Break Stereotypes and Discover the Real Path to Manhood with Owen Marcus

Unveil the power of vulnerability and emotion in redefining masculinity with our enlightening conversation featuring Owen Marcus, a trailblazer in men’s emotional wellness. Discover how embracing emotional intelligence and shedding the old, stoic male stereotypes can lead to authentic connections and personal growth. By slowing down and tuning into our emotions, you’ll find new ways to tackle life's challenges, from relationship hurdles to work-related stagnation.

Join us as we discuss the unique role of group support and the transformative potential of men’s groups like the Sandpoint Men's Group. These groups provide a sanctuary where men can reconnect with their emotions free from societal judgment. Owen Marcus shares how creating a safe and supportive environment helps men foster emotional connections, drawing parallels to tribal instincts and using science-backed methodologies to promote emotional health and personal development.

Explore the profound benefits of practices like somatic work and polyvagal theory in training men for better emotional regulation. Learn how these techniques aid in processing trauma and reshaping behavioral patterns, paving the way for personal growth and resilience. Through shared experiences and mentorship, men can confront past traumas and embrace a journey akin to Campbell's Hero's Journey, ultimately fostering a sense of brotherhood and breaking negative cycles for a more fulfilling life.

Key moments in this episode:
03:53 Owen's Journey to Emotional Wellness
05:01 The Importance of Men's Groups
11:43 The Science Behind Emotional Intelligence
14:52 Creating Safe Spaces for Emotional Expression
18:31 Practical Steps to Emotional Connection
20:35 Understanding the Threat Response
21:08 The Power of Breath
21:58 Embracing Vulnerability
26:38 The Role of Physiology in Emotional Health
29:20 The Importance of Brotherhood
30:45 Masculine Emotional Intelligence
40:27 Final Thoughts and Takeaways

How to reach Owen:
Website: https://owenmarcus.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/owen.marcus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/owenmarcus/
X: https://x.com/OwenMarcus
Book: Grow Up: A Man’s Guide To Masculine Emotional Intelligence
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/owenmarcus/

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Chapters

• 0:00 Embracing Masculine Emotional Intelligence
• 6:30 Men's Emotional Connection Through Group Support
• 11:22 [Ad] Rumi.ai
• 12:11 (Cont.) Men's Emotional Connection Through Group Support
• 13:42 Men's Group Training in Emotional Regulation
• 24:33 Exploring Masculine Emotional Integration
• 29:03 Men's Group Support and Brotherhood

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

In a world where men are often expected to be stoic, self-reliant and unemotional, what happens when those expectations are challenged? Today, we're going to explore a groundbreaking approach of slowing down to truly connect with ourselves and with others, and it's about embracing vulnerability, shedding outdated stereotypes and realizing that true strength lies in masculine emotional intelligence. This is a journey that isn't about fixing our imperfections. It's about understanding and embracing all parts of who we are, whether you're struggling with anger, loneliness or the pressure to always have it together, and so today's discussion is going to reveal how you can harness these emotions to become more of a remarkable man. So if you're ready to rethink what it means to be a man today, in today's world, I can tell you this episode is going to be for you. My friends.

Speaker 1: 0:47

And before we get into today's episode, let's also come to grips about one thing that is inevitably, there will come a time in your life when you will hit a wall, whether it's a marriage that's not working, a career or a business that's stagnated, or maybe your personal life has completely flatlined. So if you're dealing with any of these, or a combination of them, and you're finally fed up with where your life's at, then allow me to help you get clear on what needs to be done and how you can go about doing that so you can get on to living the life you were meant to live. Just go to theawakenmannet and download our free setting the compass exercise to help you get started today, and with that let's get on with today's episode.

Speaker 2: 1:30

The average man today is sleepwalking through life, many never reaching their true potential, let alone ever crossing the finish line to living a purposeful life. Yet the hunger still exists, albeit buried amidst his cluttered mind, misguided beliefs and values that no longer serve him. It's time to align yourself for greatness. It's time to become a revolutionary man. Stay strong, my brother.

Speaker 1: 2:00

Welcome everyone to the Revolutionary man Podcast. I'm the founder of the Awakened man Movement and your host, alan DeMonso. There's a couple of things I'd like you to keep in mind before we get into today's episode. What if the key to becoming a stronger, more resilient man lies in hiding your emotions, but in embracing them fully? And how might your life change if you actually allowed yourself to slow down, open up and truly connect with others? The other thing I'd like you to consider is the roles that you've been taught to play as a man. Are they serving your growth or are they holding you back? What would happen if you let go of these outdated stereotypes and really embraced a new model for emotional intelligence and leadership embraced a new model for emotional intelligence and leadership? So in today's episode we're going to cover how true strength comes from emotional intelligence, vulnerability and connection. It's about fixing. It's not about what's fixing what's wrong. It's about embracing who you are and growing up there. So listen, as you listen to our conversation, think about how you can start embodying these principles of in your own life.

Speaker 1: 3:02

To guide us in this conversation, I'm going to finally introduce my guest, owen Marcus's journey into emotional wellness and founding a company began unexpectedly in 1995, where he started his first men's group. This path led Owen to write a book, grow Up A Man's Guide to Masculine Emotional Intelligence, and to take the TEDx stage as a speaker sharing the impact of how 10,000 years of progress has cost men emotionally. And he has also successfully launched both non-profit and other initiatives like Everyman and now MELD, men's Emotional Leadership Development, and it's through these ventures that he's dedicating to help men pursue personal growth through science-backed, community-oriented practices. He's truly an icon in the men's personal development area.

Speaker 1: 3:49

Good, thank you Welcome to the show my friend, how are things? Yeah, I'm so grateful. I was just saying coming on to have you here and I love the work that you've been doing, and so, as we talk about on this episode or on the Real Revolutionary man, we're all on our own hero's journey. I know you like to do a lot of work with the Campbell stuff, so tell us a little bit about a time for you, though, when you knew your life, things weren't great and you knew things had to change.

Speaker 3: 4:12

I had several Probably the one that's most relevant around this is it was like the middle of the 90s. I was dating a woman, a beautiful woman and smart, intelligent and compassionate, and she was sitting on my couch and she says Owen, I don't feel you. And I would, I wasn't arguing, but I would explain why she should. And then she'd say, owen, I just don't feel you. And then I would give her a few more reasons why I was being emotional and finally I got smart enough to realize there were all reasons. There was nothing emotional about my communication.

Speaker 3: 5:00

So in that moment I realized then that maybe being in a men's group would be a good thing. And so I started a men's group out of my clinic. And one thing led to another. And yeah, now, 30 years later, we are seeing a boom in men's work, which I think is amazing. And I've always wanted that and I'm like you said, started several companies and never, never thought that it'd become a business. I just selfishly did it for myself, and I'm like you said, started several companies and never, never thought that it to become a business. I just selfishly did it for myself, and then I did it for the guys that were in my group. But our unique approach start started getting traction and guys started coming to us.

Speaker 1: 5:38

Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing I was saying is that, very familiar with your work, especially with every man, that's how I first came across your work, with what you were doing with that organization, and I like what you also talked about how similar conversations I had. I'm twice married now and even as much as lately as last weekend, I still find myself really having with that analytical mind and not really understanding what it means to lean into and to feel and express that. And I don't know about you, but I think that for us men we just never were really taught how to do that. I think that was something that I can. I'm the oldest of five and I can remember the moment that we were big enough to get off my dad's lap. That was about the last time we had any real emotional connection with my father and I think that's pretty typical.

Speaker 3: 6:28

Yeah, I think that is what are you finding with your work. Our lack of connection, I think, is a function of a couple of things Stress and trauma we had, so we can get into the physiology of how that just takes us out. But also the culture that we grew up in and that's what you're referring, Alan is that we've grown up in this Western culture. That really started, I think, when men had to leave home to work in a factory and women took over, and so we've had many generations where men just went around and it's really no one's fault, but it's become the default and until recently we never even thought about it.

Speaker 1: 7:03

Yeah, absolutely Completely true. And until recently, we never even thought about it. Yeah, absolutely Completely true. And I think it's, and I don't.

Speaker 1: 7:09

We started doing men's work or I started doing men's work up here just prior to the pandemic and I saw a really big shift occurring, and what was happening for me at that time was I was in a position where I had just about lost my second marriage and needed to really look in the mirror.

Speaker 1: 7:23

Thank goodness, my wife was strong enough to understand, to see the man inside of me that I needed to find number one, number two my father-in-law passed away and he was really like my best man and my best friend and I just had nowhere to go and didn't know how to express that. And I think I see more and more of that because of the pandemic, that because we didn't get an opportunity to come together and really work at things that we struggle as men to connect and we and at least I'm finding that we just don't, we're reluctant to reach out for help, and so I'm wondering why it is that we're like that. I know it's talked a little bit about culture and maybe it is some stress and trauma, but why is it inherent that men?

Speaker 3: 8:03

have this loan. I think some of it's in the genome where, you know, in the tribe we were the hunters and we went out and hunted. But we hunted as a tribe and what, as you probably know, that allowed our species to survive is that we could outrun any animal, and we didn't outrun them singly, we outran them as a pack, and that's how we often killed animals. We just outran them. So one guy would run and then he'd get tired and another guy would run and so, literally and metaphorically, we did things together and we did things that was dependent on each guy showing up, and we see that in sports or the military, but outside of that we don't really have that. And what's interesting is that often when you see guys talking, they don't face each other, they just face the screen or this field or whatever, and all that's true and we got all our stories about that. What I started to find, and I'm sure you do with your groups, is that when you create a safe place or container for men and some simple rules of confidentiality what happens here stays here and maybe a little training, the vast majority of guys will start showing up, Because even though we were trained to be the lone wolf we don't want to be, because we are that herd animal, the tribal man. And so we need that and instinctually, deep down in a genome, we know how to do it. So we create the right environment for it and men will inherently show up and they start to connect.

Speaker 3: 9:35

And the beautiful thing I realized is that we start teaching ourselves the things that we didn't get to learn. We start teaching ourselves how to be emotional as a man, which is different. For the most part it's probably the same as women, but it's different, and particularly it's different when it comes to relating to people. And so we get to see a guy like the classic example of some stoic guy or uptight guy or a guy that never had any affection and didn't know how to be emotional and how to give it or receive it sees a man that he respects to cry in a group because he's feeling something and he's honored by every man Right there. That just completely flips his model and pretty quickly, in his own way, no one's forcing him, he's doing something similar. He says he finds himself, you know, being emotional. He might not be crying, but he's being expressive and it's congruent. His thoughts, his words, his body, his emotions are all in sync and everyone feels that and, rather than being shamed for being weak or whatever we might be in the society out there, he's actually honored and then he's hooked.

Speaker 3: 10:43

I want more of this. I want to learn more, I want more practice and I want to stay with these guys, because this group that I created in Sandpoint, Idaho 20 years ago, the Sandpoint Men's Group, which is where I really started this new model We've had over 500 guys in this group. We got 60 guys in a current group. I'm in a group for expats which is a Zoom group. Out of this group and in this small town of 8,000 to 10,000 guys, there's a waiting list to get into this group because the group has this reputation and so men are starting to change and they're starting to see that often the vehicle to change is being with other men.

Speaker 1: 12:03

I can completely agree with that, because I think it's to your point is that we had an opportunity to model it and we can see that, and then when and when we're in those groups and we tend to start to see that shift. And I was really diving into your book and we'll get into a few questions about your books. I like the stories that you were telling in the book to help emphasize this, the path for men. But I want to talk about because your work is truly science-based, and so there's a study that was published, a psychology of men and masculinities, and it really is the highlight I think that you've used for your core program and it really helped develop this meld, and so I want to talk a little bit about what insights you pulled from that and how that started to shape the core program, just to back up.

Speaker 3: 12:45

I started this group 20 years ago. I realized that and I was the perfect example of this you ask most guys what do you feel emotionally and they want to find the closest door out of the room. But I realized when I had my clinic I'm working with guys I could pretty much ask the same question, but if I contextualized it around stress, which is to say the body, they'd be engaged. And then I asked them more questions and more questions, and often, without ever asking an emotional question, they'll start responding in an emotional way Because we're not labeling it as emotions, which I understand.

Speaker 3: 13:20

As men, for a lot of different reasons, we avoid that, and some of them are really valid, and so in this group, I started developing processes that really emphasize the physiology, which is where the science is really based.

Speaker 3: 13:34

And then, before I create Everyman, which is my previous company, I created this virtual course where I would just start to teach these guys virtually and some of these basic skills that we developed in our group, and then I brought it to every man and did a cohort that had, I think, 130 guys in it, and then the pandemic happened and then everything we did was virtual and we just hunkered down on doing this course and some other virtual things, and so this course is really the composite of all these years and research around somatics, somatic experiencing, polyvagal theory, which are all these different ways of saying how our bodies work or don't work under stress, and what are the simple things that we can do, which are a lot less emotional and more physiological or behavioral, that will shift our stress response, our emotions, our relationships.

Speaker 3: 14:32

And so we teach that in these courses, even virtually, which I was surprised at how effective virtual could be. And the key is not that it's all science-based, which it is, and we teach it well because we've honed it over the years. But you get to practice it, live, with other guys, and that's how we learn as men, we learn not through a book, but we literally learn through experience, completely agree.

Speaker 1: 14:56

I think that's the power of this men's work, and having participated in some group sessions with every man, I can attest that was really powerful. In some group sessions with every man, I can attest that was really powerful. And it's interesting how it's really about us being connected and paying attention, looking at our screen, really looking at and understanding what it means to really hold space, and I think that was another concept that I really like how you were describing that in your book about what that means for guys, because sometimes when I first brought that up with our groups, like holding space, what is that? And so let's talk a little bit about what we mean for guys, because sometimes, when I first brought that up with our groups, like holding space, what is that? And so let's talk a little bit about what we mean by that, about creating this container and how we can utilize that in our lives.

Speaker 3: 15:32

One way to explain that is that when we have stress and we'll just say trauma, because it's a little more obvious for trauma that we have an say, if this is our normal tolerance window, how much space we feel safe in is, say, this tolerance window, how much space we feel safe in is, say this. But then we have an experience. It could be you're a little kid and you fall down and hurt your knee. It could be a major experience. It could be divorce or whatever. You have an experience that's bigger than the normal space that you're in, the normal sort of emotional space, and then what happens is particularly as a kid, but then it perpetuates as an adult we can't have the complete experience and because we can't have it, we can't resolve it, we can't complete it. And so, going back to animals of pure physiology, I used to, you know, live in north idaho up in the forest and I had a meadow in front of my yard and it'd always be deer there. And if a local cougar took down a deer and the cougar wasn't hungry and it would leave, and the deer was on the ground in shock, pretending instinctually that it was dead in that freeze response. The cougar leaves and then the deer, a few minutes later, waits up and he comes out of shock and trembles. He shakes it off, then he walks away and he has no PTSD. He had the trauma but no affect of it because it cycled through. But we did not have a space when we had stress and trauma that was big enough so that we could cycle through it in the moment. So that's the basic physiology.

Speaker 3: 17:05

And then what happens in the group is you get a space that's really pretty big. And so what happens is, in a small way or a big way, a man has an experience and his inclination is to shut down the experience. They're truncated, repressed, it whatever, and not complete it. But either he senses or the men in the group can encourage him and say, hey, alan, that's fine, I see a little tear coming here, it's OK, or whatever. You've seen it in groups. And so the guy gets a sense that all right to feel is safe, I won't be shamed, I'm actually being supported and honored and, unlike maybe any other time in his life, he goes all right. I'm going to lean into my experience, the physiology of it, because he might feel himself shaking or breathing hard or whatever that is, and the emotion of it, and so that space is safe and it's bigger, so he can have a bigger experience. And so in doing that, he completes more of and maybe all of that particular incident in that moment and with that and this is a real, unique power of this some of the past trauma, ptsd, that's been locked in his body, more in his body than his head.

Speaker 3: 18:21

And thirdly, he starts to redevelop, or maybe develop for the first time, some new neural pathways. The pathway was like he's always right-handed, everything was done with his right hand. Suddenly he realizes he has his left hand. Wow, I can do things with this. And he realizes he can oh, I can have an experience, I can feel this, I can share it, I can show my vulnerability. And those neural pathways start to get developed every week in the group. And that guy that was whatever, uptight, scared, not able to connect to his partner Six months later you know he's a different man, and a lot of it's because the group has allowed him, in this bigger space or the safer container, to have a bigger experience.

Speaker 1: 19:10

Yeah, I completely agree, and I think one of the things that we talk about in our men's work is that, generally speaking, guys are going to come to me and they have challenges in their relationship and so they join, come in the group.

Speaker 1: 19:21

They're not connecting with their children, not connecting with their spouse, and so they have this deep desire. They want to connect is an opportunity to practice and model and to go back and not take on the biggest tiger in the relationship, to take on something small, because it's going to be messy. It's going to be really messy because you can't predict how your partner or the other person is going to respond, and so they need to develop those skills, and I think one of the things that I appreciate about your work and I mentioned it in the intro is you're really teaching men how for us to slow down, really slow down, and you came up with this rock concept that I really like, and I'd like to talk a little bit about the rock concept and how we can utilize this as a skill for us to develop in order to help us.

Speaker 3: 20:10

I think that's critical because again it comes back to the physiology. I think we all know this, but now science proves it when we have an experience, we experience it first with our body. So if we touch something that's really hot, we've moved our hand away before we even know it's hot. So our body responds immediately, and then science has shown that it's our body that responds, then our emotions, and the last thing that responds is our intellect, and then our emotions, and the last thing that responds is our intellect. So, given that, if we want to engage in a different way, whether ourselves or anyone else, we've got to slow down. And to slow down is to tell our physiology or our body that we're safe. Because when we're in a threat response, which is to say stress or survival response, as we should be, we're oriented outside, we're oriented in a primal way of we're in the woods and we hear something crack, so I'm going to turn. Is that a cougar? Is it a bear? Is it a branch that just fell? And we're instinctually going to do all that, and we need to. As a species and as an individual, we need to be able to do that, and then we realize it's safe, we reorient it. And so getting out of that threat response, which is a hyper arousal response, and then dealing with the threat if we have to, and coming down to the I would call it the idle, the baseline or the parasympathetic state, allows us to start to engage. So when we can slow down our physiology, we're telling ourselves, our bodies, which is our every part of ourselves, that we're safe. And so then the question is how do we slow down? And probably the easiest way is our breath. And what's interesting about the breath is the breath, for the most part, is an autonomic or automatic function. We don't have to think oh, I got to breathe in, I got to breathe out. It just happens automatically, like our heartbeats and all the other autonomic things, but it's easy for us to change our breathing pattern.

Speaker 3: 22:10

Breathwork has gotten real popular. It was popular back in the 70s and then it died, and now it's come back and more popular than ever. And one of the reasons it's popular is it's used as a way to release old stress, but also to change the current situation. And so when you start to breathe, particularly exhale slower, you start to slow down your respiration, you start to slow down your physiology and the upside and downside is you start to feel your emotions and that could be a little scary because we trained ourselves not to feel our emotions.

Speaker 3: 22:49

But even if you can, as you said, stick your toe and feel a little of your emotions and feel a little of maybe oh, my heart rate's beating fast and that's a huge step and you just keep practicing doing it. You can practice it in all these sort of art forms, from yoga to meditation to breath work All things are out there now on their own and train your body on its own. And then you can practice in relationship to others. And I agree with you, alan, that the best way to practice these things is what I would call the long tail, not in the peak of a arousal situation with your partner, but when a normal conversation where there were where you can feel something and lean in a little more with your vulnerability and screw up, cause you're right and I tell guys this all the time You're going to screw up.

Speaker 3: 23:38

But here's the beauty Women will, and other people, when they feel that you're really leaning in, even though if you're not doing it right, but you're slowing down and you're trying to feel and you're trying to be emotional. They suddenly get really compassionate and patient. They get impatient and maybe ticked off or disconnected. When you're, as we were saying earlier, you're just talking to them and there's nothing happening. And so the R is for I'll just back up. The R is relax, and we slow down to relax. So we slow down our physiology and then, once we're there and that's the critical part we almost naturally open up to be vulnerable. And we're opening up to be vulnerable to our own experience.

Speaker 3: 24:25

First, like I said, what am I doing with my body? Not, right there, it's big Just feeling your body, maybe the tension in your body or anything, and then feeling, maybe your emotions, and you don't have to be brilliant about it, you just go whatever I feel nervous or angry or something Great and then staying with both of those. From that place, you reach out for connection, you engage. You're not engaging from your head, you're engaging from your experience, somatic or emotional. And I've told guys, if you don't know what to say in an emotional context, say what you feel physically, because the other thing I often say is say what's true for you in the moment.

Speaker 3: 25:11

And again, as guys, we want to be smart, we want to be brilliant, we want to do it right, we want to perform well, and then we freeze. Or we it's like trying to want to be smart, we want to be brilliant, we want to do it right, we want to perform well, and then we freeze. Or we it's like trying to remember a name that you can't remember, and the harder you try, the harder it is to remember it, and so we just freeze. But if you just go to your body and go and you're my partner and I go oh, I realize I'm tense, and then I can.

Speaker 1: 25:47

Yeah, I'm a little scared, and then it's once you say something that's true for you, it sets you up to feel the next thing that's true for you and that's a great way in approaching it with not just with your spouse and your partner, but in business conversations. And you have to find these opportunities to practice this stuff. And I think it's really key for us men because we are really geared, especially in this Western society, to just do, and the more that we do, then that's how we seem to measure ourselves. But really the work that I see that's happening now, especially with your work, owen, is really about being Can we be masculine? What does that being look like for us? And it's different for all of us. Not all of us are going to be built with the big bravado and I look at as I've been doing my work.

Speaker 1: 26:34

I've been following lots of different guys and there's so many different ways to do this work and and everyone, if you're looking for this help, there's going to be the right style for you and I think what I really appreciate about I think I know what I really appreciate about your work here, owen, with it, with us men, is helping us really have almost like that samurai warrior mindset, that really knowing who we are and being that person, and so that requires us, though, to look at some parts of ourselves and we may not like, and you know, some people call that shadow work, as they just call it. Other taught ideas. How do you, guys, how do you, in your work, are you helping men deal with this darker side of their personality and help them integrate I?

Speaker 3: 27:18

think to start with, we again frame it in a physiology, because it the more we can for most guys take it out at least initially out of the emotion, the more they can lean in experience and be present. Because I agree with you, that's ultimately what it is. And the fellow that is like the scientist behind what we do and it wasn't like. I studied a little of this stuff and his name is Stephen Porges, but it was more that a few years ago, when I started reading all of his books and we just had him on our program a few months ago was that everything he developed is what we're doing, and some of it was just out of coincidence and now some of it's because we're studying it and applying it. But one of the things that he trains therapists to say and I think this is really powerful is what you did or didn't do was your physiology froze and it was your physiological response for survival that took you out and had you not perform well. And when he gets therapists to understand that and then they tell their clients this and the therapists come back and say that's really huge.

Speaker 3: 28:22

And that's where we start. We start to, we take away the shame and say no matter how dark you might think you are or how bad you might think you are or how much you were the addict or this or that, those are coping mechanisms, and those coping mechanisms worked in the sense that you survived your childhood. Now the problem is, the coping mechanisms are now running you and they're sabotaging the life you want now. And so there are some simple paths that we can go not necessarily one simple thing, but there's proven ways that we can unpack that. And so when men understand that, okay, you know, I'm not a bad person. I might be doing bad behaviors by my own judgment, but that's because that's all I know how to do and, like you said earlier, maybe that's all I saw how to do. And so just taking the emotional part away helps.

Speaker 3: 29:13

And then, just as we were also saying, seeing other men talk about struggle with, shift, their shadow, their emotions, their dark side, completes a different model and one of the beautiful things about our work and you probably see it because we get guys in our group, in the Sandpoint group, been in 20 years and literally have said that saved their lives, and then guys are just coming in and so they sit in the group and they see these more experienced men work, talk about their lives and all that, and it just opens up another whole realm of possibilities. So no one's telling them oh, you need to do this and don't do that. They're going. Oh shit, I did a little this and a little that. Maybe my life would work better. And these guys are going to help me.

Speaker 1: 30:03

It's truly a brotherhood. I'm chuckling because I'm just thinking of some of the encounters in our group and I'm sure you've seen that's exactly what happens and it's men come to us at different stages in their life and they all have different ways that we show up. Some of us need a little more encouragement, need some time to warm up the group. We're still because we're still very much in that challenge stage right, we're still trying to see how we fit into the group. Do we make? Is this really going to be for me? We're measuring ourselves all the time. When they realize that moment happens for them and you can see it, it's almost like the something just switched in their brain and they do that and they start to show up differently in their conversation. It becomes different. We talk.

Speaker 1: 30:43

One of the things we talk about is the different levels of I call it intimacy. It's about having safe communication right where they're more willing to now to not just share their opinions but their beliefs as well, and so they're feeling more comfortable. They want to engage and I think that's important work for us to do as men, because we don't always, depending on our experience, we go back to trauma. That might not have been a good thing for us. We might've had a really bad experience around sharing what was on our mind and then having it really not play out well, and I think when we start to recognize what you're continually are suggesting here is that men really need to be in tune with our bodies and understand where that's happening for us and and I think that's why your work is so important and I want to talk a little bit about your book as well grow up in a man's guide to masculine emotional intelligence. I love that you've coined it masculine emotional intelligence, and so you talk about nine different steps throughout the book.

Speaker 3: 31:38

But let's talk touch on what you feel are some of the more critical areas yeah, that we could focus on from essentially that book, personal development is those nine steps or phases. And what I just noticed over the years is that with men and it's a comparable thing for women that we got these sort of phases in our maturation and inevitably because of stress, trauma or lack of secure attachment or the culture or what was happening in your family, all the things we can think of we didn't get the opportunity to to grow as we should have in that phase. And so what happens is in that phase we outgrow it in one way, but what we left is with a hole, and so we don't have that critical quality or skill or awareness, and then we keep falling into a hole and we wonder why am I having the same kind of relationships here with women? Or why am I? You know I always getting fired from jobs or whatever. What is this issue? And yeah, and I think now you can step back and look at it intellectually and that's a good start, but ultimately what has to happen is we got to experience what is in that hole.

Speaker 3: 32:54

I know you work with Campbell's Hero's Journey and that's that process of, in some form or another, going back and going down into the whole and completing what you couldn't complete, as we were saying earlier, in terms of physiological thing of the trauma, and the emotional thing of having that full experience, or at least enough of it where you can let go of it, where you get the lessons out of it. Because we also know that one of the ways we grow and learn is through lessons and often the lessons aren't, you know, always that nice lesson. So we have a struggle but we get the boon, as Campbell would say, the gift when we come out of that struggle, often with the support of others. And we've learned some and that whole concept of anti-fragility, of not being fragile, not just being resilient but being strong, from persevering through a challenge and having skills that you wouldn't have had unless you went through it. And so essentially it's we don't even need to know all the. Honestly I can't name all the nine stages right now because it's been several years since I read the book. But we don't need to know the stage, it's more the concept that, oh, I got this reoccurring pattern in my life and I don't even need to know when it was.

Speaker 3: 34:20

But this I'm the consistent variable here, and so what do I need to do to complete it, and I think we both would agree that maybe we don't need to, but one of the most efficient ways to deal with it is with a group of men. Now, what's great is a lot more men now than when I started doing therapy, and I think that's good. And when I was trained by some of the top therapists, I trained therapists. My partners are therapists, a couple's therapists. We do treats together, so I'm for therapy and they send a lot of men to us, and now most therapists are women. But you know, and my partner, a lot of these women I know that are therapists. They'll readily admit that most men don't need therapy. They need what we have to offer. Yes, therapy could help, but often they're going to get as much and more from being in an environment that's emotionally safe, with relatively mature men that are working on growing up in a way that they weren't able to yeah, I completely agree.

Speaker 1: 35:21

I think that's the beauty of doing this. Men's work is that it is a great complement to the traditional therapy and while you may need some of that, depending on what it is that you're dealing with, being in a group of men is just different. I know, as I was going through my darkest times, especially through the grief process with my father-in-law. There just wasn't this environment for me to go and really deal with that emotion, and I'm not even sure if I necessarily have completely dealt with it. I guess we'll find out on Wednesday in the next 10 weeks to really dive in, but to really dive into that and we need this to be able to do that, because we do come out stronger, we do come out with new set of skills, we can become better men, and that's really what all this work's about. And so it's outstanding to see this grow so much, especially over the years.

Speaker 3: 36:12

Yeah, it was an important thing, I'm sure you see it is that guys come in because they need it Fine, I like that, but they stay because they might not need it anymore. But they're getting something from it. They get in the camaraderie, the brotherhood and all that. But they're also getting is.

Speaker 3: 36:29

I show up every week and have been for essentially 30 years, and just being myself Is a gift to other men and we have a saying in our group show up and you don't even have to say anything, but just being even on the call and a guy feels you're there makes a huge difference.

Speaker 3: 36:48

And I have an old friend of mine which turned me on to this many years ago and he's still in groups and he said it's like I put my time in because at some point I know I'm going to need it, and many years ago his wife died of cancer, but his group was there. And then I have an old friend of mine who was in a group for over 20 years and his son died. This is many years ago and for at least a month, 24-7, there was always a man with him from his group. And, as one of the guys once said, these are my pallbearers, and so the sense that you have these men that are really watching your back is huge because, yeah, maybe we had some of that when we're younger, or maybe on a sports team or in the military. But how many men that is, whatever age, 30, 40, 50 can say that they have a group of guys that have their back to that extent and you have their back?

Speaker 1: 37:43

yeah, what a great way to put that. There are my pallbearers, like man. That just cuts right to the heart, doesn't it? The to think about that last walk is just a beautiful way to frame that. Oh, and that's why I think you've been such a powerful mentor to so many of us, directly and indirectly, and I'm sure in your journey you've had several of your own, and so this is a question for you what's the best piece of advice that one of your mentors has given you, and how is that still?

Speaker 3: 38:15

serving you today. Yeah, I'm thinking of my first real teacher in all this. His name was Ron Kurtz. He ended up developing what's called a Comey therapy, which was really the first and certainly now still one of the premier somatic psychotherapies. It's a really hot therapy. A lot of people are now learning.

Speaker 3: 38:33

And get back when I was learning it with Ron in his first professional training he had back in the late 70s yeah, he just showed me and us how just being present to someone was a huge gift and I remember I'm sitting there in the room and he'd asked for a volunteer and I remember the first time he did it, this woman stood up and we're sitting down and he just walks over to her. He's a big guy and he would he. I don't know exactly what he said, or at least don't remember it, but he said a few things to her and she's, she's standing there and then she says a few more things, really gently, and within about two minutes she's sobbing. And within about two minutes she's sobbing and I went what the hell? What did he do here? All he said, he just asked some questions. He just said some things. And I learned his system and you know, in his books, and it goes on from there. But that quality of just presence, or what he would call somatic mindfulness, just being aware of the body in the moment and helping someone do that, is a huge gift to ourselves and to someone else. So it wasn't necessarily one particular sentence that he said, but this way of being that I never thought I could do.

Speaker 3: 39:55

Lo and behold, when I started this group 20 years ago, I developed a whole process called the healing journey, which can be very intense, which is essentially what we're doing.

Speaker 3: 40:05

A guy will stand up in a room of 60 guys and I'll pick one that's volunteered to do it. I usually pick the big guy in the room and I'm not a big guy and then he's standing in the center of the room and I ask him a few questions and often within a minute or two he's standing in the center of the room and asking a few questions and often within a minute or two he's shaking or he's being emotional because again we're back to the whole spaces. All the guys in the space is making it feel safe and all I got to do is ask the questions that he's never had asked, and he's able to drop down and hear his answers, not mine or anyone else's answers. He hears his answers and once he hears them, he feels them. And once he feels them in this same space, his body is able to have that experience that completes the situation or the trauma that might have been there.

Speaker 1: 40:53

Oh man, that's beautiful. I just love that. Ron Kurtz I need to note that gentleman's name as well and this has been a phenomenal conversation today, owen and so I know there's lots of stuff we could have touched on, and there's probably something we didn't get a chance to touch on, and so what would be the one takeaway you'd like our listeners to have from today's conversation?

Speaker 3: 41:11

And you can use the ROC formula, R-O-C slow down to relax, open up and connect to yourself really and then take the risk and, as you said, Alan, make it a small risk in the beginning and it could be a woman at the checkout counter that you normally wouldn't say something to and you say I really like your blouse, it makes your face lights up with whatever. It could be an inane thing, but you lean into, you know, saying something that's vulnerable and we think that the vulnerability needs to be hard or a negative thing. It takes courage to say positive, vulnerable things, often from man to another man, and that just gets me into honor another man because we need to honor. We don't do that and when a man can honor another man, that's a huge gift and it's also the antidote to shame.

Speaker 1: 42:02

Beautiful. What a great way to wrap up today's conversation. I just want to say thank you so much for spending time with me today and really helping us get a better understanding of how we can embody masculine emotional intelligence so we can all go on living a life of purpose on purpose.

Speaker 3: 42:17

So if men are interested in getting a hold of you, yeah, they can go to our website, meldnldcommunity and it's community spelled out and you'll see what we have. You'll read about some of the science and on from there and the people that have trained us and where you can get the support you need.

Speaker 1: 42:35

Outstanding. I want to make sure that information, as well as wherever you are on social media, are out in today's show notes and the link to your book as well.

Speaker 2: 42:50

Once again, owen, thank you so much. I really enjoyed today's conversation. Thank you for listening to the Revolutionary man podcast. Are you ready to own your destiny, to become more the man you are destined to be? Join the brotherhood that is the Awakened man at theawakenedmannet and start forging a new destiny today.