Latest / Masculine Containment / 21 - Why Men Resist Containment

Transcript

21 - Why Men Resist Containment · Masculine Containment

• 0:00
  As men, we have been conditioned to give up so much of our capacity through a lack of containment.
• 0:08
  Welcome to the Masculine Containment Podcast.
• 0:10
  I'm excited to share this truth with you, and I'm excited to share with you what this really means to us as men.
• 0:17
  First, I'll give you a quick update on the Brotherhood, this organization that I run, Morbally Trained Men in Masculine Containment.
• 0:22
  So we just launched our third container, third time that we're doing about a 10-week class.
• 0:27
  This one's eight weeks of instruction and 11 weeks.
• 0:30
  And in our first container, I had three men who joined me, and it was the four of us.
• 0:36
  We went 10 weeks.
• 0:38
  In the second container where I was still doing it for free and really testing this content, we had 110 men.
• 0:43
  And in this third container, we started charging $400 a piece.
• 0:48
  That price is probably going to go up for the next container.
• 0:51
  And we have 127 men.
• 0:52
  So this organization keeps growing even as we added a fee to the class.
• 0:58
  And it's because I think this is touching a place that really very little men's work touches.
• 1:04
  And it's in a place where
• 1:07
  we as men really need this work.
• 1:09
  And so my commitment in growing this business was that I was going to grow it in public and I was going to show what's going on and I was going to show what's happening.
• 1:16
  And I think that's an important part of doing what I do.
• 1:22
  And so I want to go back to the statement that I made at the beginning of this podcast before you have any of the update, that as men, we have been conditioned to give up so much of our capacity through lack of containment.
• 1:32
  And let me explain what I mean by that.
• 1:35
  Actually, I'm just going to use an example.
• 1:37
  So when I was doing interviews for this most recent container, somebody joined who I know, and he made an interesting statement during the interview.
• 1:47
  You know, on the interview calls, I share the program.
• 1:49
  I share a little bit of my story.
• 1:51
  I share what masculine containment has done for me.
• 1:54
  And he shared, I feel resentful about containment.
• 1:58
  I feel resentment about containment.
• 2:00
  I'm like, can you explain that?
• 2:01
  And he said, yeah, I'm not.
• 2:02
  You know, why do I have to do all the work?
• 2:04
  Why do I have to be the calm one?
• 2:05
  Why do I have to be the one that shows up and listens?
• 2:08
  And, you know, she can react and she can do whatever she wants and she can do all these things.
• 2:12
  And so I listened.
• 2:15
  And what I saw was conditioning.
• 2:18
  Because here's what I hear in the statement, I'm resentful about containment.
• 2:22
  When we look at masculine containment as the discipline of being present and in your body and leading with curiosity and being grounded and being able to transmute emotions in the moment and training yourself around the trigger so you can breathe and stay present in the moment and lead with curiosity –
• 2:41
  And lead any situation, whether the emotions are directed towards you or anywhere else or any crisis or any issue, to a logical and reasonable and to a conclusion that helps everyone involved.
• 2:54
  That's containment.
• 2:56
  And when I hear a man say, I feel resentful about containment, what I hear is, I resent having to do the work.
• 3:03
  I resent having to be present.
• 3:05
  I resent not being able to react.
• 3:07
  I resent not being able to explode or implode or do what I've always done.
• 3:12
  And I think that this is conditioning that we have as men that we really need to break down and look at.
• 3:18
  You know, we are in a world where uncontained men are the standard, where aggression means masculinity, where the man who yells the loudest is the one who is seen as the most masculine, where the man who emotes the most and, you know, takes over the room is the one who's seen as who's in charge.
• 3:49
  You're losing capacity.
• 3:51
  And if you want to challenge this, I totally understand.
• 3:53
  I get it.
• 3:53
  I get it.
• 3:54
  Like we're all in different places.
• 3:55
  But here's a question I'd ask you as a man.
• 3:59
  When you go through that pattern of a trigger being present and then there's escalation and there's rupture and that withdrawal period, what does that withdrawal period really look like for you?
• 4:09
  Let's break it down, right?
• 4:10
  So there's a trigger present.
• 4:11
  We escalate.
• 4:12
  We get to the rupture period.
• 4:14
  And like rupture is where we are either exploding as a man or imploding.
• 4:18
  And like some of us do both.
• 4:20
  Some of us have a tendency towards one or the other.
• 4:23
  Some of us almost always lean on one or the other.
• 4:25
  We're the man who explodes or the man who implodes.
• 4:27
  And either way, here's what I've observed in myself and what I've observed in the men that I work with.
• 4:33
  When we are exploding, we leak capacity.
• 4:37
  We are activated.
• 4:38
  We are excited.
• 4:39
  We are excited in an uncomfortable state.
• 4:43
  We're in a place where we're not really present.
• 4:45
  We're not really in the moment.
• 4:46
  We're reacting and...
• 4:49
  We're leaking our energy.
• 4:51
  We're exhausted afterwards.
• 4:53
  And if you're the other side where you implode, there's that trigger, that rupture present, then you're stuffing it down.
• 4:58
  You're holding it aside and you're trying not to think about it.
• 5:00
  It becomes the thing that you think about all the time.
• 5:02
  And you know what?
• 5:03
  As men in that withdrawal period after the rupture, when there's a lack of containment, we can actually look super productive.
• 5:09
  We can look like we're getting a bunch of stuff done.
• 5:11
  We can look like we're executing all kinds of stuff.
• 5:13
  But if you really slow it down and think about it,
• 5:17
  When you've experienced rupture, in the period after that rupture, you're not really there.
• 5:23
  You're not as present as you could be.
• 5:25
  You're not as grounded as you could be.
• 5:27
  You're not really in a place where you are executing at the highest level.
• 5:32
  You're in a place where you're recovering from a reaction.
• 5:35
  You're in a place where you're not fully present.
• 5:38
  And I wrote this down before I recorded this podcast.
• 5:41
  Presence is the deepest expression of masculinity.
• 5:48
  The world doesn't show us this.
• 5:50
  The world doesn't show us this.
• 5:51
  The world shows us aggression as an expression of masculinity.
• 5:56
  It shows us disconnection and disassociation as an expression of masculinity.
• 6:01
  It shows us objectification as an expression of masculinity.
• 6:05
  But for us as men, presence, like being present, being in our bodies, being grounded, being the shore that the waves are crashing against is the deepest expression of masculinity.
• 6:19
  And so I often get asked, like, what does that mean?
• 6:21
  What does masculinity mean?
• 6:22
  What is masculinity?
• 6:23
  I think it's presence.
• 6:25
  I think it's the ability to know that you are safe in your body.
• 6:30
  It's the ability to know that if someone's expressing someone to you, unless you are in real physical danger –
• 6:37
  If there's a reaction happening in your body, that reaction comes from another place in time.
• 6:41
  That reaction comes from wounding.
• 6:44
  That reaction comes from trauma.
• 6:46
  That reaction comes from conditioning.
• 6:48
  That reaction comes from something that's happened in your past that in the present is telling you that this is a situation you have to react to.
• 6:54
  Because if you're not in physical danger, why are you reacting as though you are?
• 7:00
  And if you really think about what masculinity is, being strong,
• 7:06
  Being present, being aware, being in your body, the more that we can train ourselves that that physical reaction that we're having is not something that we have to immediately address, something that we have to, in a red light emergency, like do something about.
• 7:26
  That's how we actually become more present.
• 7:28
  That's how we create more capacity.
• 7:30
  See, the way I look at it is, as men, our capacity to hold containment, our capacity to be present and in the moment is something that we should train.
• 7:40
  You know, I think a lot of times maybe some people look at it as like men are either born with this capacity or not born with this capacity.
• 7:48
  I totally disagree.
• 7:49
  Okay.
• 7:50
  I think that what's happened to every single one of us as men is throughout our lives, we have been conditioned by the adults around us when we're kids, that explosion or implosion is the way to deal with things.
• 8:01
  And we are conditioned into those patterns.
• 8:03
  We see those patterns.
• 8:04
  We accept those patterns.
• 8:06
  We believe those patterns.
• 8:07
  Those patterns become embodied in us at a young age before we really understand the world.
• 8:12
  And so explosion or implosion looks like the way to deal with things.
• 8:15
  And it's a system of behavior that we learn.
• 8:19
  And I think for us as men, when we lose containment and when we step out of that place, like a lot of it comes from societal condition.
• 8:27
  Like how many movies have you seen?
• 8:28
  How many shows have you seen?
• 8:30
  How many, like works of art, right?
• 8:34
  Movies, shows, like this is art that people make.
• 8:37
  And it's art about uncontained men reacting.
• 8:41
  In a way that feels and seems normal.
• 8:44
  And especially for us as men.
• 8:45
  Like these days when you look at the art that's made around men.
• 8:48
  So often it's been around men being the useful idiot.
• 8:51
  And you know men reacting or not understanding.
• 8:54
  Or looking like morons.
• 8:56
  And everybody laughs.
• 8:57
  But like that's conditioning us to feel like that's who we are as men.
• 9:02
  And even when you look at the examples in public, like, man, there's been some high profile examples of men who on video or on hot mics have shown they have a lack of containment, have shown that they're objectifying women, have shown that they've lost their temper, have shown that they act with violence.
• 9:21
  And again, that all conditions us to feel like, hey, this normal thing, normal is losing containment.
• 9:26
  Normal is not being present and grounded and aware and in your body necessarily.
• 9:31
  And, you know, I've said this before for years in the entrepreneurial space.
• 9:35
  There used to be this saying that everybody would repeat.
• 9:37
  They would say, the calmest man in the room is the one who usually wins.
• 9:43
  But no one ever tells you how to become that calmest man.
• 9:45
  And really, the examples around us for most of us are the opposite.
• 9:51
  And so when I think of containment, I'm going to take it like one step, one level deeper.
• 9:57
  I'm actually going to share something with you.
• 9:59
  I actually pulled this up earlier.
• 10:01
  About six years ago, I was in a program.
• 10:03
  I think it was six or seven years ago, I was in a program where
• 10:06
  I was already studying relationships.
• 10:10
  I was studying masculinity.
• 10:11
  I was coming in, trying to become better for myself, but really I was also trying to figure out why my relationship kept having problems, problems, kept having challenges.
• 10:20
  I love Katie more than anything, but like, what was the issue in our relationship?
• 10:24
  And I was in this course where we were asked to write a 20 year vision and I
• 10:28
  We went into a meditation and we wrote this 20-year vision.
• 10:31
  And I'm going to read to you a sentence that came through that didn't make sense at the time.
• 10:36
  But today, I think, actually is kind of the definition of my work.
• 10:40
  The sentence that I wrote was, I'm an example for generations of men to redefine masculinity and step into the divine masculine for men to feel, connect, heal, and make progress in the deepest level in a way that has been obscured from us for centuries.
• 10:55
  I remember when I wrote it down, like, what does that mean?
• 11:01
  It actually stopped me.
• 11:02
  I'm like, I really don't know what I've just written here.
• 11:05
  And it's taking years for it to come through.
• 11:08
  It's taking years for me to understand.
• 11:09
  And when I say I'm the example, I want you to understand something.
• 11:12
  I am the imperfect example.
• 11:15
  I am a student.
• 11:16
  I don't ever want to be called an expert in this work.
• 11:18
  I'm a student.
• 11:19
  I am learning this on a daily basis.
• 11:21
  Part of the reason that I never say I'm an expert and part of the reason I'd say so often I'm imperfect is because I worked with coaches for years as a business coach.
• 11:30
  And so many coaches become the expert and they talk about their expertise and they talk about how much they know and they talk about how they know it all.
• 11:37
  And they're telling their conscious and subconscious minds there's nothing left to learn here.
• 11:41
  And for me, believe me, there is a ton left to learn here.
• 11:45
  I will always be a student of this work.
• 11:47
  Always.
• 11:49
  But when I look at that statement, what I feel like it means today is that for centuries, we as men have been conditioned that the loudest, most aggressive, angriest, most reactive man is the most masculine person.
• 12:07
  And I would challenge all of that.
• 12:10
  Because what I now know is when we are present in our bodies, when we are aware, when we can breathe and transmute the emotions that are coming up, when we can recognize that the feeling in our body is from another point in time and we can breathe through it and stay in the room, we have capacity.
• 12:33
  For me, capacity, if you were to look at it like on a thermometer scale, capacity is how much pressure can you deal with without losing containment?
• 12:43
  How much outside energy can you deal with before you lose it?
• 12:50
  And how much can you transmute and stay present through?
• 12:54
  And I want you and me and everyone who is doing this work to understand something.
• 12:59
  This is a trainable skill.
• 13:02
  This is not a capacity you were born with.
• 13:04
  Some of us might have been born with more than others.
• 13:06
  But it's not just that.
• 13:08
  It is a trainable skill, just like a martial art.
• 13:11
  You know, I think back to when I first started in martial arts when I was 16 years old.
• 13:16
  And I was terrible.
• 13:17
  Like, absolutely terrible.
• 13:19
  I've asked hundreds of martial artists, how were you when you first started?
• 13:22
  And you know what they all say?
• 13:23
  I was terrible.
• 13:24
  Because they now recognize how far they've gone from those moments when they first started.
• 13:29
  And I remember the first time I ever sparred with somebody in martial arts.
• 13:32
  The first time I ever did like hand to hand.
• 13:35
  And it was like an out of body experience.
• 13:39
  I don't remember hardly any of it.
• 13:40
  I didn't remember hardly any of it after it happened.
• 13:42
  I was just like trying to stay alive.
• 13:44
  And I was so overwhelmed.
• 13:47
  And I wasn't in my body.
• 13:48
  I wasn't contained.
• 13:49
  I was panicking.
• 13:50
  It was like heavy breathing, sweating.
• 13:52
  It was pretty bad.
• 13:55
  And then I remember a few years later where, um,
• 13:58
  I would spar with somebody and I'd see the punch coming and I'd see their body telegraph what was going to happen next.
• 14:04
  And I was in my body and I wasn't panicked and I wasn't, I mean, I might've been sweating, but I wasn't sweating like I was that first time from adrenaline.
• 14:11
  I was sweating from the workout and I could see what was coming.
• 14:14
  I could block it.
• 14:14
  I could counterpunch.
• 14:15
  I could, you know, sweep the knee, kick, take them down, whatever I needed to do in order to stay in that place of actually being contained and actually being there.
• 14:25
  And life is exactly the same.
• 14:29
  If you start focusing on your triggers and understanding the reactions that are happening in your body and slowing things down so you don't have to react immediately and you don't become uncontained.
• 14:40
  If you start taking time to actually step into practices, it will keep your nervous system in a state of...
• 14:48
  non-reactivity, you'll be able to do this better.
• 14:51
  If you start hydrating and walking and spending time in neutral and taking time for yourself, you'll actually increase your capacity for containment.
• 15:00
  And here's what I know, not just for myself, I know this in my life, it's like the clearest thing I know.
• 15:07
  But in coaching other men now, I see that our capacity for containment, increasing our capacity for containment increases our capacity for everything.
• 15:16
  For everything.
• 15:18
  And for years, I've been a biohacker and, you know, I do sleep maxing and I do red light therapy.
• 15:25
  I'm in a sauna.
• 15:26
  I'm in a cold plunge.
• 15:27
  I do all these things to increase my energy, to increase my capacity.
• 15:31
  But the thing that has increased my capacity for life and for everything I do more than anything else has been increasing my capacity to stay in a place of containment and non-reactivity.
• 15:44
  It's changed how I deal with conflict.
• 15:47
  It's changed the standard I keep for what I allow in my life and what I don't allow in my life.
• 15:52
  It's changed how I see myself because when you're in a reaction, it's very hard to see yourself clearly and it's very hard to see anybody else clearly.
• 16:01
  And the more contained I am, the more I can see what work I actually really need to do and what things are coming up for me over and over again and what standard I want to hold for the world around me.
• 16:11
  And it's changed everything.
• 16:12
  And so for anyone who listens to this podcast and says, you know, I feel resentment around containment, it's a thought I want you to sit with and ask yourself, why do you resent being the man that doesn't explode or implode?
• 16:30
  And what I would guess might come up or what I would suggest might come up or I would suggest you probe is that there's a young part of you that's been trained that that's who we are as men.
• 16:43
  And that's how we should be.
• 16:45
  And I would spend some time with that part of you and show it and understand it and read into it and allow it to know that there's a better way.
• 17:01
  exploding or imploding is not a given.
• 17:04
  It's not the only way.
• 17:06
  Staying present, staying in your body, not only will connect you to yourself, but just as importantly, will connect you to source, God, whatever it is for you, that higher power.
• 17:17
  In such a more dynamic way, I feel like the hand of God touches almost everything that I do these days.
• 17:26
  And if you had told me 10 years ago, I would say that I would have laughed at you.
• 17:29
  But today, I can see divine timing working for me.
• 17:32
  I can see divine order unfolding around me.
• 17:35
  I can see what I'm doing changing the lives of the people that are around me.
• 17:39
  And I now know that I'm not running past intuition and inspiration like I used to because I'm in a place of containment.
• 17:46
  I can hear both of those things so much more clearly.
• 17:49
  I can feel both of those things so much more clearly.
• 17:52
  And it's absolutely and totally changed my life.
• 17:56
  If you're a man who relates to this and you'd like to understand more about masculine containment and getting into your body and hearing intuition and feeling inspiration and changing your life in a way that you increase your capacity for everything.
• 18:11
  Go to thebrotherhoodsociety.com.
• 18:14
  If we're in a waitlist time where we're building a waitlist to start interviews for a container, sign up for the waitlist or click and sign up for an interview.
• 18:23
  If you're someone who's called to do this work, I'd be honored to walk this path with you, to share this information with you, and to have you in the brotherhood where...
• 18:32
  Men do this work together.
• 18:34
  We inspire each other.
• 18:35
  We show each other it's possible.
• 18:37
  And it's absolutely life-changing.
• 18:40
  If you want to have capacity, more capacity for everything, go to thebrotherhoodsociety.com.
• 18:44
  I look forward to seeing you on an interview in our next container.
• 18:47
  And thank you so much for being a listener and for being here with me today.