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The Weakness of Macho Men · Evolutionary Men

• 0:00
  All right, and welcome back. So on today's episode, I want to talk about the primary
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  weakness of macho men and this whole man box tough, invulnerable macho culture that often
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  gets pushed on us men. And it's a phrase I've mentioned before on this podcast,
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  and I've been sharing a lot with guys I work with and in my life. And it's this simple idea.
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  I don't care how strong and tough a man you think you are. At some point in your life,
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  your body will fail you in a way that you won't be able to just push through. And in those moments,
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  we fall back to the level of support and community we have around us as men.
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  This might come through old age. This might come from an accident. This might come from illness,
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  but it is going to hit every single man. And macho men who pride themselves on not needing
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  anyone else, not cultivating any supportive or reciprocal relationships in their life,
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  or frankly, just never asking for help, are going to be at a severe disadvantage the moment that
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  happens. Many men I work with sometimes approximate that one of the first times that they get very ill
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  and sick and realize, wow, I can barely get out of bed. How am I going to take care of myself?
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  There's an extreme type of vulnerability that comes forward when we can't just push through.
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  And this is a huge weakness to the so-called macho man. Cultivating supportive relationships
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  with other men in particular through something like a men's group, which I'm such a huge
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  advocate of, is one of the ways we can become resilient against that. That doesn't mean we're
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  going to ask every man in our life to always take care of us. We still have some agency and have
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  some responsibility in how we show up in our lives, but what I've seen having been part of men's groups
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  for over 20 years of my own life and having now facilitated so many groups for men that when that
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  big thing hits, we're able to bounce back a lot faster. We actually become more resilient in our
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  capacity to handle and deal with the stresses and blows of life. Now, the other major thing I want
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  to point to in this weakness of macho men and why they push so hard not to rely on anyone because
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  that's weak or vulnerable, whatever that might be, is the truth is those men are afraid. And this
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  shows up sometimes in a counter-intuitive way. On the two extremes of being, we have what's typically
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  demonized and made fun of in men, which is collapse. When I just collapse into my pain or my
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  stuckness in life or my shame or my victimhood and I'm collapsed in on myself, unavailable to life,
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  unavailable for connection, that's often related to shame and fear and the ways we're cultured as men.
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  Now, the truth is that's not the only direction you can go based on fear. The other one is posturing.
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  I'm fine. Hey, you looking at me? You can actually feel the energy of them coming forward and I'm
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  bracing, bracing myself, shielding myself, separating myself from you because frankly,
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  I'm scared. Posturing is just as much a fear reaction as collapse. It just looks very different.
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  It looks very different, but again, when you're posturing, you're not available for connection.
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  True strength is right in the middle. It's neither collapsing nor posturing,
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  and it's an actual disposition in our nervous system they call ventral vagal, right? It's when
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  a part of our nervous system is activated and open and available for connection.
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  Real leadership, the tough leadership in the world, that means negotiating with people who
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  all have different desires and wants and needs. This goes in terms of your intimate relationship
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  and your family as well. It happens when you're neither posturing or collapsed,
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  but you're right there in the middle. I'm here. I'm holding myself and I'm open and vulnerable.
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  I'm being impacted. One of my good friends in my men's group here, he phrased this beautifully,
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  "Good solid masculine presence allows emotion to move through us, but it doesn't move us. It
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  doesn't knock us off center, but we're still feeling and in that feeling capacity,
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  we're actually available to relate and lead and be connected to you. And when we're in connection,
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  we're more resilient." Right? David Romero, who was on this podcast a couple months ago,
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  used this beautiful phrase that I've been using constantly since then, right? Which is,
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  "Community is immunity." The more connected you are, the bigger your system of health is.
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  If you have no relationships or just one relationship and things aren't going well in
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  that arena, your whole world isn't going well. As you open up and create a bigger system that you
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  belong to through multiple relationships, some of which are professional, some of which are intimate,
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  some of which are familial, and some of which are peer-based, you create a lot more space in your
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  system. So if one relationship isn't going well, the others still are. And so there's a balance
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  there. And the ones that are can help you center yourself to get back into that middle position
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  to deal with the issues in your life that aren't going well.
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  Talk about this so many times in groups, this weakness of macho men and the many ways it shows
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  up. That macho posturing is actually quite fragile, and it is fear-based. No matter what
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  a macho guy might say, when it comes to expression and feeling, feeling is always, always harder and
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  more courageous than not. And tell me who's more afraid. The guy who absolutely is unwilling to
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  touch his grief, his fear, his stuckness, his hurt. Sometimes, yes, his rage and anger.
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  Or the man who's willing to just go into it and fully experience it and face it head on
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  without turning away, without collapsing, and without pretending it's not there. I'm fine.
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  The strongest men I know have the capacity right in the middle. I can be impacted by life,
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  but it doesn't knock me off center. It doesn't move me. I can be impacted by my emotions.
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  I can hold them. I can feel them. I can allow them to move through me.
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  And the second I do that, I'm liberating that energy back into my nervous system so I can focus
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  on the things I care about, take action on the things I care about the most. When we're holding
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  that all inside, you're taking up precious metabolic resource. You are tightening up your
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  body when you do not need to be. Every martial arts tradition in the world talks about this.
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  You want to be as relaxed as possible in your body at all times because when you are not relaxed,
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  when you are holding tension, you are wasting energy that you might need to create safety for
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  yourself or someone else. So it's not weak to go inside and get support and build a network that
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  can help hold you when you can't hold yourself. That is power. That is resiliency. That is a man
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  who can withstand the many, many stresses of life in the world. And in fact, his status will only
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  increase the more belonging and networking he has in his life. The more opportunities he has to give
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  means the more opportunities he also has to receive. Your life should be full of reciprocal
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  relationships. You put energy in, you get energy back. A man who doesn't have any relationships
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  isn't getting any energy back, which means he has to self-generate all of it. And there is a time
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  limit on that. I guarantee it. I've seen it time and time again with men. Your body will start to
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  fail you. Your mental health will start to fail you. Autoimmune disorders will come up. You will
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  work your ass off for 30 years and then one day you won't be able to get out of bed because you've
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  pushed it too hard. It just kept driving and grinding and driving. We have to be able to pause
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  and we have to be able to ask for help and we have to be able to feel.
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  Real warriors, talking the men who can stand in the fire of life, they feel, right? The very first
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  episode I did of this show, real men feel everything. They don't shy away. They don't turn
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  away. They don't push it down in posture. They also don't get stuck, totally collapsed, unable to move.
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  They feel it right there in the middle. I'm open. I'm impacted and I'm still grounded, connected.
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  And guess what? That is way easier when we're connected to peers around us. So I've talked
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  about many times in my previous episode, some things aren't meant to be felt alone.
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  A communal nervous system can help us process and metabolize the many hurts and traumas
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  we have in our nervous system. And that love of the group allows it to be liberated,
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  to be felt, to no longer be held inside. Again, when we're not holding that which we don't need
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  to be, when we're not pretending and using that active energy to posture, I can feel it.
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  If I'm going to posture, I have to tense up my body and push it forward, armor up.
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  That's energy. That's life force that's not actually available to you.
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  To create the things you want to create, to relate in the ways you want to relate.
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  Macho men are fragile. They are weak because the second something comes
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  and takes out their body, they're helpless and they have no one to turn to.
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  A connected man who's part of a community, who has the capacity to go inside and face his
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  inner demons and dragons, that is a resilient man. That is a man who can keep getting up
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  and creating and serving. Can make, protect, and teach at a much higher level
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  than the go-it-alone lone wolf macho man cowboy.
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  So though it may be counterintuitive, when you feel that posturing from other men,
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  feel below it. There's always fear there. There's always fear there.
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  The most sure-footed, grounded, centered men, they don't have to posture.
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  Again, we see this often in martial arts. The man who could actually kill you
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  doesn't need you to know he can kill you. He's relaxed. He just moves on with his day.
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  He has nothing to prove to you. He doesn't need to tense up and show you how tough he is
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  because he knows if it comes down to it, he can handle himself.
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  And in fact, because he can handle himself, he doesn't even have to worry about you.
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  So this is a big moment in our culture where we get to redefine what masculinity is.
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  And masculinity does not have to be only macho and separate. In fact, a full, powerful man
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  in his agency is connected and belongs. And because of that, he is more powerful, more resilient.
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  He isn't weak. He has the capacity to handle more from life and frankly, to have more fun doing it
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  because the most shit work in the world is always better when we're doing it in connection.
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  So don't fall for the messages that only macho men are tough. They are weak.
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  And their bodies, your body as a man, there will be a point it fails you. And that is the moment
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  you're going to see what kind of community am I part of? What kind of reciprocal relationships
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  have I built so that when I can't take care of myself, I have others to help lift me back up
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  until I can find my footing again. So if you know me, you know I think one of the best ways
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  to build and cultivate these types of relationships are through men's groups. So whether it's checking
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  out my site or getting involved in a group near you, hop to it. You will become a more powerful
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  and resilient man. All right, until next time.