Latest / The Trauma Therapist / The Truth of Who You Are with Dan Grové

Transcript

The Truth of Who You Are with Dan Grové · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gamiferson.
0:04
Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
0:07
Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
0:11
Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this
0:14
Speaker 1: show five four.
0:17
Speaker 2: Three, two and one. Our folks, welcome back to the podcast.
0:21
Speaker 2: Very excited to have as make us today. Dan Grove, Dan, welcome,
0:24
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. You're welcome. Dan is the author
0:28
Speaker 2: and the creator of the Fire and Water Paradigm, a
0:32
Speaker 2: framework reimagining modern masculinity through emotionally honest and mythic experiences.
0:38
Speaker 2: His work, which includes the book series strong Enough to Fall,
0:41
Speaker 2: strong Enough to Rise, and strong Enough to Lead, guides
0:44
Speaker 2: men from emotional shutdown to sovereignty, and from wounded boyhood
0:48
Speaker 2: to embodied manhood. Rather than offering quick fixes, he provides
0:53
Speaker 2: mirrors that invite presents, helping men who have lost their
0:56
Speaker 2: sense of direction to rebuild from within by integrating the
0:59
Speaker 2: masculine in principle of fire with a feminine principle of water.
1:04
Speaker 2: All right, Dan, obviously just a little bit about you
1:06
Speaker 2: before we could going share with our listeners where you're from.
1:09
Speaker 2: Originally and where you are currently.
1:13
Speaker 3: I was born in South Africa in the sixties, lived
1:18
Speaker 3: there until about the age of forty, and at the moment,
1:21
Speaker 3: I'm living in just outside London in the UK for
1:24
Speaker 3: the past nineteen twenty years now.
1:27
Speaker 2: Okay, so how did all this start for you?
1:31
Speaker 3: Dan? It started when I was twelve, obviously not knowing
1:36
Speaker 3: what was going on in my life at the time.
1:37
Speaker 3: My father died when I was twelve, and overnight the
1:42
Speaker 3: whole vibe in the house changed. Everything became serious. Mom
1:48
Speaker 3: was dealing with her own grief. I was a twelve
1:51
Speaker 3: year old boy who knew that emotions were real, but
1:55
Speaker 3: boys don't cry and boys keep it in. We'd be strong,
1:59
Speaker 3: and I decided to just never be too much. I'm
2:03
Speaker 3: not going to make it more difficult for my mother too,
2:07
Speaker 3: because she's got her own grief going, you know, and
2:09
Speaker 3: she's doing it her way. So from that age I
2:13
Speaker 3: learned that to suppress my emotions, just don't talk, don't ask,
2:19
Speaker 3: don't be too much, and that I took right up
2:24
Speaker 3: into my adult life up until about four years ago,
2:28
Speaker 3: somewhere around there when I went through a serious relationship
2:33
Speaker 3: and it fell apart and I was. I never thought
2:36
Speaker 3: I could get that low, but I did. And from that,
2:40
Speaker 3: from those ashes is what this came from.
2:44
Speaker 2: I'm just curious. How did your father die.
2:46
Speaker 3: A heart attack literally overnight, no complete surprise, nothing but
2:51
Speaker 3: no anticipation or anything.
2:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, and did you have siblings or do you have siblings?
2:56
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm the youngest of four and they all like
2:59
Speaker 3: to to two years older than me and or two
3:02
Speaker 3: four six years older than me. But yeah, my sister,
3:07
Speaker 3: my one brother was at home, but my oldest brother
3:09
Speaker 3: is left already at the time. So how did this.
3:14
Speaker 2: Play out? You said you kind of were holding everything
3:17
Speaker 2: in What did that look like when you were fifteen, sixteen,
3:22
Speaker 2: seventeen and don what did that look like?
3:26
Speaker 3: It turned into me throwing myself into things. In the beginning,
3:33
Speaker 3: it was quite healthy. I threw myself into athletics, into tennis,
3:39
Speaker 3: things like that, and I would spend hours in there
3:42
Speaker 3: just to not have to listen to myself, you know,
3:45
Speaker 3: or ask people for things. It turned out to be
3:49
Speaker 3: not too bad about it, you know, with athletics and tennis,
3:52
Speaker 3: but never serious development in that. But those are the things.
3:57
Speaker 3: And then later in life I threw myself into work.
4:02
Speaker 3: I built with everything going on in my life. I
4:05
Speaker 3: built quite a successful career. People would look from the
4:08
Speaker 3: outside and go, oh, he's doing so well. But in
4:12
Speaker 3: your those echoes that just run the whole time in
4:14
Speaker 3: the head and the mind and so on, and.
4:17
Speaker 2: So what if I mean, so what you had stuff
4:20
Speaker 2: going on in the mind? What was going on in
4:22
Speaker 2: the mind?
4:26
Speaker 3: I had this. I developed this need to be chosen
4:31
Speaker 3: to be what's the word, uh, what's the word to
4:35
Speaker 3: be connected with because as a child, you know, mom
4:40
Speaker 3: would listen and you know, it was normal household, but
4:43
Speaker 3: there was no emotion, you know there or very little
4:45
Speaker 3: emotion involved. So I could never as a child say
4:48
Speaker 3: to my mom, for example, oh yeah, any adult in
4:52
Speaker 3: my life at that at that point, this is how
4:54
Speaker 3: I feel, because the response is walk it off, get
4:59
Speaker 3: on with it. You know, life's not fair, move on
5:03
Speaker 3: and through through life. Then I developed this need for
5:07
Speaker 3: pick me, pick me, and trying to get people to
5:12
Speaker 3: do that. I developed this identity of being the reliable one,
5:18
Speaker 3: being the strong one, being the understanding one, never kind
5:23
Speaker 3: of ripple the waters, you know, never rock the boat.
5:27
Speaker 3: Because I just wanted to be liked, you know, And
5:30
Speaker 3: that's that's how And those were the things in my head.
5:33
Speaker 3: If I do well enough at athletics, at athletics, people
5:37
Speaker 3: will go, well, look at Dan. You know that validation
5:40
Speaker 3: that you're.
5:41
Speaker 2: Almost kind of forcing people to choose you.
5:45
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, working very hard to make them do that.
5:50
Speaker 2: So how did that unfold? How did that collapse? In
5:57
Speaker 2: a sense?
5:59
Speaker 3: Well, through my life married a few times, didn't work out,
6:05
Speaker 3: and at the time I still didn't know what was
6:06
Speaker 3: going on. You know, it was always a blame her,
6:08
Speaker 3: blame me as this situation, but I never dived into
6:11
Speaker 3: the details. The whole thing came about about four years
6:15
Speaker 3: ago when I met this lady. And you know when
6:18
Speaker 3: you when you met a partner and you go, wow,
6:22
Speaker 3: this is it, you know, and everything is your foreig
6:25
Speaker 3: and it's intoxicating and all of those kind of things.
6:29
Speaker 3: And within a year or two and a half, somewhere
6:32
Speaker 3: around there, things started going to the side. I started
6:39
Speaker 3: noticing she's not she's withdrawing. There's a little bit more
6:45
Speaker 3: ambiguity coming through from that, And all of a sudden,
6:48
Speaker 3: my anxiety kicked in and as in, oh, I'm not
6:51
Speaker 3: being chosen anymore, I'm not being picked, and not knowing
6:56
Speaker 3: that at the time, but those were the things, you know,
6:58
Speaker 3: very anxious. I would reread messages and analyze messages to
7:04
Speaker 3: find the underlying meaning of why did you only respond
7:08
Speaker 3: three hours later? And then said that, you know, it's
7:11
Speaker 3: just a yeah, you know it was. It was a mess,
7:14
Speaker 3: a complete mess.
7:17
Speaker 2: I know, Well what do you speak?
7:20
Speaker 3: Yeah? And yeah? So yeah, that's that's how it unfolded.
7:26
Speaker 3: And then when this relationship ended, I came home, sat
7:31
Speaker 3: in my lunge and I went, what now? What? What now?
7:36
Speaker 3: Why did this happen again? Because I've had various relationships
7:41
Speaker 3: throughout my life, but every time there's this thing that
7:45
Speaker 3: happens and I can't put my finger on it. But
7:48
Speaker 3: this time around, I don't know if it was because
7:50
Speaker 3: of the intensity of the relationship or the way that
7:53
Speaker 3: I loved, Because I loved deeply, thoroughly, thrown myself in
7:58
Speaker 3: this is who I am, you know, the I just
8:00
Speaker 3: love like that, and I just got hurt, and I
8:05
Speaker 3: thought I never want to feel that again, that level
8:10
Speaker 3: and depth of hurt. So that's then when I went
8:14
Speaker 3: straight to rock bottom, and I landed there everything burnt away,
8:18
Speaker 3: and then I started realizing, hang on, what has burnt
8:24
Speaker 3: are all the masks that I was wearing. What's remaining
8:30
Speaker 3: is my true identity, This is who I am. And
8:34
Speaker 3: it took a while to get there, because the truth
8:39
Speaker 3: of who you are will never burn away. It's your
8:42
Speaker 3: masks that burn And when I started realizing my masks
8:48
Speaker 3: were trying to be good, trying to get people to
8:52
Speaker 3: like me, that kind of thing, that's one of the masks.
8:56
Speaker 3: Loving being very understanding was another mask. And when I
9:02
Speaker 3: sat at rock Bottom there I thought, okay, what's what?
9:05
Speaker 3: When what happened?
9:07
Speaker 2: What? What was rock bottom for you?
9:10
Speaker 3: Rock Bottom was very quiet. It took the best part
9:15
Speaker 3: of seven months falling, as in proper, falling from that
9:21
Speaker 3: relationship where I felt there was no real I wouldn't
9:26
Speaker 3: say no control. My career was still going on, you know, everything,
9:28
Speaker 3: all the things on the surface were still operating, but
9:31
Speaker 3: in here there was this constant questioning and and blaming
9:36
Speaker 3: almost of myself. What's why did this happen again? And
9:40
Speaker 3: then rock Bottom was the point where I sat one
9:43
Speaker 3: day and said, Okay, there's no point in blaming her,
9:49
Speaker 3: there's no point in blaming me. What are the patterns
9:54
Speaker 3: that causes this? And the moment I started looking at that.
9:58
Speaker 2: Prior to this, had you seen or sought out any
10:02
Speaker 2: therapist or quote unquote help.
10:05
Speaker 3: Or some therapist's retirement fund. Man. Yes, I went to
10:13
Speaker 3: a lot of therapy, but it's always how does that
10:20
Speaker 3: make you feel? Well? Yeah, it's never that in depth
10:24
Speaker 3: because I didn't know where to drive the therapy too,
10:28
Speaker 3: because I wasn't aware at the time.
10:32
Speaker 2: Why under what premises did you seek therapy?
10:36
Speaker 3: Because I felt depressed. I was just depressed and sad
10:39
Speaker 3: and things were just not flowing properly in my life,
10:42
Speaker 3: you know. And then I also went about eight years
10:46
Speaker 3: ago now, through all this and with all the things,
10:51
Speaker 3: I developed quite a severe drinking problem. And then one
10:56
Speaker 3: day I just decided enough, this is it. Now, I'm
10:58
Speaker 3: not drinking anymore. And I tried AA didn't quite work
11:02
Speaker 3: for me, and then I found another way to stop.
11:07
Speaker 3: And it was from that moment on, from when I stopped,
11:10
Speaker 3: and I understood there are more deeper underlying elements, because
11:15
Speaker 3: I understood what made my head want to drink, not
11:20
Speaker 3: my body, And then I realized, hang on, there's much
11:24
Speaker 3: more in my head than just not wanting to drink.
11:27
Speaker 3: And over time I slowly started looking in these things.
11:31
Speaker 3: But when this relationship fell apart, I thought, okay, well stop,
11:35
Speaker 3: I have clearly developed patterns for how many years? How
11:40
Speaker 3: do I look at them, find them, see what they are,
11:42
Speaker 3: what they do, and then resolve them from there? Because
11:46
Speaker 3: if you know.
11:47
Speaker 2: What did that mean? How did you start doing that?
11:49
Speaker 2: Would you start reading or would you start discovering what
11:52
Speaker 2: these patterns were?
11:53
Speaker 3: Yeah?
11:53
Speaker 2: Sound very simple.
11:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you're right. You can see me behind the
11:59
Speaker 3: Aristotle and the thinker. I dived into philosophy big time.
12:04
Speaker 3: I studied I actually started studying philosophy at the School
12:07
Speaker 3: of Philosophy in London, which is magnificent, and then it
12:13
Speaker 3: just started pushing me into directions. And then I started
12:16
Speaker 3: reading young and I started reading Campbell and all the philosophers,
12:22
Speaker 3: and Campbell not so much a philosopher than than a
12:25
Speaker 3: heroic story writer, you know, or the arc of story writing.
12:30
Speaker 3: But through all those things that I read, I then
12:34
Speaker 3: started looking at okay, hang on, there must be other
12:37
Speaker 3: things as well. So I started looking into podcasts like
12:40
Speaker 3: you Own, some other podcast hosts that I came across,
12:45
Speaker 3: and things just started coming up in my mind as in,
12:48
Speaker 3: I need to dive into that, I need to look
12:50
Speaker 3: into this and through that process a lot of reading,
12:53
Speaker 3: a lot of listening, and dare I say, a lot
12:57
Speaker 3: of crying. But you know, you you get to that
13:00
Speaker 3: point where were a penny drops, where you almost feel, oh,
13:05
Speaker 3: I feel awake. Now, you know, I just woke up
13:09
Speaker 3: to something.
13:11
Speaker 2: And then were you what were you discovering? What were
13:16
Speaker 2: you learning? What were you becoming more aware of during
13:19
Speaker 2: this process?
13:20
Speaker 3: Specifically, I always laughed at therapists when they say, let's
13:23
Speaker 3: go back to your child. I've told it. But the
13:26
Speaker 3: thing that I discovered was that event with my father
13:31
Speaker 3: had obviously a massive impact on me because it formed
13:35
Speaker 3: my adulthood, my adult life. And then I started looking
13:39
Speaker 3: as in, okay, at the age of twelve, what actually happened?
13:44
Speaker 3: What I remembered? You know, why do I say that
13:47
Speaker 3: mom was distant? Why did I make that decision of
13:51
Speaker 3: not being trying to not to be too much and
13:53
Speaker 3: things like that. So it's those kind of things that
13:56
Speaker 3: I started then. And then when I pulled the thread
13:59
Speaker 3: at the age of twelve and I go, ah, that's
14:02
Speaker 3: what's happened. That's why I felt that way, that's the
14:05
Speaker 3: impact it had on me. You can pull that straight
14:08
Speaker 3: right through to today, as in, yeah, this is what's
14:12
Speaker 3: and this is why my life is run like that
14:15
Speaker 3: is because of that kind of thing. And it was
14:18
Speaker 3: in the end the main thing that I identified was
14:24
Speaker 3: fear of abandonment, and it's it's just yeah, those are
14:29
Speaker 3: the kind of things that I then discovered from from.
14:32
Speaker 2: That, So talk to us about Let me just remind
14:36
Speaker 2: him when I'm speaking with Dan Grove, he's the author
14:39
Speaker 2: and creator of the Fire and Water Paradigm. So, Dan,
14:42
Speaker 2: how did you start thinking, Okay, I want to start
14:49
Speaker 2: what helping other men? Helping other people?
14:52
Speaker 3: What did that look like? I mentioned earlier on that
14:55
Speaker 3: I stopped drinking and that it's such an impact on
14:59
Speaker 3: my life that I'm still doing that today. I'm helping
15:02
Speaker 3: other people's people stop drinking. And then when this happened
15:06
Speaker 3: as well, I thought, no, what I found I need
15:10
Speaker 3: to share and that's where the book came from. But
15:13
Speaker 3: then there's also a couple of support groups in and
15:17
Speaker 3: around London obviously that I started attending, and strangely enough,
15:22
Speaker 3: initially I attended them for support for support for me,
15:27
Speaker 3: and then when I went through this whole thing, I
15:30
Speaker 3: went back and I said, I don't want to sound
15:33
Speaker 3: arrogant or whatever. You know, However, I have found a
15:36
Speaker 3: lot of things. Can I maybe share with you guys
15:39
Speaker 3: what I have found? And a few of them were
15:41
Speaker 3: quite receptive to that, and so yeah, that's that's how
15:45
Speaker 3: that developed, and that's why, yeah, why I'm talking to
15:48
Speaker 3: you today.
15:48
Speaker 2: Basically, Well, let's let's start talking specifically about what the
15:53
Speaker 2: fire and water paradigm is.
15:55
Speaker 3: Okay, what did what did?
15:56
Speaker 2: What is it? What did you want to do when
15:58
Speaker 2: you started creating it? What's the purpose of it? Who's
16:00
Speaker 2: it for?
16:01
Speaker 3: The thing? It started off with being a man. A
16:07
Speaker 3: lot of men are taught you're a tough boy, tough
16:12
Speaker 3: it out, don't cry. You know that that kind of
16:15
Speaker 3: the I almost want to call it archaic masculinity. That
16:20
Speaker 3: is the way that we were brought up. And through
16:23
Speaker 3: this I realized that when I'm vulnerable, it doesn't make
16:29
Speaker 3: me soft. I'm still a man, I'm still masculine, and
16:33
Speaker 3: I'm still all these things. But being vulnerable as a
16:36
Speaker 3: musculine man is something that you can do. I never
16:41
Speaker 3: realized that. And what that means is instead of in
16:45
Speaker 3: your household, instead of shouting people down, come here, explain
16:50
Speaker 3: to me, why you talk like that and still be
16:55
Speaker 3: the leader, still be that the man in the house,
16:59
Speaker 3: but not in the ways of the sixties and seventies
17:03
Speaker 3: and eighties, you know. And I think most people will understand, how,
17:07
Speaker 3: you know, when I say that, you know, there's a
17:09
Speaker 3: different type of masculinity. So I thought, of, right, there's
17:14
Speaker 3: a male and female site to all of us, and
17:18
Speaker 3: the fire and water. The fire is the male, the
17:21
Speaker 3: water is the female side of it, the musculine and
17:26
Speaker 3: vulnerable site of sorry, musculine and feminine side of the
17:31
Speaker 3: of the paradigm, and that is And I looked at
17:35
Speaker 3: it and I thought, I've got a little diagram. I
17:37
Speaker 3: think I've got on my website as well, a little
17:39
Speaker 3: diagram that I pulled up, you know, as in, this
17:42
Speaker 3: is what masculinity is, and this is what femininity is,
17:46
Speaker 3: and this is how they come together in the modern man.
17:51
Speaker 3: And so yeah, I've you know, that's and it was
17:54
Speaker 3: purely to help people. Well, that was the second reason.
17:58
Speaker 3: The first reason was I wrote, I started this thing,
18:01
Speaker 3: and I wrote the first book that I did because
18:04
Speaker 3: I just wanted to get it out. I just wanted
18:06
Speaker 3: to get it on paper so I can share it
18:08
Speaker 3: with people. If they want to learn from it, great,
18:11
Speaker 3: If they don't want to learn from it, it's not
18:14
Speaker 3: a bad story to tell, you know. And it was very,
18:16
Speaker 3: very cathartic.
18:18
Speaker 2: I think most people have an idea of what the
18:21
Speaker 2: word vulnerability means and how you're using it, but how
18:26
Speaker 2: are you describing it.
18:28
Speaker 3: Vulnerability is being open, soft without being weak, because there's
18:38
Speaker 3: a weakness in people, in people that when they get
18:42
Speaker 3: pushed too hard, they fold. And you can still be vulnerable.
18:49
Speaker 3: You can still say, let me just think of an
18:52
Speaker 3: example here. Yeah, I used it earlier on you know,
18:55
Speaker 3: with my my my partner or my children come to
18:59
Speaker 3: me and say, ah, but dad, and the teenagers, you know,
19:02
Speaker 3: they can blow off steam and things like that and
19:05
Speaker 3: turn around the storm off instead of shouting back and
19:11
Speaker 3: don't slam the door kind of thing. I reflect first
19:14
Speaker 3: and I go did I do something? I did I
19:20
Speaker 3: cause this reaction from the child? And if I find something,
19:26
Speaker 3: I will act on that. If I don't find something,
19:28
Speaker 3: I will go to the child and say, okay, what's up.
19:31
Speaker 3: But the vulnerability part is finding it in yourself, how
19:35
Speaker 3: did I I did cause this? And then go back
19:38
Speaker 3: to the child and go I'm sorry, mate, this is
19:42
Speaker 3: you know, I understand why you said that? Am I
19:45
Speaker 3: right by saying this was me doing that? And it's
19:49
Speaker 3: very awkward in the beginning, especially if people are not
19:52
Speaker 3: used to that. But when you say and they would
19:56
Speaker 3: go yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly it, and immediately is cleared.
20:02
Speaker 3: You don't feel fired up the child, feel understood, feel
20:06
Speaker 3: more understood. You feel more understood because you looked into
20:10
Speaker 3: yourself and went, Okay, why did this happen? And that's
20:14
Speaker 3: a big question in vulnerability.
20:17
Speaker 2: When you so you were you've written these books, are
20:21
Speaker 2: you also offering groups or courses or what?
20:25
Speaker 3: I am? I'm getting there, I am. Yeah, I'm busy
20:28
Speaker 3: editing the second one. Now they're strong enough to rise,
20:31
Speaker 3: I'm busy finalizing that up. And once that that is done,
20:37
Speaker 3: then I'm going to start launching. I'll do the online,
20:40
Speaker 3: I'll do groups, you know, face to face groups and
20:43
Speaker 3: things like that. And the reasoning for that is the
20:46
Speaker 3: first one was almost like a memoir, you know, this
20:50
Speaker 3: is this is what happened. And the rise is now
20:53
Speaker 3: more the practical side of it, you know, as in,
20:56
Speaker 3: when you get to that level, this is what's happened.
20:58
Speaker 3: To me, and this is what I If this works
21:01
Speaker 3: for you, you know, take it further and continue like that,
21:05
Speaker 3: and this may work for you.
21:06
Speaker 2: So when you look at the culture of masculinity in
21:15
Speaker 2: the Western world was obviously it's different in different different pieces.
21:20
Speaker 2: But how do you how receptive do you think in
21:28
Speaker 2: general men are?
21:30
Speaker 3: Yes? Two.
21:33
Speaker 2: I mean, this is a tough question because it's very broad.
21:36
Speaker 2: But to what what you're bringing up here? Why is
21:40
Speaker 2: it and why is it so friggin' hot?
21:44
Speaker 3: You're right, yes, that is a very very valid question.
21:49
Speaker 3: I would say about thirty five to maybe forty percent
21:54
Speaker 3: of men that I talk to just in general in
21:58
Speaker 3: conversation is receptive to this kind of thing. That they
22:03
Speaker 3: would they would hear what I say and engage in
22:06
Speaker 3: the conversation, not necessarily do something about it. The rest
22:09
Speaker 3: of the guys got and move on, you know. And
22:13
Speaker 3: why it's so hard, it's because it's it's in our DNA.
22:17
Speaker 3: That's how we were brought up. That's I mean till
22:19
Speaker 3: other Hunt and all those people came through the through
22:23
Speaker 3: the years, you know, and this is how the male
22:26
Speaker 3: body and mind is built. And to to crack through
22:31
Speaker 3: that is a very challenging thing. But what I have
22:35
Speaker 3: found is these support groups that I attended for my
22:39
Speaker 3: to get my own support. I was quite surprised. They're
22:44
Speaker 3: not many people in there, but there are people from
22:48
Speaker 3: every walk of life that sit right next to each
22:51
Speaker 3: other and talk about their problems. And I'm also I
22:56
Speaker 3: do work for an electricity company in the UK and
23:00
Speaker 3: one day I just got a by accident message. There's
23:05
Speaker 3: a thing called mentality as in mental health for men
23:10
Speaker 3: group in this organization, and I mean, oh, hello, you
23:14
Speaker 3: know what's here? And and I joined in there and
23:19
Speaker 3: there I was, I was. I was pleasantly surprised. There
23:23
Speaker 3: were about fifty sixty men in this organization, senior management,
23:27
Speaker 3: all the way through the through the ranks, and they
23:31
Speaker 3: share openly a lot of trauma about death and loss
23:36
Speaker 3: and grief and those kinds of things. And but there's
23:39
Speaker 3: also people who share about you know, relationship falling, relationships
23:45
Speaker 3: falling apart and so on. So it's not common for
23:51
Speaker 3: me to walk with the badge on my what's the name.
23:55
Speaker 3: I would find it difficult to get people to engage
23:58
Speaker 3: with me. But what I did do I don't know
24:01
Speaker 3: if you've seen this hoodie that that's being sold online.
24:05
Speaker 3: De a person behind me. I just want to tell
24:08
Speaker 3: you that you were that. I got myself one of
24:10
Speaker 3: those tea shirts who is.
24:13
Speaker 2: Ye?
24:14
Speaker 3: And I wear it to the supermarket Every time. At
24:18
Speaker 3: least three people tap me on the shoulder and just
24:21
Speaker 3: go thanks.
24:23
Speaker 2: Wow.
24:23
Speaker 3: I'm absolutely surprised, you know. And the UK culture is
24:29
Speaker 3: very reserved when it comes to that kind of thing.
24:32
Speaker 3: And still people come out and go thank you very much.
24:36
Speaker 3: You know, I've never seen them again or anything, but yeah,
24:38
Speaker 3: it's very good.
24:40
Speaker 2: What I love about what you're doing is it invites
24:49
Speaker 2: other people, invites other men to at least reflect on
24:54
Speaker 2: their own being, if not outright inspire them to likewise
25:02
Speaker 2: say whoa what Maybe I can talk about that or
25:06
Speaker 2: share that, because, as you well know, when you hold
25:11
Speaker 2: this stuff in just explodes, it just explodes. And if
25:18
Speaker 2: it doesn't explode, it eats you away. Yes, you know, virulently.
25:24
Speaker 2: It's got to work itself.
25:26
Speaker 3: It just has to. It has it has to.
25:31
Speaker 2: And there's something I think so very powerful about what
25:36
Speaker 2: you're doing. Let me ask you this, Dan, how did
25:42
Speaker 2: you ever imagine you'd be you'd be talking like this?
25:47
Speaker 3: No, no, not even ten years ago I wouldn't even
25:52
Speaker 3: have thought of this, you know, I thought that I'd
25:54
Speaker 3: be doing this kind of thing. It is, Yeah, it
25:58
Speaker 3: is a complete I open it to me. But because
26:04
Speaker 3: it is, it has helped me and it has gotten
26:07
Speaker 3: me through so much and help me build the man
26:12
Speaker 3: that I am today. And the way that I can
26:16
Speaker 3: engage with the world these days is very, very different
26:20
Speaker 3: to five seven years ago. And friends of mine from
26:24
Speaker 3: pre and post they're not the guys that will talk
26:29
Speaker 3: to me about emotional instability and things like that. They
26:33
Speaker 3: did notice you've changed, mate, said yeah, it's good, isn't it.
26:38
Speaker 3: They go, yeah, it's nice. So it's obviously.
26:43
Speaker 2: What's coming through also is of course vulnerability, and that
26:49
Speaker 2: can mean or does mean many things. But I'm also
26:53
Speaker 2: hearing kind of owning, yes, who you are, for better
26:59
Speaker 2: and worse, you know, owning what you are and taking
27:05
Speaker 2: accountability for.
27:07
Speaker 3: That exactly the point, yes, And that's actually on that
27:11
Speaker 3: chapter in the second book where you where you sit
27:15
Speaker 3: at the bottom and you realize this blaming game, blame
27:19
Speaker 3: game doesn't work anymore, and then identify what did I
27:23
Speaker 3: do to cause this and identifying those patterns, identifying identifying
27:32
Speaker 3: those actions that you've taken and as you say, there,
27:35
Speaker 3: take responsibility for it. That that is what I did wrong,
27:40
Speaker 3: be that whatever caused it in my life. We'll get
27:43
Speaker 3: to that. But these are the things that I did
27:46
Speaker 3: wrong and own that and then start diving into the details,
27:50
Speaker 3: as in, but why did I do that? And then
27:53
Speaker 3: you go into the detail around that, and yeah.
27:57
Speaker 2: You mentioned some support groups. Curious if they're along this
28:02
Speaker 2: journey of yours. Was there any specific person who I
28:09
Speaker 2: don't know kind of quote unquote helped you or even
28:13
Speaker 2: called you out and said, dude, you know it's don't
28:17
Speaker 2: stop blaming someone you you know, did that ever happen?
28:21
Speaker 2: Or was it Aristotle and Joseph Campbell and Carl Young?
28:25
Speaker 3: And you're asking a man if he's got somebody to
28:29
Speaker 3: phone when he's emotionally in trouble, do we call people? Nah?
28:36
Speaker 3: The groups that I went to, there is one particular
28:38
Speaker 3: group in the YUK called Andy's Man Club, which is
28:40
Speaker 3: a fantastic support group, and no specific person in there,
28:47
Speaker 3: but just the talking and discussion in those groups that
28:51
Speaker 3: kind of pushed me into the direction of Okay, you know,
28:54
Speaker 3: I need to take accountability because there are a lot
28:56
Speaker 3: of people who in that group as well who's struggling
29:00
Speaker 3: with other addictions or addictions. And the thing about taking responsibility,
29:06
Speaker 3: taking accountability of who and what you do and what
29:09
Speaker 3: you are came through there. So if I have to
29:12
Speaker 3: call something at somebody out, I would call the groups out.
29:16
Speaker 3: But no, there's nobody that you pick up the phone
29:19
Speaker 3: and can say, mate, I feel really really not good
29:24
Speaker 3: today and excuse me.
29:27
Speaker 2: So during this process, I mean, aside from the groups,
29:30
Speaker 2: you didn't have any friends. Oh I had friends, but
29:34
Speaker 2: that you communicated any degree of.
29:37
Speaker 3: This with no, not no. They all read my book
29:40
Speaker 3: after its and they all nearly knocked me to the
29:43
Speaker 3: floor and said, why the hell didn't you tell us
29:45
Speaker 3: about this? And I looked at them and I went,
29:48
Speaker 3: because you're going to live. You were going to listen,
29:50
Speaker 3: weren't you? And they all went, yeah, probably not ye.
29:55
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's it's it's hard for men to to
29:59
Speaker 3: do that. Never mind, I love it.
30:01
Speaker 2: I love what you're doing.
30:03
Speaker 3: Thank you.
30:04
Speaker 2: How do people learn more about you and your books?
30:07
Speaker 3: Okay? My book is available on Amazon at uh it's.
30:13
Speaker 3: The book is titled strong Enough to Fall the Art
30:17
Speaker 3: The Art of Balancing vulnerability with modern masculinity is quite
30:21
Speaker 3: a long subtitle. But then also my website is just
30:28
Speaker 3: Dandashgrove dot com or Dan hyphen Grove dot com. They
30:32
Speaker 3: can just go on there and pick up because all
30:35
Speaker 3: the Amazon links are on there as well. If then
30:38
Speaker 3: they can just read up a bit on the other
30:40
Speaker 3: things that I'm doing on there as well.
30:42
Speaker 2: All right, we'll have all that up here at the
30:44
Speaker 2: show notes page at Trauma Therapist podcast dot com. Dan
30:48
Speaker 2: love it you.
30:49
Speaker 3: Thank you.
30:50
Speaker 2: You're an inspiration. You know, really appreciate thank you here
30:55
Speaker 2: and sharing this.
30:57
Speaker 3: Appreciate your time much, appreciate it. Thank you.
31:00
Speaker 2: It's we we need it everyone, men, women, whoever. We
31:06
Speaker 2: we need this type of humanness. Yeah, humanness, that's what
31:13
Speaker 2: it is. Yeah, it's so inspiration. So I really appreciate
31:16
Speaker 2: it and thank.
31:16
Speaker 3: You, no, thank you. Just one last thing. This is
31:20
Speaker 3: not about transformation or transforming yourself. This is dealing with
31:27
Speaker 3: what you are dealing with. You know, the transformation will
31:30
Speaker 3: come once you go through all the steps that will
31:33
Speaker 3: come because it comes naturally. But there you go.
31:36
Speaker 2: Appreciate that, all right.
31:39
Speaker 3: Catulated by