging ourselves and comparing ourselves to some kind of mythic superman that can always be executing and achieving and doing more. And that any sign of taking our foot off the gas is some kind.

Luke Adler: Of weakness, you know, that. That there's kind of a polarity in that for men and amongst men around, it can get misconstrued as we're sharpening each other when we're offering some criticism, or it's very, very prevalent among sports. Like, I remember growing up playing soccer competitively, and it really wasn't okay for anyone on the team to kind of. To kind of boast about their skill. And in fact, the culture was, let's. Let's tear each other down a little bit. Let's make fun of each other all the time. And, you know, we. We liked it, or we learned to like it because that's how you fit in. But there. There wasn't this space to kind of shine, even though there were some, like, remarkable people and players. I recently started playing pickleball, which, of course, course, is this huge trend in the United States right now. And I'm meeting a bunch of new people and playing with a lot of men, and I've been struck by the criticism towards self. I'm playing with these guys, and when they, when they miss a ball, you know, it's such a silly game. It's kind of like the ball makes this really kind of funny sound, and it's kind of a goofy social game. But when. When a guy misses a shot, man, he's like, there's a guy who says, oh, if you want to be on my team, we're going to lose every game. Come and play like it. It's like a caricature or a joke of, like, you know how shitty I am, and let's make fun of each other. And this truly is the culture that we live in as men. It's, it's. It's. Hey, let's get together and deprecate ourselves, each other. And it's not so much we're tearing each other down, but we've all agreed to not, not shine and, and to not even not shine, but just, you know, Allow criticism to be part of our culture, particularly towards self and towards each other. One more thing. There's one guy that I've been playing with, and he. He will, like, constantly point out when I. When I make a mistake. And I'm. And I'm out there just having fun. I really don't care. It's just idol. It's just fun time for me. He's like, well, Luke, you know, step into the ball and Luke, do this. And I'm like, dude, shut the up. I'm trying to have fun. You know, I'm here to have fun. I don't give a. If I hit the ball over the net, you know, but it's. It. It rubs, you know, rubs up against something, you know, in me. And certainly I. As I step out there in culture more, and it's not in kind of in a more awakened way, I go, wow, this. This still is the predominant culture for. For men. For women, too, but certainly for men, there's this criticism that pervades our social constructs. And of course, then we. We self identify.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And I think that this is a really nuanced thing in the men's work world because there is so much emphasis on feedback and challenge, and that's how we grow. But that is often pretty different than criticism. And the thing I hear you speaking towards is, you know, I think outward facing criticism towards other men has kind of been the more, I don't know, common bro style of, like, kind of tearing each other down. The macho jerk, as I often say. And, you know, a lot of guys grew up around that, and they're like, no, thank you. But instead they just aim that inward and it becomes self deprecation, becomes the way to, like, well, as long as I'm tearing myself down, there's no space for you to tear me down, so I better do it first. And kind of set the bar low, set the expectation low. It's like the. The negative side of the whole Eminem 8 mile. Like, yeah, if I. If I give you all my shit first, you can't attack me for it.

Luke Adler: Right.

Jason Lange: And there's like a healthy version of that that's kind of owning that, but then there's taking it too far, which I think is this deprecation, which ties in a lot of times to shame. You know, I heard. I can't remember where I was listening to, but I heard this great, interesting nuance on shame I had never really groked before of. It can be a way to create safety. So when we feel shame it actually can create safety for ourselves and in our environment. And I think deprecation is a big part of that. So men kind of tearing ourselves down can be a way to like, okay, then no one else can tear me down. And it just becomes a habit, you know, for so many guys, this, this habit of I'm not enough, if I.

Luke Adler: Beat you to the punch of punching myself, you know, then there's no more, there's nothing left to beat up, you know, let me take myself down. Yeah, and kind of out of the fight before it even starts. I really like what you said there about safety. It's so true. You know, when we, when we deprecate, when we self criticize, there is a securing of our being in that, that even though we don't get to feel big and bright and shining, we do, we do feel safe. We've established a boundary of, you know, I'm agreed already that I am less than and, and not enough and unworthy, et cetera, and so on. And anything you say would, you know, just affirm what's already there and can kind of stay small. And, and then of course, just the natural impacts of that on our well being, on our energy level, on our vitality, digestion, sexual function, et cetera. You know, it's, it's just, it's a slippery slope. And you know, you and I are in our 40s now where, you know, it's, it's interesting at our age, like you start to believe that, think that, you know, the health issues really can, can, can grow from there. You know, in your 20s, when there's a lot of vitality just innately in the system, the inner critic doesn't necessarily show up as much physically because there's just, there's just kind of more of a reserve there. But at certain point, late 30s, 40s, you know, that kind of thinking, that kind of mentality, it really can shut the system down in any way, right? Name any part of the system, the immune system, the endocrine system, the cardiac system, everything just, you know, slows down, loses functionality. And this is, I think this is, you know, it's a part of what our call is, is a return to vitality for men and that we don't have to go on with this narrative that, oh yeah, you're 40, you know, things slow down and you know, you're 50, you're getting older and you're 60 and, and you know, there's some validity to that, but that's a story, that's a narrative that is actually Perpetuates a certain letting go of vitality that you and I are actually very against that. That belief system that says, oh yeah, let's just kind of take our slow steps towards the grave, you know, into the funeral pyre, we'll just begin our slow death process. That, you know, that's.

Jason Lange: Yeah, totally that. And I think that threshold moment of. Yeah, it doesn't have to go that way, but there's more of a choice. There's a choice. Right. We have to start taking action to some extent. It's not like when you're young, there's kind of that automatic energetic reserve and certain level of vitality, but it has to be tended.

Luke Adler: Yeah.

Jason Lange: As we get older and you know, the work we're leading with men I think is one of the primary ways we can tend that. Because you know, what we hold emotionally, we hold physically in our body. There's like almost always a correlation there. And that has a massive impact on our nervous system, our energy, all of that, our well being, our immunity. And so you and I were just talking before this call about this other idea that I just really see showing up in my life that relates to all this. And with men is often our conception of self is the slowest thing to update. So I see this a lot with guys I do work with or that start doing transformational work. They're making progress. Things are actually shifting, right. Their, their life system, their relationships. They're different than they were, but they still think of themselves as the same person they were. And so all that story perpetuates in terms of I'm too lazy or I'm not enough or I'm a failure. And our concept of self is just really slow to update. And so we'll hold on to these, you know, deprecations, these sources of shame for a long time. And it's one of the things I've loved, you know, about coaching or one on one relationships like you work with clients in your clinic, and particularly in men's group, is other people can often see it, the change in ways we can't necessarily. And this is, you know, so deeply correlated to what we talk about when we speak about shadow. It's, you know, what's kind of present in our field, in our system that is driving our behavior that we're not necessarily aware of. Right. And so sometimes these old self deprecating voices or inner critic as we're going to label it and talk about, are doing that, but we're not aware of it. Right. So working in a Group people can start or facilitators like us can help us start to see that, oh wow, this thing is really running the show. And the crazy thing about this kind of deprecation and inner critic is it's almost always some external voice we internalized and then we forget that that's not us. That, oh, this came to me from the outside, but I've held it so long, I believe it is me. And a big part of shadow work, we work with guys is illuminating that of like tracing back to like, where did you first learn that? You know, no one comes out of the womb feeling shame for themselves like, or I'm shitty or things like that. It's, it's created in our relationships. But with that comes the, you know, other men can also see not only our shadows but our growth in ways we can't often see in the moment. Right. Because they're not with us minute to minute. Sometimes they have a slightly different perspective. You know, it's. I always used to think about it in terms of, you know, fitness. If you're like really working hard to get fit in your body, you see yourself every day and it's so gradual you might not notice it. But then you bump into someone who hasn't seen you for six months, they're like, wow, you look amazing. Because they have that wider perspective, that contrast. Right. You know, and it's the same thing with our internal growth in the thing I've loved is, you know, when you have six, seven, eight, nine other men around you who start reflecting like, hey, I don't experience you like that at all. That way you talk about yourself or how you're sharing about your life like, that is not the man I see or know that's in front of me. And then as the person receiving that feedback, we always have this moment of choice that's like, well, either all of these other people are batshit crazy and lying to me or my self concept is pretty distorted, which one's more likely? And then that becomes this moment of actually trusting the group that, wow, I trust that what you're seeing is actually a better representation of me than I even experience myself right now. And I'm going to trust that and I'm going to go with that because I believe you're not bullshitting me.

Luke Adler: That's the importance why you and I, when we design Heart of Shadow, we set it up in a way that the group container is a 9, 9 week, 10 week container with a 3 and 6 month follow up because we know we can deliver an amazing retreat and create beautiful bonding and have the breakthroughs. I mean, we've done it so many times for many, many years together, you and I, not to mention the decades before that, individually, we've trained that the, the container that allows for the greatest transformation over time is the continuity of a group that's been initiated into a new way of being that's free from the grip of the inner critic. And when you get a group of people together that are committed to lifting people up, the lovingly reflecting each other's highest, highest virtues that are already there and helping them grow, that default culture of criticism that we, we all live in, men, women, non gender identified, we all live in a culture of criticism that's normal, that's the water we're swimming through. But when you enter into a new culture that says, no, no, no, that culture is deleterious to the health of our species, let's create this new culture that's about lifting one another up, reflecting each other's beauty, virtues, gifts and skills. Over time, that change occurs internally too. People start to, like you say, eventually they start to see themselves. I see myself as a truly great man, as a great person. Of course, default culture says, oh, you're being arrogant, you're self absorbed. Like, yes, I know we can't help but criticize even when we're beautiful, we have to criticize that. We're so obsessed with criticism. We're so obsessed with tearing down, we're so obsessed with creating a half life around what's whole and unique. When it, when it shines, we have to look at what's wrong. We're kind of obsessed with a glass, a glass half empty perspective. And that's a choice. We get to choose that. It's utterly refreshing to be in a group where we don't, we can release the weight of that and we naturally kind of buoy up. There's a buoyancy in the group that everyone feels within a few sessions, you know, there's a, there's a bit of buy in and certainly by the retreat, that sense of inner criticism, inner critic, we're more curious about it. We actually see it as a vector for growth and healing. We're like, what? Wow. Oh, that's my critic. We can identify it as, as, as kind of, you know, we're seeing it rather than seeing through it. So much freedom in that. And when I was working with this guy that I mentioned beginning, I, I just, my heart, you know, activated and I, I just so wanted him to be part of a men's group. Here's a, here's a man who's giving so much, he's already very much in his heart, but was being pushed down by his own inner criticism. And it was painful, painful to watch that. And even it made me sad for the world because the world's missing out on a man who could be resourced and really feel vital rather than, you know, constantly being on that red line of burnout which really the inner critic is about. That it's like, let me keep you just on the other side of, of dis ease, you know, of, of unwellness. And that, that is, that is something we're passionate about because for us this is a form of activism. We want, we want men, women, people to show up in this world right now. And to do that we need energy, we need to, we need to create some space from this critical voice that, you know, at the very, at the very surface of life, certainly in politics, we praise the critic. You know, we, half of the world is very into criticism so much so we want to vote it into power as being so powerful. And of course criticism is a very powerful tool. Very powerful, yeah.

Jason Lange: And it, you know, it strikes me as, it relates to the self deprecation and shame and safety in that. It's, it, it's kind of safer, right? So when we're coming from the, the lens of criticism, you know, it's, it's often a much safer place than there is a genuine vulnerability in celebrating, let's just say, or feeling how good something is. Wow, I'm kicking ass in my life right now. I'm feeling a lot of feeling really proud of myself and what I'm created, creating. Right. That actually takes a certain type of vulnerability because you're opening yourself up to and it could not be that way at some point. And a lot of people can't hold that. And a lot of men, I think, have a really hard time celebrating in that way. And you know, a dear brother from my men's group I'm part of here in la, remember he always used to call it the process of kind of getting into the group and lifting each other up. He called it the sunlight effect. It's like, it's kind of like a disinfectant against all of those ways we tear ourselves down. In contrary to what most men think in these types of groups, when we celebrate or share our light or what's going right, a lot of guys fear that it's going to come across as like egotistical. They're going to Think I'm so full of myself. And there may be some places in the world, right, social media, some other shitty places where, yeah, that's the impact. But what I found in these groups is there's so much nuance and there's so much heart that, that a man celebrating actually uplifts the whole group, right? So one man might be coming in and having literally the worst moment of his life and another man sharing like, yeah, actually something good happened. For me, it allows that other man to feel some positivity in his body, some hope, some appreciation. And it can kind of. There's like an uplifting effect in the group as men share their celebrations just as much as their challenges. It's like, wow, so and so is kicking ass. Like, I can do this too, because I've seen his life's not all sunshine and rainbows, but he's making it work and he's not full of himself for celebrating that. So maybe I won't be full of myself if I celebrate something like that. And there really is that kind of uplifting effect that happens when we, when we ease off the pedal of this, this constant tearing ourselves down as mental.

Luke Adler: I love what you said there. So beautiful that, that vulnerability to, to, to share what's working in your life or just to share authentically what's there. There's something that's opening about that. There's a natural lifting quality and, and within that, if, if that energetic experience is honored, it invites other men to do that. And that creates another kind of safety. It creates a safety that's. That's more, that's more uplifting, that's more expansive, that's more, it's more like you said, that sunlight effect, there's a sense of, wow, we're all kind of lifting up together. And it is true, Jason, that for that, for that energy to keep growing, we do have to protect it. You know, again, this is why our group, this idea of this more extended container that we have this intent lives on which we've seen occur now, it's many iterations is so powerful because the group protects that. Not just culture, right? Culture is more of a surface word, but it protects that energetic phenomenon of the heart, the mind, the body opening, becoming more vital, more creative, more kind of insight oriented, productive, but in an integrative way. And, and so that's. That safety is on this side of the polarity too, you know, where the, the polarity of criticism is a contraction. It's going in, it's a linking up of arms and it's a battling against expansion. And of course, that feels good because you're clenched and you're tight and you're down, and you have a. You have a kind of a hoard, a horde of people with you fighting. But this other. This other gesture is more. It's opening the chest opens, lifts. There's. There's a. There's a beautiful kind of lifting and opening to the body. And it has a. It has a different kind of strength that doesn't need. Doesn't necessarily need numbers to be powerful. You know, you have a group of 6, 8, 10, 10 men who are doing this, and that ripple is. Is, you know, I believe it's power. It's powerfully large, it's impactful, you know, to families and communities. And, you know, working with the critic, the inner critic, is in some ways ground zero of. Of deep work. You know, it's. It's facing the limiting, constrictive, crimping energy that. That seeks to, you know, keep our. Our light, our intelligence, our kindness, you know, muted, coming through a tight. A tight pipe, you know? Yeah, yeah.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And what I love about the experience in groups is so. All this said, it's not like this type of group, you know, we're so, so fond of that. You know, we're helping men create. It's not that it's without feedback, in a sense. It's like I can trust to let go of my inner critic because I do trust that if you guys ever saw the men in my group, that I was really going off course, right? Making a spectacular bad decision or treating my relationships poorly. I trust that you guys would name it, hey, here's what we see. This doesn't feel so good. Like, I'm a little concerned about how you're showing up here in this relationship. So I don't have to be, like, as vigilant as breaking myself down all the time. It's like, okay, no, I trust these men. They know me. They know what I care about. They know what I want to move towards in life, and they will give me feedback of the healthy kind, right? Not the. You're a piece of shit. But, hey, what's happening here doesn't seem aligned with the man. I know what's going on, right? So even. Even the feedback becomes kind of sourced by love, in a sense. And that's one thing I've always been really impressed by in. In the groups I've been part of, is how different the feedback feels than the inner critic. Right? And we're by no means the first people that have noticed this. But it's like the way we're willing to talk about ourselves oftentimes is so brutal compared to how we'd be willing to talk to other people.

Luke Adler: Right.

Jason Lange: When you ask a man, like, would you ever say that to another man or to your son or to. Hell, no. I would never be that mean to someone else. Yet all day inside, we're just narrating that to ourselves in. Part of the group here is kind of putting a stop to that and getting like, this more corrective, healthy, languaging and experience so we don't have to talk to ourselves as heavy that way as brutally anymore. And by seeing how other men talk to us and how we talk to other men, it's like we get to change that relationship with ourselves.

Luke Adler: Wow, there's so much in there. As you were saying that I. I had this deja vu feeling that I. I didn't remember until this moment. I. I don't know if that's probably before doing this work. I. I think one of my greatest fears was someone saying to me, luke, you're a up. You are a piece of. Or you. You suck at healing, or you suck at soccer, or you. You. You know, just basically, you're. You're. You're a bad person. I really actually was afraid of that. Like, I lived with. I lived in a way where, yeah, it's like this feeling of like, the ball's gonna drop, the other shoe's gonna drop. This tension in my body just. I remember I haven't felt that in so many, you know, maybe 10 years, but it was always in the background. Was always in the background of, like, someone. It wasn't so much I felt like I was an imposter. People say imposter syndrome. It was just someone's gonna say something really mean to me, really cruel, like, you're. You've really up on that lecture. Or you're. You. That workshop was terrible. Or I think you suck. You suck it. You suck at leading. Leading breath work. You suck at acupuncture. You're actually a shitty healer. Like, there was a time when I really feared that. And I think since doing this work, like, I. I don't have that fear at all because I've gotten so affirmed by. By the work itself, from touching that wound in the shadow work and discovering, like, wow, that. That was. That was really my own inner critic driving me. And then, yes, from. From the men subsequently reflecting, like, oh, you're amazing. And, you know, other men that I really deeply respect. Telling me that I'm actually really great at this stuff and going, yeah, I thought I was pretty good, you know, I thought I was pretty good at it. And like, hey, you know, I, I think I am really good. And you know, even as I step out there more and more and you know, we see what's out there in the marketplace, we go, wow, we're actually pretty, we're pretty, pretty good at this stuff, you know, and it's really been from this work that I've been freed from that. It's almost like a sentence, it's a, a command, inner command that says, you are a fuck up. You suck at the thing that you think you're good at. You actually suck at it. I don't have that. And it's really because of this work and my men's group over time that have shown me, not in one burst, like, oh, you did a good job, but like over five, ten years. No, you, you really have something, you know, and you've earned it. I've, I've earned, earned my, my attainment certain way and God, what a different world. That's really not. Until this conversation I could remember that, that feeling that it was more than a feeling, it was this deep fear, you know.

Jason Lange: Yeah. That real tension that lives in our bodies and it can take time to rewire that as, as you experienced and it takes energy to hold it. So this is an example of. Right. That was a siphon of vitality. And you know, what's available on the other side that I've certainly experienced and you know, is part of the work we can do around the inner critic in the shadow is we can learn to trust ourselves again. Oh, yeah, I, I am good at this or I am doing well in my career or with my family or in my growth and I can trust that. I trust myself. I trust my perception of myself here that I don't have to, like, I think I'm doing well. But. No, you're a piece of. Right. You can't trust that someone's going to come in and prove to you and really show you that. Yeah, no, you don't have it together here. But as we move through this and start to unwind, you know, oftentimes these, this, this inner critic, this inner voice, the self deprecation, it goes back really far, you know, not always to the beginning, but often pretty early on in terms of our family system or some of our early experiences that it gets woven into our being and it's been with us again so long we often forget that, oh, this wasn't always the case. I was taught to believe this about myself. Sometimes consciously by someone in our lives, sometimes unconsciously, just by the, the nature of our family system or birth order or all kinds of right things that are often out of our control. And until we understand that, we tend to carry it. But you know, we've worked with guys and sometimes it does come down to like a moment we pinpoint and get to kind of time travel back to with them and they can see it like, ah, this is, this is my origin story. Wow. And oftentimes once there's awareness there, it comes out of the shad and we get to have a different relationship to it. Right? That's like, oh yeah, this voice is not me. It started here and it was taught to me or I used it out of necessity to survive in my life. I had to make myself small or something like that to survive. But now is not then. So hey, let's try something different here. And then the group itself becomes a safe place to start to experience that and practice that and try that out and get that feedback and learn to trust that internal sense even more and more and more.

Luke Adler: So intense. As a father, you know, I, I, you know, we have that desire to protect our, our kids. And my girls were doing jiu jitsu a few nights ago and I have a 10 year old and a 6 year old daughter, 9 year old actually almost 10. And the older, older one was, you know, dominating the little one and my, my little one started to cry and I said, hey, get off of her, you know, and, and it was this moment where I got scared and, but my tone with my oldest one was like, you should have known better, you know, Like I think I said, you know, you got to tune in, you got to be tuned into her. And it was like just this up parenting moment where the 9 year old doesn't understand tuning into the 6 year old and I'm like overlaying some sophisticated attunement. And my, my critic, like I was the critic in that moment for her and she felt shame and I said, wait, wait, don't go away. Stay with her. I was trying to keep them connected and she was just like, you dad, I want to run away. And I'm like, oh God, I know. And I'm like, but stay here. And I was like, oh man. It was just those moments for so many of us. That critic comes out in a moment of survival, a moment of fear. And you know, I, or a moment.

Jason Lange: Of care, you know, even that's like it can be well intentioned. Right. Like in that example, you, you know, you're just caring for your youngest. Um, but if it has that edge to it, right, which, which is an edge. I know you've worked. Right. That your own inner critic in the way that sometimes the way we talk to ourself can come out and how we approach other people sometimes too.

Luke Adler: Yeah, it's just, it's amazing to, to, to be in the midst of it, to wake up to it in, in, in a real moment, go, whoa, I'm not handling this the way I want to. And I, I'm not sure how to get to it, you know, but I know if I'm, if I can stay vulnerable, you know, I can, I can, I can find my way. And you know, it's just, it's such a wonderful, the critic is such a wonderful an awareness to hold because it, it's an edge into our vulnerability. It's an edge into our heart and into how, you know, into how we, we more deeply want to show up in the world. The critic is a way in to that if we're willing to get vulnerable. Right, right with it and underneath it and go, how, what do I, what am I really wanting here? You know, I'm, I'm wanting protect, I'm wanting love, I'm wanting care. But the way I'm going about it is actually not facilitating that. It's, it's protecting me, you know, from getting further away from that per per se, but really not allowing me to take a step towards it. And again, power, power of the group, power of deep shadow work is in a way we learn the energetic mechanism, the energetic movement to become, you know, aware of the critics impact and to soften and open into the power beneath it. And these are some of the tools. This is why we keep coming back to this work to, to have success, you know, in our connection with self, people we love. And power, the power of the group is, is a testimony to that. So yeah, we have our, another programs coming up in three weeks. Two, three weeks. We're, we're launching again.

Jason Lange: Yeah, we're about to start our, our third, third cohort of the Heart of Shadow. And so from, you know, for men out there who have had that experience of being really hard on yourself and maybe you haven't quite figured out the way out. You know, you read a book about self love and you think, oh, I just got to be, you know, self love more. But then it keeps, it keeps happening, right? It's, it's A process we have to go through. And, you know, the thing we've kind of touched on in previous episodes is that the inner critic and shame, those are created socially, right? So that we learn that behavior through relationships. Sometimes intentional, sometimes not. And what's important about that is that's where that often has to be healed. Right? And so we can't sometimes learn to just love ourselves. It's through other people loving those parts of ourselves we don't think are lovable, that it starts to transform, right? Oh, no, this guy's celebrating me. He's celebrating how much I kicked ass with X, Y, or Z, when all I'm looking at is how I've not been hitting the mark or failing, right? I'm just locked into that paradigm. But another man just, oh, no, man, you're doing great. You're making movement. You're changing. I. I see you. I see who you are. And it's like that. That starts to penetrate, right? And kind of get underneath all that layered belief and habit and open us up to just not being so hard on ourselves, giving ourselves permission to be like, oh, okay, yeah, you know what? I deserve a day off. Or I can go to bed early today. I don't have to keep working, or These different ways this stuff starts to manifest, where we. We start to take care of ourselves and honor ourselves and celebrate ourselves and love ourselves just by not being so hard on ourselves. And a group like the Heart of Shadow is a really powerful way to start that journey. And then because it takes time to give you the engine to keep it going well beyond the duration of our program. And we're really excited. We got a great group of guys already forming for this cohort, and there's just a few spots left. So if you're a man out there who's ready to make a change in 2024, definitely check things out. You can find out everything you need at Heart of Shadow. Always a pleasure, my friend.

Luke Adler: Good to see you again.

Jason Lange: You're interested in working with me around dating, relationships or your masculine presence in the world? Just go to evolutionary men. Apply.