Latest / Inspiring Stories / Guys it is time to get unstuck with Michael Jaquith

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Guys it is time to get unstuck with Michael Jaquith · Inspiring Stories

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Thank you for listening to Depictures Media Radio. You everything. Welcome back everyone.
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This one's for the guys. Ladies. Uh, if if you're if
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you're married, or you have a significant other attached to to a guy,
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go get him. We're going to give you a few seconds to go get
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him while we while we work on this introduction because it says this is important
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for relationships, and it says something that most of us men will never admit
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to that we get stuck. We get stuck in emotional states that we just
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don't understand why we're stuck in those emotional states. And we're men. We
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don't ask for help. Hey, I don't need help. I'm a guy.
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You know. We put on the the motro front and we decide that,
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hey, you know what, we don't need to deal with our feelings.
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We don't need to deal with our emotions, we don't need to find
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deeper meaning into our relationships. And it hurts us. It hurts our relationships,
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and ultimately we wind up being shut out. Some cases. I know
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for myself, divorce happened and I was blindsided as to what was actually going
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on that my wife was at the time was looking for something that I wasn't
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giving her because I wasn't dealing with who I was as a person. I
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wasn't doing the things I needed to do so that I would stay in the
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right mature stat emotionally. Well, Luckily, UM, we have a person
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that can that can actually help us with this in one in particular, doctor
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Michael jack With UM And well, Michael, he's he's got he's kind of
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kind of fell and dear to my heart here because he how he got to
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being the coach that he is and the person that helps helps men get on
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a suck the way he does because he follows a similar path that I did.
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He has a PhD in chemistry, and as you know I years ago
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you would have found me in a laboratory somewhere as an analytical chemist. So
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and he left the corporate world, um, and he's helping men find their
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truth. He's helping men find that emotional thing that gets them unstuck. So,
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in his words, he left the corporate world and now helps men everywhere
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discover how they can get more of what they want and live a promise and
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of abundant life by combining analytical science, psychology and the time under teachings of
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faith. Michael helps men who feel stuck, confused, and powerless to unlock
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those chains and find what they want. Michael is also married with six children,
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and hey, he lives in rural Idaho. That's a pretty cool,
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pretty cool place, and he'd find he himself, had to find that calm
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in abundant life himself, and now he wants to help other men get there
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also. So why don't we start with bringing Michael on the show, and
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he's going to tell us how the story about how he started helping men get
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unstuck. Why don't we start with the story of how you decided that that
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helping men get unstuck is is the way to go. So it's a kind
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of long story, just to put in context here. I did not start
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life intending to end up at this spot. I thought I'd be like an
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engineer, scientist kind of guy. So I went Optical University. I have
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a PhD in chemistry. I worked in corporate research for ten years, almost
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ten years and a lot that I loved, like, I really did enjoy
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that, But some stuff happened. The company I was working for wasn't necessarily
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going to the greatest of places and I was given an opportunity to leave.
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And really there's a there's this very strong component of the faith in me as
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well that I really felt God prompting me. But when I look back at
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what I enjoyed the most and all my time because I worked, I did
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semi conducted research, I wrote some pretty cool stuff, had a pretty since
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I budget, and it got to play with all the toys, and it
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was the relationships with people, and specifically there were a number of them where
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somebody had really changed my life by getting involved, and a number of times
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where I then had helped other guys. Just chatting in the cafe, you
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know, you're done with an official one on one meeting. You're just kind
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of there just talking. He happens to mention something personally and we talked for
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maybe five minutes, and those little snippets were when I found to be some
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of the most powerful moments. And so when I had the chance to leave,
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I talked about my wife great about it. I was super entrepreneurial,
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I should point out, like I like like a mid level entrepreneur. She's
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like a like warped ten like to the max level entrepreneur. Right, Yeah,
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So She's like, yeah, we should make our own business, and
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so we both decided to give it a go and become life coaches. And
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it's it's a little weird. I'm very analytical, and so sometimes when people
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talk to me to expect me to place upon how I speak to be analytical
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logic. But as a life coach, you really have to go into feelings
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a lot. And so I think it's a kind of an interesting combination and
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be able to bring this analygal mindset into a space where we have to also
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be human, you know, you bring it up because we come from similar
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backgrounds. I was in uh we talked about this in the pre interview.
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How I was in semiconductor also, and he got to play with two five
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million dollars icpum icp ms is testing down to the park pot brilliant. Sorry,
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audience, most of you probably don't even understand what the hell I just
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said, but Michael gets it. Yeah, and uh, you know,
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it was fun. It was like I'm walked away in there's a clean room.
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It's like the solitude all that sort of stuff, and there was just
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something else that I knew had to be there, right exactly. Yeah,
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I think so it's so truly. They give me these multimillion dollar wafers to
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play with and you like it to do all sorts of crazy stuff with them,
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and half the time they break them and you like what, I'm sorry
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about that, And it's it's just you need that depth that humans weren't meant
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to live in a clean room where we interact with the bunny suits. And
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certainly it's a very important job and I'm very bad people do it. I
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also want to have my cool gadgets and technology, but I just that relationship
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piece was just so much more powerful connective to my heart. Yeah, we
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need that connection thought, I think so, And I think you can work
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in the cleanroom still have connection by all means, but that just wasn't the
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way for path for me. Yeah. So, um, I noticed that
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that something about about you that a lot of put this way. A lot
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of a lot of coaches they avoid terms like God and in religious terms,
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but you embraced them. So the faith is part of who I am,
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Like that is the foundation upon which a lot of my identity, if not
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i'd say the more part of my identity rests. And when you have a
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faith perspective, you either have or you don't, and if you do,
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then if something works, it has to somehow mesh with God. This whole
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notion of religion versus science is kind of silly, actually, it's in fact,
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through most of time, the bulk of scientific research was actually done by
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religious individuals, by priests or brothers, and so there's really no separation there
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at all. And I would argue and claim that a lot of the interior
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dialogue that is, and I'll say, sacrificial surrendering of what's going inside us
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to whether you want to call it a higher power, to the universe,
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I would say, to God, it's very powerful because it is consistent both
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with the teachings of psychology and with the teaching of theology. Those go hand
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in hand. And if I believe that God is real and that he did
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create us, it would also make sense that what psychology reveals leads me back
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to that. And the psychology is pretty clear. When we engage with ourselves
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as if there were a God, we tend to get better more quickly than
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if we don't. And a lot of life coaches will use where it's like
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the universe or wellness or whatever general term you want to call and like we
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were talking beforehand, I think, and if I give the very best of
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attentions, I think everyone's actually trying to refer to the same thing. But
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I use the phrase God. Yeah, yeah, I agree that we're all
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referring to the same thing. And I well, I actually went ahead and
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became a pastor at one point. And the thing of it is is you
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talk to a lot of people who, oh, I want to be Christian,
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You're like, well, the Buddhists, they don't think, they don't
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understand God, they don't understand mine what I believe to be God, and
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they're going and they would trail it all the way back to even to our
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brothers and Judaism, and it's like, what did you forget the part where
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Jesus Christ which Jewish? And like. So in with that being said that,
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I believe that the more open we are to how everybody's saying, let's
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fill our world with love, and the more acceptable we are, that the
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easier becomes for us to accept that love absolutely. But I think we need
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to really be clear about what love means and what love is. One of
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those words that I think the English language has slaughtered, like it's so hard
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to pin down the word love anymore. And I'll use a real concrete example.
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If let's say you have somebody who's a dated to cocaine, one of
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the worst things you can do for them is to give them a bunch of
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money. Is if they don't have money, if they're sober in the moment,
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they can function a little bit. But you give them a bunch of
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money and all they are narcissistic friends will suddenly descend upon them and three days
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later that money will be gone. They'll find themselves in a gutter with some
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massive hangover. Right, if it's not loving to just necessarily give anything,
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there's a lot of acts of love that aren't loving in certain contexts. And
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this is where I think the faith really comes in powerfully to say, yes,
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we all need to improve the love, and yes God loves all of
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us, and we need to love each other as we love ourselves, But
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to clarify what that is and when that, how does that manifest? How
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do we do in the way that is helpful? And you know, one
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of the most common ways that in my world I see people need to spend
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more love is more love to themselves. And I think a lot of times
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guys in particular, they think of I'll be tough love. You know,
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I'll beat myself up if I didn't do the thing. Oh I didn't do
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what I said it'll do. I'll just yell at myself on tide my own
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head and call myself some names and that, and that's not love either.
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And we have to really challenge as a society what does it mean to love?
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How do we really about what is in the best for someone else?
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Yeah, my favorite way to actually use the word in general means that energy
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that passes between and connects all of us together. Yeah. Oh, there's
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absolute connection. I think. You know, if you ever doubt that there's
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some level of connection beyond the five senses, you should just simply do this
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experiment where you see somebody who's working the computer, walk up behind them and
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just stare at the back of their head and see if they notice you.
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Right, Like, there is undeniably additional connections beyond the mere or five senses.
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Whether you want to call it souls spirits, which is consistent with the
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faith that you know as a Catholic, I believe I'm both body and soul
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both, or you want to call it whatever, there are other connections out
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there, and I told your love can be manifest through that form of connection.
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Absolutely, there are times that I, oh, a great experience should
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do. If you have kids, it's so much fun. You can trant
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to teach your kids about the power of love and the sub verbal communication pathways
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you go up to. So I have an annual daughter and I did the
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different ones and it say, okay, Papa, we're gonna do experiment.
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And I said, I'm going to say something. I want you to react
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to it. And so she's smiled at me, and I look at her,
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and with all the love in the universe can poss and muster on my
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face, I look at her say, oh, honey, I just hate
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you so much right now. She bursts out laughing because it's so the words
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are so incongruous with the feeling that her brain that doesn't have a choice,
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it can't take the words. The feelings that nonverbals overpower those words entirely.
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And she bursts out lapping, and I say, Okay, that was just
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the experiment. What I wanted to show you, though, is how important
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what we do with our bodies is even beyond the words. And it happened
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as a moment where she had used the right words but had the wrong body
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lang, which is trying to, you know, as a parent, demonstrate
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that. But I think it's really really powerful that we do. No,
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it's not just words. The lawyers don't have the monopoly on how things get
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communicated, like that word state that that was going to. Yeah, they
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totally get where you're going with that. And you said, we have six
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children, right, Yes, sir, they are. They're a handfuled sometimes
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they're also it's the best of both worlds. Like I tell people, the
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hardest number of children you never have, possibly have is whatever number you currently
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have, because it's it's every time you add another child, there's something's get
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easier, something's get harder. But when you're in that moment, whatever number
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of kids you have, it's a struggle and it's an opportunity for joining love
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also at the same time. So here's something something that a lot of men
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struggle way, and it's acceptance of who a person is, including that but
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young person that is standing in front of us that we help create um accepting
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who they are versus trying to involve them into somethin So there's a metaphysical and
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a physical rule that I cannot give what I do not have right now.
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If you say, Michael, can I have twenty bucks? And if I
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don't have twenty bucks, I can't give you twenty bucks, and a very
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real way, this also works metaphysically. If I don't accept myself, I
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cannot give acceptance to a child. If you watch closely, you'll oftentimes see
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parents struggle the most to love and be present with the children that have the
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same weaknesses as they do. There's a good buddy of mine who I love
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if he's an awesome man, he's the sort of guy that is a really
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TYPEE just really struggles to ruffle things, to cut and endure conflict. And
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his oldest son is the same way. And I watch because it's so hard.
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He really struggles to accept this aspect of his oldest son because he doesn't
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accept it within himself. And he even has told me that he said,
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the amount of pain this behavioral pattern has caused me so much that I'm so
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mad at it in me, But then it amplifies my response to the child.
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And so I think, if you are a parent, the number one
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most powerful thing you can do to love your children better is to work on
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yourself. And this is why I actually believe in the greatest second greatest commandment
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is to love your neighbor as you love yourself. As a Christian, our
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Lord is sellings. You have to love yourself as a psychologies, I would
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double down and say you have to love yourself if you want to give that
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love. And loving myself doesn't mean I love every action I do. Look,
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I've done some bone heavily stupid things. I'm sure I'm not unique in
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that regard, and so I can look at those things and say, yeah,
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that was that was bone heavily stupid. Don't do that again, dummy.
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But I have to also love myself and see the goodness of myself.
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And the more that I'm able to love myself through my own feelings and accept
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myself, the more I'll be able to accept the child in front of me
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who perhaps struggles with something similar. Right. Accept accept our failures, and
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of course be grateful for our successes. Right, oh, absolutely celebrate them.
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In fact, yeah oh yeah, a matter of fact, around here,
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we have huge celebrations over all of our successes, no matter how lord
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and small they are, because they come in different sizes. Um, But
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so there you said said some really important things. Where, um, how
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do you teach teach men to do those things? When a lot of times
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because we're we're both of about the same age and where the men ahead of
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us told us that, Oh that's fruit, fruit stuff in and how do
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we get how do we get around that? So I think it's it's it's
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pretty complicated at first, but it's also pretty simple and so many things.
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That's that's it's more simple than we wish, sorry, more simple than we
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think it is, but not nowhere near as easy as we'd like. Let's
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start with some basics. If you want to be a guy who's able to
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love yourself, you first have to know what does it feel like to love?
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And this may sound simple, but a lot of guys actually do not
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know how to process as feelings. I mean, as a guy in our
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world right now, there's pretty much like two feelings you're allowed to have and
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be good at, anger and lust. To gook to Indiana Jones, he
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exemplifies those two so well. But does you ever see him in sweet tender
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moments expressing warm feelings in a non sexual way. Oh, he's too busy
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whipping someone his whip or you know, shooting some of sword boual guy with
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his gun whatever. Right, and so we don't have that role model,
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we don't have that public blessing as a male to really experience these other feelings.
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Now we also look at generationally, we're coming in spot where the alignment
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of the generations is great. Books thing out right now about generational diversity is
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such that a lot of us your age of my age are taught suck it
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up, buttercup, unless you're bleeding, you aren't allowed to have tears,
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and no feelings allowed unless it's anger or they don't even say it, Scien
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said aloud. But like their role model, you have anger, you have
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lost. You can't have any other feeling out there, maybe some happiness.
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That's about it. And the first thing is guys have to do is learn
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what does it mean to have these feelings? There are pieces within you.
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If I look get the person of Michael, I would say there's a piece
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here that experience this wound as a child. There's a piece over here that
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really loves his children, as a piece over here that really loves his wife,
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or the piece here that loves where he lives, and all these pieces
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of you exist, and some of them come into Pelay more or less than
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others. But there's also a central unifying will, and if you're integrated in
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alignment, that central unifying will can drive and direct those pieces to perform in
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the way in your life you want them to. But if you're not,
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if you don't have that integration, individual pieces will take over. And this
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is what you see so often when we hit the famous lines of why did
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I do that? That felt like that wasn't even me? What just happened
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there? How could I have done this thing? And it's because there's a
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piece that isn't cared for enough that takes over and drives us into an action
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that later on we don't want to have done. And so as a guy,
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I not only have to learn how to have feelings, I have to
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learn how to have soft hundred feelings for these pieces of myself that have done
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things in the past that I'm deeply ashamed of or deeply hurt by. And
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this is where I have to really start getting deeper, as we have to
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look at what are these pieces in there? What is their hurt? And
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how do I love them? Even though they've caused me so much hurt in
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the past. Does that make sense as a way to start, Yeah,
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that does. And did some self identifying on that, and that there's like
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certain scenes in life that they play over and over again in my head and
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in that feeling of those feelings are curtain and despair rise up and like,
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wait a second, that's passes down, it's over with. It's like and
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I start to realize that maybe I haven't completely or there's a time for me
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to work on it again. Right Well, this one of the secrets is
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the past is in the past. It's not dead, it's not the past.
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It still lives in you now. There's still a piece of you now
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that if you haven't healed that piece, it's still living there right now.
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That makes sense, It makes total sense. So how do we learn to
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learn to deal with all these pieces? And they learn to luve all these
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pieces? Lots of times you need somebody else. A lot of times you're
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in it too thick, like if you're too deep in the woods and you
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need to see what the roadmap looks like, all you see is treats everywhere.
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I don't know if you've ever been in you know, much time in
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the forest. There's this horrible movie that can be called The Blair Wage Project
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drilling nuts grow up in northern Michigan, Like you learn how to move through
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the forest, and these bone headed idiots are doing everything wrong, and you're
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like, oh my gosh. Then I realized that while I'm so quick to
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condemn the children make silly choices, that I did the same thing to myself
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emotionally, and I'd be so deep into my own emotional quagmire, my own
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emotional wounds, I couldn't even see what was going on. And so a
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lot of times you do need somebody else to step in. In the case
22:45
where there's serious trauma, say sexual views, neglect, some really serious big
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ones, then you need a license therapist, because what's happening in that scenario
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is your parts, your piece, is your nervous system, are so badly
22:59
damaged that it cannot process on its own. And so the therapist effectively loans
23:04
his fully functional nervous system to you. Tell processes it's done verbally by walking
23:08
through and he might say something like, oh, if that had happened,
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I would think I might feel like this, And you say, oh,
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that is that's right, that is what I'm feeling. And so that's the
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therapist loaning his nervous system to you. But that's, we'll say, the
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more serious gets from most of us when we're just looking at Oh, you
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know, when I was in fourteen years old, this guy at the ice
23:29
skating ring to fell and made it look like I tripped him, and then
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every else all my friends call me names, and so I'm still kind of
23:33
grumpy that that wasn't real. It didn't trip him, but there's this wound
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from that, and that sounds so silly that as a guy, you're like,
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oh, suck it up, potter Cup, who cares about fourteen?
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Is that ice skating? I'm over that. I don't know other people anymore,
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They don't know me anymore. Why does it matter? But we need
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to understand that it does still't matter. And so if you need a coach
23:52
in a situation to be able to step back and say, oh, actually
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does still't matter. And what a coach does is a coach doesn't process for
23:59
you. Coach simply pulls it up for you to see what you're doing.
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And this is true in all the sports. Like, so if you're a
24:03
basketball player, and you hire a basketball coach. The coach doesn't get on
24:07
there and dribble the basketball for you, but he does tell you, oh,
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I see you're putting too much weight in your left foot when you go
24:11
into shoot. Oh, your ball slipping your hand. So he pulls it
24:14
up and highlights you. This is what I see happening. And then you,
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as the player, get to adjust. He might even have a practical
24:19
advice. Maybe you should rotate the ball, rotate your handle it as you're
24:22
holding the ball before you shoot. Whatever. I'd actually don't play basketball.
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I'm making this up as it go. Cool confession. I'm not a basketball
24:29
guy. And so this coach holds it up. And it's the same thing
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with its emotional self. And so perhaps Michael, I'm making this up here,
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but maybe you were the fourteen year old who as the ice skating rink
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someone else fell and blamed you for tripping him. As a coach, I
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hold him and say, oh, I see two things happen here. Not
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only do I see a wound present, but I see you shaming this part
24:49
of yourself in this wound, and that just even that awareness allows your nervous
24:56
system to redirect and to reframe how it's happening and mendas healing can take place.
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Even from that that makes sense. And hey, I was a not
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quite a star on and track the field, but I want my fair share
25:15
of races there you go. Yeah, yeah, And I remember my coach,
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you know how you you lot up in the starting blocks for for for
25:26
this brands right, and he'd say, no, no, put your foot
25:29
this way, do this, a little more of that and a little way
25:32
because you're doing too much to this. You're not pulling, you're not pulling
25:33
your weight enough with your legs, and you're pushing too much through your hands.
25:37
So we're going to adjust things so that you're half and they had you
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balance so that you perform. Yes. One of the differences between the conventional
25:48
coaching and life coaching is on the starting block, the coach can see the
25:52
position of your legs and your feet, can see which muscles are tensing.
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There's a lot of real direct evidence he has. When I'm working with the
25:57
client emotionally, I get there acial expressions, but there's that's such a simplification.
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I can have the same facial expression for a frustration as I do for
26:07
say, discrete pain, maybe I just you know, got bit by a
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mosquito as I'm talking to you in my flinch, and that can be misread
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and so so much more life coaching involves this interrogation technique. I'm asking you
26:18
questions what is going on here and then holding it back up to you again.
26:22
So there's a difference there with it, But you're right, that's a
26:23
great analogy of the coach. Yeah, so you have a process about how
26:30
you discover for people and how you actually start to guide them, right,
26:36
absolutely, So why don't we talk a little bit about those steps about you
26:41
how you do that for people. So the first thing I tell people is
26:45
you're not going to change if you're not committed to changing. There's a reason
26:48
why you haven't changed so far as because you don't actually want to. As
26:52
if you did, you do it. Like, for example, right now,
26:55
I have a pen on my desk. If I want to pick up
26:56
a pen, I pick up the pen. Okay, that was relatively simple,
26:59
the bars, But if you tell me, Michael, pick up the
27:02
desk, I'd be like, Okay, well I probably could build enough strength
27:03
to do it, but that's gonna take some suffering to get there. Now,
27:07
if you said, Michael, I want to pick up the desk and
27:08
hike up the mountain over there, well that is humanly possible. But the
27:11
struggle I'm gonna have to do to get there's a lot, right, And
27:15
so to a lot of us, these emotional work, especially as guys,
27:18
feels like picking up the desk and hiking up the mountain, right, So
27:22
it's very very intimidating. The first thing I tell people is you're gonna come
27:25
in here and talk to me. Are you ready for change? Because it's
27:27
going to be uncomfortable. I believe it was Freud said that what you need
27:32
most we found, oh Young, because Young said that what you need most
27:34
would be found where you least want to look. And the reason why you
27:38
need the most is because you've never gone there to look. And so the
27:41
first step is are you willing to do this? But then we say what
27:45
is it? Specifically want to set change? What is the behavioral pattern it's
27:48
manifest? And then we go looking what's underneath that behavioral pattern? And within
27:55
an hour, I generally will show a guy some piece of themselves they've never
28:00
been able to look at, had the courage to look at, had the
28:02
clarity to look at whatever, whatever the reason is, there's some piece themselves
28:06
there that's manifesting this behavioral pattern they don't like, and what's going on there
28:11
now to actually start changing that pieces different But within just this discovery process,
28:15
really really careful questioning what is happening here, what are you thinking? Being
28:18
curious, just digging down there. It helps a lot the antical mindset we're
28:22
talking about earlier on that I can put patterns together. It's not uncommon.
28:26
On working with the guy for the first time, he says, I'll make
28:29
one up. Oh, I really don't like that. I just treat my
28:30
wife so poorly. And I'd say, cool, let's talk about that.
28:33
Why are you tweating your wife so poorly? And you'll say, well,
28:36
it'll happen right after the kids do this, or maybe my job does this
28:40
and sometimes they don't tell them. I wonder maybe something if this fits,
28:44
is there a possibility that what's actually going on here is how you see yourself
28:51
based on what these other things you're doing, and you can't stand seeing yourself
28:53
this way, and you're actually projecting from that place of shame into how you're
28:59
tweating your life. You know, sometimes a bit. Wow, that's so
29:03
true. I never looked at that way. And so that discovery process,
29:06
it really requires a commitment to honesty, a commitment to going into that discomfort,
29:11
and a commitment to sharing something that you probably are not going to enjoy
29:14
about yourself. Yeah. Yeah, considering there are places where, without the
29:22
great guidance, you won't you won't flip that rock over. No, and
29:27
you don't want to. You're you're you're strongly compelled not to because maybe once
29:32
as a kid you did, and as a kid that your nervous system interpreted
29:36
what happened next is a dragon jumping out of eating you, and you're like,
29:38
well, I'm not touching that rock again, right exactly. So once
29:45
you get somebody down the road in um, how do you start to do?
29:51
Of course a lot of cool you say, oh, well, the
29:55
client determines the goals, not me. But but there is a some general
30:00
results. If you'd like to see the people where you know that they've actually
30:03
found that success. You're so right. In all the certification programs they say
30:08
it's one hundred percent the client's journey. You're not allowed to have any agenda
30:11
for them. Come on, I'm human. I want to see somebody succeed.
30:14
I want to see them experienced love and find happiness in their life and
30:17
find the peace and freedom for whatever that's of course, I have an agenda
30:19
for them, and so what I see isn't going through this though? Is
30:22
this this constant self checking to hold that back? And of course that desire
30:29
is there because you know the truth be told, Michael, I make some
30:32
really powerful relationships with some of these guys. Like when you spend time,
30:34
a significant amount of time exploring deep in someone's life and then that transformation and
30:41
the joy that comes as they transform, you could very attached to them.
30:45
And it has to be a professional relationship, obvious, And that's honestly.
30:48
One of the reasons why I sespecialize I'm working with men is I think that
30:52
I would have a harder time holding that detachment I as a lady. So
30:55
that's just my own weakness. But my point I'm going to here with as
30:59
you're going through this process there, it was really simple powerful steps. If
31:04
you first accept this event happened, this piece of you exist, this wound
31:08
is there. You have to forgive whatever in that situation needs, because sometimes
31:14
that's yourself. Sometimes forgiving yourself means one of the hardest people to forgive.
31:18
And then coming back from a face faith perspective and use faith based language for
31:21
this next step, and I say, have to surrender that to God,
31:23
to surrender your sense of justice, you have to surrender all that could have
31:29
been. Because there's a grieving process too. We as modern Americans, do
31:33
not mourn and grieve will or I should say really first world, there's all
31:37
of us. We do not give space for mourning. You do not give
31:40
space for grieving. About two years ago, I lost my grandfather and I
31:44
was invited to say something at the funeral, and I did, and I
31:48
talked a little bit about creating intentional space to allow the feeling of grief and
31:55
mourning, and that it's easy in the case of a loss of a loved
31:57
one, like we all see that, Okay, great, we're in cried
32:00
a funeral. It's much harder to grieve things that are less tangible. And
32:05
one of the most powerful things we need to grieve is the loss of opportunity,
32:07
the loss of potential goodness, the loss of a plan, the loss
32:10
of a relationship, and these we also need to grieve and part of the
32:15
healing process, we surrender to God and we have to more in that and
32:20
through that process learn to accept that part of ourself and even care for it.
32:22
One of the more powerful images I'll oftentimes do, especially if the guy
32:25
I'm working with a father, is I'll say, let's imagine that your son
32:30
came to you and said this, this, this, this, and had
32:32
had the same situation happened. What advice or what would you say to your
32:36
son? And almost that exception, the first words out of their mouth are
32:39
pretty hard, like, oh, I'd say, suck it up, it's
32:42
not a big deal, get over it. Something various of that say oh,
32:45
is that what he needs to hear right now? Oh? Now,
32:49
I guess not. What do you think he needs to hear? And say,
32:52
oh, he probably needs to be affirmed and to be told that that
32:54
interaction is normal and that he's okay. When they say why is it you're
32:59
struggling to offer him that right now? And the answer is almost always because
33:02
I can't give to myself. And we go through this process and just coming
33:07
up with different ways to look at what's happening inside of these various pieces and
33:12
parts of ourselves. It's not like it's magic. The only the only spiritual
33:15
thing happen is coming from the good Lord above, right. I give him
33:17
full credit for all that. But my own part is just this relentless,
33:22
calm, patient pursuit of what there is good and bringing it into the right
33:27
perspective. Yeah, and that's that's where the whole thing wise, it is
33:36
perspective, because everything, Yeah, sometimes it doesn't even have I just turned
33:44
one degree and it's a whole different view. You know. What's what's sending
33:51
me forwards line that if you think you can do it, you're right,
33:52
and if you think you can't do it, you're also right. That perspective
33:55
is key. Maybe you come home and your wife, for whatever reason,
34:00
isn't engaged with the physically the way that you want her to. Perspective,
34:02
is she a horrible person who hates your guts or your feet are certainly and
34:06
that result is going to propagated forward. Or she's an amazing person who spink
34:09
if everybody eventually have caring for these children in this house that you love so
34:13
much, you're so grateful for all she does. Both statements that could potentially
34:16
be true. Probably not the first one, but with the perspective that we
34:21
take on that determines the results we get. Next, right, Yeah,
34:28
it's if you want her to be loving even more loving down the road.
34:35
Number choose the winner. Yeah, number one pro tip. So that's my
34:38
free coaching advice for all guys listening. Don't choose perspective. Number one of
34:42
my example, it's trust me. It's like, yeah, if you choose
34:50
a roam one, you're a little quick. Yeah. Oh yeah, well
34:53
sometimes they're more subtle though. That one's pretty complex with some of them.
34:57
Actually, we can linger an incorrect perspectives for decades. Yeah, that's true.
35:02
You know. Um, there was something on I'm not going to get
35:07
into too many details because my dear wife doesn't always like me sharing too much
35:16
over this show, just in case me run into somebody on the street.
35:22
Yea, um, but there was something that I had that I had been
35:25
doing for a number of years and she didn't didn't like it, and she
35:31
just saying, well, it's just him. I've just loved with it,
35:35
right, And we were just sitting there talking about stuff and it just happened,
35:43
happened that the happened just happened to pop up, and she's like,
35:46
I really hate that at it. Oh okay, well let's work on taking
35:54
those steps to change it. Yeah, coost her for being willing to say
36:00
something. There's a risk of there too. Yeah, it's like, um,
36:08
and this is this is something that leaked into something else that I don't
36:13
a lot of guys that I discovered through another series of groups and everything that
36:19
I was in, that most men don't find it difficult to find an honest
36:23
relationship with another person. They struggled to be honest with themselves, and we
36:30
we really struggle. I don't know if you ever listened to the narrative of
36:34
your self voice in your head, but sometimes you should stop and listen.
36:36
Sometimes it's it's rather scary. And we speak to ourselves so horrifically that if
36:40
someone spoke to my children the way that I speak to myself in my own
36:45
head, I would be upset with them. Right, But we do this
36:47
ourselves all the time, and we delude ourselves. The psychologist tell us it's
36:52
so powerful human ability, the human beings brains ability to self delude is stunningly
36:59
high. We can trick ourselves and believing all sorts of things, And so
37:02
how could I possibly have an honest relationship with you. If I don't have
37:06
an honest relaship with myself, if I'm not living in integrity, I cannot
37:08
give you what I do not have. Yeah, well, on that one
37:14
with the self talk, what I found one day I started listening to my
37:20
own self talk and it led straight back to my own father's self talk.
37:28
Yes, I used to listen to how he talked to himself, and then
37:31
I found myself. I was like, oh my god, I sound just
37:35
like my father talking to him. So it's it's very very common. Parents
37:42
pass on so much more than DNA, and both the good, the bad,
37:45
and be ugly. But again going back to what I said earlier,
37:47
if you are a parent of children, you want to do your best thing
37:50
you can for those children, fix your own problems because it's so much easier
37:54
if you're a problem. Think of it this way, right, Let's use
37:57
a medical analogy. All right, we have some amazingly skilled doctors and that
38:01
can do really amazing things with medicine. But let's imagine you have a gunshot
38:06
wound. What's easier to just prevent the gunshot wound the first place, or
38:09
to try to use our amazing medical science to save the person's life after the
38:13
gunshot. You may succeeded the second one, but if there's a way to
38:15
avoid it, hey, that's a whole lot easier to treat you, right,
38:19
payment, nothing good to go. Same thing when it comes to children.
38:22
If you do not fix yourself, you will wound them in the same
38:25
way that you were wounded. But you are still wounded, and yes there
38:30
is treatment for that. It can be fixed, but it's a whole lot
38:32
easier rather than putting out a bunch of stuff after the fact, put the
38:35
stuff on you beforehand, and it's better. Then you never developed the limp,
38:38
never develop whatever the side effect is from the wound, just avoiding in
38:42
the first place. Yeah, you're reminding me of a line in a movie.
38:47
But Dad, I spent thousands of dollars on therapy trying to get over
38:52
which you said one day when I was four years old, should Rachel to
38:59
check? But the point of the point of it wasn't. It was a
39:07
father and child having an honest conversation as it don'ts about this is what I
39:15
had to overcome, and how do we prevent the overcoming by fixing ourselves first?
39:23
Right? Absolutely? So? Let me I'll share a little piece of
39:27
my own story. I did not have particularly awesome role models of father,
39:30
and that's that's actually quite a bit of an understatement. And there are a
39:34
lot of things that happened in that house spring up that were they would they
39:37
would qualify for the capital T trauma. And it was not until much later
39:42
in my life he went to jail for ten years because of some of what
39:44
happened in that house. And it's not till much later in my life that
39:46
I realized how much I needed to forgive him. And so it was actually
39:52
two years ago at my grandfather's funeral, was the first time I'd been in
39:55
the same room with him in quite some time, and I said, Dad,
40:00
we got to talk. And so I arrange a time. I chose
40:02
the time after all the kids were in bed, left my wife in the
40:05
hotel room with all the kids that were sleeping as an airbnb whatever, and
40:08
met my dad at a spot where we could just talk. There's no one
40:12
else. There's actually my grandmother let us use one of the rooms in her
40:15
house where were just chatted and I had an honest conversation with him, and
40:19
we talked through it and it's I went into that conversation for my own sake,
40:24
and I say that selfishly because I knew that I had to get myself
40:29
aligned and needed to say to him the words you did this. This really
40:36
hurt, and I forgive you. There was more than one this is,
40:39
but that conversation changed me by changing me, by allowing me to have more
40:49
honestly with myself but what it is there to live more and teging to myself
40:52
to speak what I needed to speak. And I think my dad knew that.
40:54
I don't know if he'd fully consciously knew that, but his response is
40:59
not relevant to the momentum. But to say that I went there because I
41:02
knew what I needed to do to get that alignment, to get that presence
41:07
ready, to get to be able to better love my own children and my
41:10
wife. And it's tough that that took me years of various workings, up,
41:16
therapy, all this stuff combined to get to that moment where I could
41:21
say those words to him. But I guarantee you it changed me. Yeah,
41:29
I guess that that's the whole point is if you because through the uncomfortable
41:35
on the other end, you're a better person for it. That's the rest,
41:38
as long as the right discomfort. I don't do it on sick your
41:40
hand and a wood chipper that that's not going to the right sort of discomfort.
41:44
Yeah, only the put the wood chipper over. There were set for
41:50
the for the dead tree. That's the live tree that we just think we
41:53
should cut down just because we can. It's so another Um. You know,
42:06
you've said a lot of amazing things, and I've realized to say,
42:12
we're grinding down to our last few moments, and it's like, um,
42:16
and you have six kids, and we don't need to know the age.
42:22
But if you could build through yourself, you can. You can build a
42:27
world for them. What would that world work like? I would dream of
42:31
a world much better connected. Let me let me press be specific. I
42:35
think one thing the nearly universal response to the COVID situations showed and really highlighted
42:42
was how alone we all are. Well. I greatly admired with the technology
42:45
and I both researched has brought about in our lives. One of the side
42:49
effects is a tremendous amount of loneliness. And this loneliness is just debilitating.
42:55
I think we're seeing this manifesting in a mirrord of different ways. I think
42:59
it's one of the major factors behind why marriages are struggling so much. And
43:02
I think this separation from all the lockdowns. We know statistically what that did
43:07
to divorce rates. They went through the roof, and we know what that
43:10
does to children. The child abuse cases went through the roof. It's really
43:16
horrific how much stuff happened. And there's this loneliness that is fundamentally contrary to
43:22
the needs of the human soul that we are all suffering from horribly right now
43:27
as a community, as a culture, as as a society, as a
43:30
planet, we have the most people ever on the planet, and they're the
43:32
most disconnected from everyone else. And if I could change one piece of that
43:36
world, I would like it that my children have someone they can go and
43:39
talk to when they're feeling a certain way. Guys need a guy to talk
43:44
to. Look, guys, if you're married, it is neither helpful nor
43:47
beneficial to you in any way to just dump everything on your wife. That's
43:52
the wrong way to use that relationship. It will not make things better.
43:55
You need a guy to talk to. A guy who stand there next Like
44:00
my favorite spots around a campfire, drinking a beer with my buddy after the
44:04
kids are all in bed. It's happened last night. We had a great
44:06
conversation and I say, look, Bob, here's what's going on in my
44:08
life. I'm pissed off about this. I'm screwing this up. I feel
44:12
complete failure here. I don't know what to do with this one. You
44:15
talk about it. He gives you a perspective and there's healingly can happen.
44:19
But in order for that to even get to that level, you gotta be
44:21
close up to Bob, to go past how is your sports team doing?
44:23
Oh, there might be some stone on the weather, whatever like that.
44:25
That kind of stuff is what the bulk of our conversations today are. And
44:30
if I can make something of my kids, I want to build relationships and
44:32
a culture that expects relationships. They go so much deeper than that. That's
44:40
powerful stuff, all right. The best ways to get a hold of being
44:45
and work with you absolutely so. I'm Catholic, I work with anyone who's
44:47
Christian. You gotta at least be able to have that component of the faith
44:51
because I believe God is real and that he does the real healing. So
44:53
you can find me Catholic Life Coach fromen dot com. My podcast is Catholic
44:58
Life Coach for Men. Even those you even do your own podcast, I
45:05
do. I love it, yeah, Auntie, Um, I do that.
45:08
I have that one loaded up on my Apple podcast myself. So nice.
45:14
Nice, Yeah, give me feedback. I'm always open to feedback and
45:16
ideas, you know, one of those that I'm I kind of I know
45:19
what my download numbers are, but I'm always curious what people think after this
45:22
in episodes, so you know, and I'm the same thing you listening listening
45:25
here as well, Like I think as a podcast producer, we love the
45:29
feedback we got, and it's just every email I go that I save.
45:34
Yeah, um, I will. I shared it, shared this story every
45:37
now and again, and it's simply because it is valid. Um. I've
45:42
been riding all the bus one time and somebody had I didn't even know that
45:46
I had a listener on that on that bus, and they quoted me.
45:51
I was like, they quoted me to me, I was like, wow,
45:53
that's amazing stuff. I was like, I said, I just out
45:59
of ball gratitude. Guys, I said mean, hey, thanks, you
46:01
know what you've listened to my podcast. We're like that's you. Thank yeah,
46:07
thanks, It's like that's that's wonderful. You know, it means that
46:10
I need to keep going right. So with that being said, uh to
46:16
everyone listening out there, if you haven't already clicked on that subscribe button,
46:22
click on it now. Become a subscriber, get more updates and more episodes.
46:28
Like Michael just trying to help us become a better people and create a
46:35
better world for ourselves. So all right, thanks Michael, Thank you,
46:42
Michael. That was awesome. I just need to sway you can that shot
47:10
start. I want you dance event to be something you can to that I
48:22
don't know you, so I can action when this says as to shake me
48:53
child, you can't can't see, she called to Chester, and now I
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