Latest / Masculine Containment / 22 - Why You Have to Stop Chasing and Start Holding Yourself

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22 - Why You Have to Stop Chasing and Start Holding Yourself · Masculine Containment

• 0:00
  I am deeply honored today to be here with Shane Herron, who was a member of our second Brotherhood container and an active member.
• 0:09
  He was on the calls.
• 0:10
  He showed up for our Q&As.
• 0:11
  I got to know him during the container.
• 0:13
  He's an extraordinary individual.
• 0:15
  And I think you're really going to enjoy hearing Shane's introspection and his sharing of the growth and the opportunity and what he experienced in the Brotherhood.
• 0:24
  Shane, thanks so much for being here with me today.
• 0:27
  Thank you for having me.
• 0:27
  Honestly, I'm grateful to be here.
• 0:29
  Thank you, brother.
• 0:31
  Thank you.
• 0:31
  So let's jump in.
• 0:32
  So before the brotherhood, before you joined, what was going on for you?
• 0:39
  Well, chronically, my wife and I have always struggled with conflict.
• 0:46
  We've noticed a cycle in our relationship for as long as we've been together.
• 0:50
  We have so much love, passion, and so much polarity between us that when it's good, it's absolutely amazing.
• 0:59
  But eventually something will eventually get activated or triggered in one of us.
• 1:03
  Something will flare up and our complete inability to have any stability or structure journey created a lot of conflict.
• 1:12
  Um, we were unable to actually navigate that.
• 1:16
  I didn't have the capacity to stay contained, to lead us through those moments and it would blow up.
• 1:23
  And then eventually we would kind of disconnect, we'd separate.
• 1:26
  And in the separation is where we would actually do our own work and grow.
• 1:29
  And we would come back together at a deeper level.
• 1:32
  And I've noticed that cycle happen again and again and again.
• 1:36
  And that was kind of chronically that's been like the history of our relationship.
• 1:41
  And then last year in November, I really got a real recognition on the pattern that was playing out between us.
• 1:54
  And it scared me because I saw the pattern so clearly and I was like, right, this isn't healthy.
• 2:00
  We're in codependent patterns.
• 2:02
  I'm over-functioning.
• 2:03
  I'm trying to carry everything and fix things.
• 2:05
  I'm feeling the weight of it all.
• 2:07
  This isn't healthy for you, Ross, and I need XYZ from this situation.
• 2:12
  I was then asking for XYZ.
• 2:14
  She didn't have the capacity to give it to me in those moments.
• 2:16
  And then I was kind of like in a state of urgency, right?
• 2:19
  That's it.
• 2:20
  We're done.
• 2:21
  We can't do this anymore.
• 2:22
  And we'd been in a kind of state of kind of conflict over the last couple of months anyway.
• 2:26
  Um,
• 2:27
  So we'd kind of like stop speaking.
• 2:29
  This was kind of like November, December time.
• 2:31
  How long have you been together before that change?
• 2:33
  Just for we have context?
• 2:35
  Four years.
• 2:35
  Okay.
• 2:36
  Thanks, brother.
• 2:37
  But go ahead.
• 2:37
  Yeah.
• 2:38
  And it'd been kind of like on and off.
• 2:39
  And then it got to a point where we weren't speaking at the point.
• 2:44
  That's when I kind of joined the container.
• 2:46
  And then it got to a point, I think maybe at the start of container, maybe sort of three weeks in where she's like, don't talk to me.
• 2:53
  I've I've started divorce process.
• 2:56
  I never want to hear from you ever again.
• 2:58
  Do not talk to the kids.
• 3:01
  And that was pretty much where we was at before the whole kind of, before the container.
• 3:06
  That's intense, Shane.
• 3:07
  So do you have kids together?
• 3:09
  No, it's her children, my stepchildren.
• 3:12
  How many kids?
• 3:14
  Two, 17-year-old and a 10-year-old.
• 3:18
  Shane, I think the part that'll be relatable for people is the XYZ.
• 3:22
  When you said, I need XYZ, I'm not getting it from this situation.
• 3:26
  What do you mean by that?
• 3:28
  So I realized that I needed accountability more than anything else.
• 3:31
  And one of the things that's always come up for us is that I needed to feel that we were a team.
• 3:35
  I needed to feel that when things were coming up, it was us versus the problem.
• 3:39
  And I would go over this again and again and again.
• 3:43
  But because the fences were activated, it always become me versus her.
• 3:47
  And I'm like, look, if you win or I win, neither of us win.
• 3:51
  Neither of us are going to win in this situation.
• 3:53
  But because she was unable, well, we were both unable to come back into connection in those moments or even stay connected to ourselves and stay centered.
• 4:03
  There was no room for the connection to actually deal with the actual situation.
• 4:08
  When you think back to that time chain for the guys who are listening, who are in that place, like what did it feel like for you when you had these repeated ruptures and the repeated separation?
• 4:18
  What was that like?
• 4:19
  Yeah.
• 4:20
  feeling of helplessness.
• 4:21
  You kind of like, even, especially if I think a lot of us are fairly self-aware, you know, I'm super self-aware.
• 4:28
  If there's generally a problem in life, I know that there's a solution out there.
• 4:32
  Someone's been through it.
• 4:33
  There will be a solution out there for whatever the problem is that you're facing.
• 4:36
  And I kind of knew the solution, but we were still unable to actually put it into action.
• 4:40
  So, you know, I, I've been doing this work.
• 4:42
  I'm a somatic therapist.
• 4:43
  I've been doing this work for eight years professionally myself and personally a lot longer.
• 4:47
  Yeah.
• 4:48
  I could kind of tell you everything, you know, off the top of my head, everything, all the right things to do, but we couldn't actually, we couldn't actually kind of figure it out and put it into practice.
• 5:00
  You said that there's a lot of passion in your relationship.
• 5:02
  There was a lot of like energy in the relationship.
• 5:06
  I find that often when there's a lot of passion and a lot of connection, it makes the disruption that much more difficult.
• 5:12
  Did you find the same thing?
• 5:13
  Yeah.
• 5:14
  Yeah, I mean, our whole entire relationship was like a roller coaster.
• 5:16
  It was the highest highs and the lowest lows.
• 5:18
  And when we first started dating, I used to describe our relationship or dating her was like sparring prime Mike Tyson emotionally because it was like the biggest mirror to all of my wounds and triggers and pains and anything I could possibly carry would get dragged up to the surface.
• 5:38
  And then she would just beat the shit out of me with everything that was coming up with it.
• 5:42
  So, yeah, it was quite intense.
• 5:45
  You are self-aware, Shane.
• 5:46
  So I think a lot of people are unfamiliar with the concept of a relationship mirror.
• 5:51
  Can you explain how that, like what that means for you?
• 5:54
  So a lot of time your deepest insecurities are going to play out in relationship.
• 6:02
  So it's very easy for the other to play the character that you need them to be to trigger you.
• 6:10
  Uh, but when they're playing that character, it's very easy to point the fingers and go, you're doing this, you're doing that.
• 6:15
  But in a way they're gifting you the experience and the opportunity to reflect at what's actually happening inside of you.
• 6:21
  Um, and we found that due to the nature of our relationship, um, we're, we're, we're
• 6:28
  It was like that on steroids.
• 6:29
  That was like the main theme of the relationship was like, if there's anything inside you that could be touched, it's going to happen in this relationship.
• 6:38
  And yeah, while she burst my heart open, and there's so much love there that we have for each other, it also burst my heart open for any kind of wounds and scars and trauma to also come up to the surface.
• 6:50
  When you think about that time, like, you know, I think a lot of men especially are unfamiliar with the concept of like trauma and wounding conditioning.
• 6:59
  When you look back, what do you think was being triggered in you?
• 7:05
  Cool.
• 7:05
  Where do we begin?
• 7:06
  That is self-awareness right there.
• 7:09
  Yeah.
• 7:10
  So a lot of jealousy, a lot of insecurity, but I used to struggle with anxiety.
• 7:16
  That's what started getting me to this kind of somatic work myself and kind of anxiety about kind of everything.
• 7:22
  And I'd overcome that through the work that I do and spending years to
• 7:27
  jumping into somatic work my nervous system had got to a pretty good place and not i was ever that naive to think that i'm fully healed as you know you need it to think that uh but i'd got to a place where my nervous system was fairly well regulated especially within my own space um so when i met my rihanna my wife uh my nervous system was pretty grounded i was pretty centered you know i was doing well in life things like that but essentially what happened is that um when we met
• 7:57
  She became my primary attachment figure.
• 8:00
  And all of my attachment wounds from childhood was now, rather than it being the mother wound for my mom in terms of my relationship to the feminine, what I learned from my mother, she'd become that kind of attachment figure.
• 8:12
  So any time that there was a threat to the connection or potential perception of loss, rejection or abandonment, it would trigger my wounds and my patterns, which would then obviously then drive these unhealthy behaviors.
• 8:27
  Yeah.
• 8:28
  I often share with people like when those wounds get triggered, it literally can feel like you're dying.
• 8:32
  Yeah.
• 8:34
  Yeah.
• 8:35
  It's not a nice place to be.
• 8:37
  So as a somatic therapist, can you share what, like, I just got this question recently.
• 8:45
  What do you, what do you interpret as somatics?
• 8:47
  Like, what does that mean to you?
• 8:49
  Because a lot of people are unfamiliar with the word.
• 8:51
  The thing is somatic is a bold term.
• 8:53
  It's like saying I work in the health industry.
• 8:56
  I work in the music industry.
• 8:57
  Somatic basically just means body based.
• 9:00
  Whereas the opposite in terms of like in terms of polarity would be a cognitive therapy would be the typical counseling, CBT, talk therapy, psychotherapy, and so on.
• 9:10
  Where we're kind of talking out our experiences, we're analyzing, but...
• 9:15
  how we relate and how we connect especially relationally is all about embodiment and what we're actually feeling and our nervous system so especially when it comes to your emotions trauma your patterns all these things are kind of unconscious and this is why you can have the best intentions and you can know it all and sometimes it can make you even worse because you're self-aware and you still do it and it kind of makes you kind of like um it makes it worse in a way but uh yeah somatic is all the under underside of it
• 9:41
  Yeah, it's the body feelings, like that feeling of anxiety.
• 9:44
  A lot of people intellectualize anxiety, but don't you think most of it's a body feeling?
• 9:49
  All of it is.
• 9:50
  Anxiety is literally a symptom of your nervous system being in a state of activation.
• 9:55
  That's it.
• 9:56
  Yeah, it's dysregulation of any kind.
• 9:59
  So let's go back to the beginning of the container where she's told you she doesn't want to talk anymore.
• 10:04
  She doesn't want you talking to the kids.
• 10:05
  You got completely cut off.
• 10:07
  Tell us about what that early experience in the brotherhood was like for you.
• 10:12
  I felt like giving up, you know, I honestly felt like throwing in a towel for like, what's the point anymore?
• 10:17
  Because I was reading all these stories where a lot of the other guys were being able to practice containment with their partners.
• 10:24
  They were sharing their wins, they were sharing, you know, things that they'd found, struggles that they had with it.
• 10:31
  And I felt like I don't even have the opportunity to even practice any of this, but I kind of focused on rather than, you know, a lot of people and maybe myself included, sometimes you perceive that containment is about focusing on containing someone else and holding someone else.
• 10:45
  But what I realized was that really containment is about holding yourself.
• 10:49
  And naturally, because my attachment figure had disconnected from me.
• 10:54
  Yeah.
• 10:55
  It was a perfect opportunity for all of my triggers and wounds to come up to the surface anyway.
• 10:59
  So I was still getting to practice containment, but it was all self-containment of holding myself, feeling for everything, not suppressing it, not trying to control it.
• 11:06
  Using the time and space just to really kind of give myself and hold myself, hold my own inner feminine.
• 11:12
  That I was still building containment from all the practice.
• 11:16
  What was that like, Shane?
• 11:17
  Like, share with us what was it like to hold yourself to understand that even in the absence of containing for somebody else, you could do it for yourself?
• 11:29
  I mean, I'm pretty comfortable with somatic work at this point anyway.
• 11:32
  So, I mean, I probably cried more in those in the last kind of like three months, you know, not the last three months, but in three months of work than probably in a large part of my life.
• 11:43
  But yeah.
• 11:44
  Yeah, it's confronting.
• 11:47
  To be vulnerable, to actually allow space for vulnerability is difficult.
• 11:51
  But because of the nature of the work that I do, I was very accepting and I knew what was unfolding anyway.
• 11:57
  I'm very comfortable with my own release process.
• 12:01
  But in terms of sometimes for us to actually have something to actually come up, you have to actually experience something.
• 12:07
  So I know that if we never separated, the wounds wouldn't have come up to the surface to actually be able to work through.
• 12:13
  So we had to go through this experience to be able to actually get to where we are.
• 12:18
  And it's just part of the process.
• 12:21
  Was there anything else that you started doing differently besides just like allowing yourself to release, allowing yourself to to express, to hold yourself?
• 12:30
  Is there anything else that was in the experience for you?
• 12:34
  Yeah, just basically accepting what I was feeling and not trying to fix and not trying to take action.
• 12:40
  So recognizing, I think what really helps is being able to recognize what your patterns are.
• 12:46
  So for me, my patterns are often over-functioning, fixing everything, creating a solution, finding an answer, managing things and things like that to make sure that I'm okay and she's okay,
• 12:59
  But rather than trying to fix the feelings or fix the situation, I also noticed then that urgency to reach out, to message, to check on, you know, check her social media, see what she's up to, things like that.
• 13:09
  Noticing all of those urges was like the little Shane inside, kind of seeking a connection.
• 13:14
  Yeah.
• 13:15
  And it wasn't coming from a place of I'm connected and offering that to you.
• 13:20
  It was from I'm struggling with what I'm feeling.
• 13:22
  I need you to help me feel what I'm feeling and for needing something from her.
• 13:28
  And I realized that, you know, that's not a grounded place to kind of be.
• 13:33
  So it's really just kind of allow myself to hold myself in those moments, basically hold little shame and essentially offer him the masculine containment that he needed growing up.
• 13:44
  That's beautiful, Shane.
• 13:45
  Can you take us, you're way more self-aware, so I wouldn't ask these types of questions always, but I think with you, it's an opportunity.
• 13:54
  Can you take us through one of those moments where you felt that, like, reaching that neediness?
• 14:01
  Like, what was it like for you to actually, like, hold yourself and hold little Shane and offer him the masculine containment that you really had always needed?
• 14:09
  Yeah, so it's a really good question.
• 14:13
  Most people aren't going to notice what they're feeling in the moment.
• 14:15
  You're going to notice the behavior instead.
• 14:17
  So often, you know, years ago, if you asked me how I felt, I'd be like –
• 14:22
  I don't know.
• 14:24
  Okay.
• 14:25
  Yeah, that's it.
• 14:25
  I'm fine or not fine.
• 14:26
  That was the extent of my emotional vocabulary.
• 14:30
  And the thing is, all of our patterns are ways of disconnecting.
• 14:33
  It's a way of disconnecting from our experience.
• 14:36
  So what people need to do is first recognize when they're disconnecting.
• 14:40
  So for me, that would be picking up my phone and seeing when she was last online on WhatsApp and then, you know, feeling some sense of connection or of availability of seeing her
• 14:52
  But when I would notice that needs to pick up the phone, that would be my time to reconnect and check in with myself and go, what's happening right now?
• 15:01
  What am I actually feeling?
• 15:04
  And what am I trying to, what need am I trying to meet by doing this behavior?
• 15:08
  Yeah.
• 15:09
  And ultimately, I was recognizing that little Shane felt perhaps overwhelmed.
• 15:15
  He felt alone.
• 15:16
  He felt, you know, abandoned.
• 15:18
  And he was seeking connection.
• 15:20
  He was seeking love.
• 15:21
  And he felt perhaps unloved and overwhelmed in that moment.
• 15:24
  And really comes down to reconnecting with yourself in that moment.
• 15:29
  And so as reconnecting with little Shane and saying, hey, you know, I recognize that you're seeking connection.
• 15:34
  I noticed that you're looking for her in this moment.
• 15:38
  what if we didn't have to take action and try and solve this right now?
• 15:41
  What if we could just be here?
• 15:42
  What if I could, you know, I'm here with you.
• 15:45
  I'm not going anywhere.
• 15:47
  It's going to be okay.
• 15:48
  I love you.
• 15:49
  I've got you.
• 15:50
  And for me, the, the phrases that really helped us, I'm here, I've got you.
• 15:55
  And it was just basically just, just doing that again and again and again, and just, just basically holding myself with presence with that masculine presence.
• 16:02
  Um,
• 16:03
  And eventually it would pass.
• 16:04
  It would pass.
• 16:05
  And it was just doing that again and again and again and again.
• 16:09
  And again, you're not going to do it every single time.
• 16:10
  I'd mess up plenty of times.
• 16:12
  And I didn't message.
• 16:14
  But I'd still pick up the phone and check and do the pattern.
• 16:18
  But I recognize that even if you can do it consciously, you still have your...
• 16:24
  One of your adults online, so in my work or in my model, I basically call it the three C's of the adult.
• 16:31
  The first C being consciousness, so that's just being aware of what's actually happening.
• 16:35
  And that's generally the first thing to come online.
• 16:38
  The second C is capacity, which is the same thing as masculine containment, having the capacity to stay present and connect to your experience.
• 16:45
  Yeah.
• 16:45
  And then the third C is adult capability.
• 16:48
  And that's like leading yourself in a moment.
• 16:50
  And that's the leading myself would be, do I pick up my phone and check the WhatsApp or send the message or do I not send it and tend to myself?
• 16:58
  That's the capability in those moments.
• 17:01
  Shane, when we hold ourselves or someone else in masculine containment,
• 17:06
  It's not a simple or easy process.
• 17:08
  It's actually a process where you have to interrupt that pattern, that habit, that thing you've done over and over again.
• 17:13
  But afterwards, there's a pretty distinct feeling.
• 17:16
  What is that feeling like for you?
• 17:19
  A sense of pride, stability, safety.
• 17:28
  You can feel when your adult comes back online.
• 17:30
  So when you feel, the more you bring consciousness to when you're experiencing those states and you can hold yourself, you'll feel it within yourself and your partner, your woman, she will feel it too.
• 17:43
  I mean, she'll probably feel it way before you feel it to be fair.
• 17:46
  But yeah, a sense of kind of confidence and trust within myself.
• 17:50
  But it's more just the inner peace and stability of feeling that I'm here.
• 17:54
  And that doesn't mean that I was feeling okay in terms of always good.
• 18:00
  It may be I'm feeling able to be present and okay in the shit stuff.
• 18:05
  Or when I'm feeling really vulnerable or when I was feeling really sad or, you know, when I was feeling angry or when I was feeling a bit sort of scared or anxious or embarrassed.
• 18:12
  Yeah.
• 18:13
  It's more, can I hold myself and be present with those experiences?
• 18:17
  So it wasn't like you're only going to feel, yeah, I felt really confident.
• 18:21
  I feel really great.
• 18:21
  It was like, I felt I had the capacity to be in the fucking storm and stand there and be like, okay, I'm not dying.
• 18:29
  I'm all right.
• 18:30
  You know?
• 18:31
  Um, and I, I, I have this kind of term of calling it like anchored, but alive.
• 18:35
  So obviously you're like, this is the emotional storm and your emotions being here and the life energy.
• 18:41
  Uh, but the anchors that, you know, that ship, it's not going anywhere.
• 18:43
  The sea is still rocking that ship all over the place, but it's anchored.
• 18:48
  It's still here.
• 18:48
  Even though it's been rocked, it's still here.
• 18:51
  You said something really interesting, and I just want to draw it out a little bit, Shane.
• 18:55
  You said, I always tell men when it comes to our relationships, we're playing a nervous system to nervous system game.
• 19:02
  It's not what's being said.
• 19:03
  It's the nervous system.
• 19:05
  And you said, interestingly, you said she will probably feel it long before you do.
• 19:09
  Can you explain that?
• 19:11
  Yeah.
• 19:11
  So if...
• 19:15
  Well, your woman's going to have her patterns of what she does.
• 19:18
  And the more you can kind of notice those, and the more you can just not listen to anything that's coming out of her mouth, because she's going to just drive you on a wild goose chase and just feel her and be like, huh.
• 19:30
  Yeah.
• 19:31
  Right now, she doesn't feel like she's centered, she's grounded, she's lost, she's activated.
• 19:36
  For whatever reason, when she's activated, you're going to sense it because she's probably going to externalize it to some degree.
• 19:45
  So I know that my wife's pattern is that she tends to externalize her emotions.
• 19:49
  So sometimes that looks like blaming, projection, or that I've done something.
• 19:55
  And then naturally, that would trigger my defense system because I'd be like, no, that's not fair and defending myself.
• 20:02
  But that's me then caught up in her storm and now she's leading.
• 20:05
  So being able to go, oh, I know what's happening here.
• 20:09
  Don't fucking listen.
• 20:10
  I'm noticing myself get pulled off my center, hold myself and come back to center myself.
• 20:16
  And then even just ignore what she's saying.
• 20:18
  Just say, come here.
• 20:20
  I've got you or even just not even speaking to her just grabbing her I know for my wife she needs literally a physical touch if I just hold her and can relax and she can feel my presence and she can feel I'm not like oh my god I need to fix this because you know I'm feeling overwhelmed because now she's feeling overwhelmed I need to you know control the situation she then feels the stability and the connection and she'll come out of the storm at some point anyway.
• 20:46
  Shane, it's interesting.
• 20:47
  Like when you say don't listen to a word she says and ignore her, what I read in that is like don't react to the content.
• 20:54
  Yeah, yeah.
• 20:56
  Try to not obviously take what I'm saying gospel in terms of don't listen to you because I'm not saying don't listen to her.
• 21:03
  But yeah, yeah.
• 21:04
  Don't be reactive to what she's saying.
• 21:07
  Feel what she's saying rather than think what she's saying.
• 21:12
  Even to the point, since we've kind of reconnected, where she was annoyed I didn't pursue her after she told me to never speak to her ever again.
• 21:23
  it was part of the feminine testing where she's like no i'm just basically expressing my emotional state in this moment in my nervous system defense but really she's like oh where have you gone why why have you stopped pursuing me you obviously don't love me because i've told you to go away and you've respected my boundary yeah
• 21:43
  so it is really hard yeah especially you know if you're a good man you want to be respectful you hear to you know listen to your woman be respectful of boundaries all this kind of stuff um sometimes you know i'm not saying to not do that but it's not always black and white shane i often have men come to me
• 22:03
  And they'll say, Alex, you know, I'm feeling resentment.
• 22:07
  And then what follows is this list of things that have been said in their relationship that they've almost inventoried and categorized.
• 22:15
  And they have them like, all right, they're ready.
• 22:17
  She told me this and she said this.
• 22:18
  And there was this time that this happened and this happened and this happened.
• 22:21
  What would you say to those men who are just like harboring this resentment over the content of what was said?
• 22:28
  um in all fairness i probably say you have to basically get over it in a way thank you i'm gonna play this for people yeah she's she's gonna she said that person that you've met in that moment when she's triggered it's gonna disappear and she'll she'll pretend that person never existed and it for her in a way once she's out of the storm that person didn't exist and it's almost like oh i didn't say that sort of thing but it's um
• 22:55
  recognizing that when someone's expressing when they're activated they're just expressing because they're activated but this is part of like don't be reactive into what they're saying notice where they're at in terms of their system their body what they're feeling and um that'll take you a
• 23:16
  men and women aren't equal we are equal in terms of uh value but we're not the same and is a relationship between a man and woman in a polarized relationship fair no it's not fair whatsoever it's completely unfair in those moments yeah well yeah but more when i say it's unfair i mean like if you want it to be exactly the same for her and for you as a man and woman it's not going to be that way
• 23:41
  But you don't want a woman to be exactly, most men don't want a woman to be exactly the same as you.
• 23:45
  You don't want to be a 50-50 relationship where you're treating her like a man and she's treating you like a man.
• 23:50
  You know, it's going to be different
• 23:53
  each way.
• 23:54
  And, um, yeah, in response to your question, you just have to get over it.
• 23:58
  You basically have to just let it go, get over it and learn to not lose your center.
• 24:03
  Because if you're, if you're losing your center over her words, she's going to just feel less and less trust and safety with you over time.
• 24:10
  But she'd be like, fucking hell, if my words can rock you that easily, how can I trust you to fully lead us and lead me in a fully surrender into your leadership?
• 24:18
  Oh man, I just got chills on that last statement chain because, um,
• 24:22
  It's so potent that what we have to understand as men, that is if we can get knocked off center, we actually create fear.
• 24:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:31
  Would you say that was present in your relationship?
• 24:33
  Like now that you look back and look at that pattern?
• 24:36
  Oh, massively.
• 24:36
  To be honest, it's probably, there's plenty of it still present now, you know?
• 24:40
  Sure, sure.
• 24:41
  It's improving.
• 24:42
  Yeah.
• 24:42
  As self-aware as I am and as, you know, as much as I'm working on this and actively been working on it, I'm still human.
• 24:49
  I'm still kind of making my mistakes, but...
• 24:52
  you know credit to her she has an amazing ability to surrender and to keep surrendering i think it's a lot for any woman to keep surrendering when historically she's been let down you know she hasn't felt safe and she's been hurt many many times so for someone to be able to continue to open and to trust and to allow a man to lead it's a
• 25:13
  It's a very valuable thing that not many women can do because of their experiences, which I completely understand.
• 25:19
  So I feel completely honored that she even allows me the space to do that or to even give me another chance to allow that.
• 25:28
  Obviously, I take it seriously in terms of being able to have that role.
• 25:35
  So Shane, let's bring it, let's try and like give everybody an understanding of where you are now because your transformation in what was going on in your life was one of the most exciting that I watched in the brotherhood.
• 25:48
  And you went from divorce, don't talk to the kids, don't talk to me, completely cut off to tell us what the transition is and where you are now.
• 26:01
  There's probably more love than we've ever had in our relationship before anyway.
• 26:06
  We're still working on a stability and structure.
• 26:10
  but we're recognizing on where that structure hasn't existed.
• 26:15
  So our relationship is better now than it ever has been.
• 26:18
  The love is deeper than it ever has been.
• 26:20
  She does trust me and she does feel safer with me, but we're also recognizing where those edges are too.
• 26:26
  Excuse me.
• 26:28
  And we're working on those edges.
• 26:29
  So I think being able to know where your edges are, like you mentioned in terms of where you lose containment, that's where the work is.
• 26:39
  Um,
• 26:40
  and then working on it together and also recognizing like you know what is that both of you want from from the relationship and what is required but in terms of the surrender and the deepening of the relationship our relationship i mean like i said our relationship's done this this this dance many many times over it's probably like the eighth time this has happened where you know we've
• 26:59
  a big massive flare up disconnected worked growed healed come back even stronger and stronger um but yeah we're probably more in love now than we ever have been you know five years in um and you know the honeymoon scene uh the honeymoon phase is definitely not over it's probably we're probably more in love now than we ever have been
• 27:18
  So Shane, you kind of shared with us what it looked like day to day before where it was, you know, reactions and flare ups and kind of like always trying to strive and fix and do the right thing.
• 27:30
  Tell us what it's like now.
• 27:31
  Like give us just an impression of what your day to day is now, given how you just described the relationship.
• 27:38
  For both of us, I've seen both of us being able to take more responsibility in ownership and accountability over our own triggers.
• 27:45
  There's a lot more space when we're self-aware, we notice it.
• 27:49
  And credit to her in terms of I recognize that I was carrying a lot of the relationship emotionally in terms of the accountability aspect.
• 27:55
  Where the hard thing is, if you're someone who overfunctions and you're a growth-minded man...
• 28:02
  Not to say that she was manipulating me because it wasn't intentional, but it's very easy for you to then take on too much weight of the relationship because you're going, you know, I know I need to work on myself and, you know, yes, I can see that, blah, blah, blah.
• 28:14
  But then...
• 28:16
  Your relationship can only grow at the level of the lowest capacity of the person in the relationship.
• 28:21
  And if they don't have capacity for their own work, it's going to limit the relationship as well.
• 28:25
  So a massive credit to her because, you know, it's been plenty of times where there's been some activation.
• 28:30
  In the past, it would absolutely have blown up.
• 28:33
  And she said, hey, I'm recognizing I'm feeling something.
• 28:35
  She's taken the space and time to actually sit with it and feel it.
• 28:39
  to regulate herself and then to come back in a connection and not blow up over, you know, I'm not saying that it's nothing or minor things, but we'd both lose our share and myself included.
• 28:49
  For me, it's not being reactive most of the time.
• 28:52
  So my nervous system is pretty grounded in terms of when I'm not in relation.
• 28:56
  So generally, I'm not.
• 29:00
  one of my myself I'm good yeah exactly as long as nobody talks to me I'm absolutely fine no but like for me my biggest triggers when I lose my centre was when she's lost her centre and I'm reacting to her so for me it's noticing the
• 29:17
  before it kind of kicks in and just saying, shut the fuck up.
• 29:20
  Don't speak.
• 29:21
  Just stay.
• 29:22
  You don't need to act on this.
• 29:24
  You don't need to react to her.
• 29:25
  Just breathe.
• 29:26
  And just being able to slow things down and hold myself.
• 29:29
  That's the difference now.
• 29:31
  And generally, it's like, the fire will light up
• 29:36
  And then the fire will die down.
• 29:38
  Whereas before, the fire will light up and I'll be pouring as much petrol and gasoline on it as possible when it'll fucking explode.
• 29:46
  And then we'll wonder, how do we get here?
• 29:48
  So, yeah, it's a little bit more calm than the chaos.
• 29:52
  It still happens, you know, still kind of losing ourselves.
• 29:54
  But it is probably better than it's ever been.
• 29:59
  Yeah, when you say it still happens and you're still kind of losing yourselves, you're not often sure with men, like, this is work you're going to do for the rest of your life.
• 30:04
  It's like a martial art.
• 30:06
  You're never going to perfect it.
• 30:07
  You know, it's not something you should even strive towards perfection.
• 30:11
  Would you agree?
• 30:12
  Well, what I've noticed along this journey is that the better you get at this, the more safety is created.
• 30:19
  Then the more safety is created, the deeper wounds get activated.
• 30:22
  So it's like a fucking circle.
• 30:25
  You know, you reach a limit.
• 30:27
  of your capacity it triggers something there's some struggle you may not get over it immediately you may still take some time then you expand and everything feels great you feel wow this is amazing you know we've overcome this how amazing is this and then because there's safety and there's more connection and there's more love and there's more openness you hit the next fucking limit and then it's a deeper layer of sometimes of the same stuff um or something newer and you're going to
• 30:57
  you're going to get a mirror.
• 30:57
  You're going to get a mirror to where the work is and the work never ends.
• 31:00
  So it's why I always say that if you have the structure, if you have the understanding, if you have the tools and support, then, you know, welcome to the rest of your life.
• 31:11
  Yeah.
• 31:11
  Yeah, for sure.
• 31:12
  I often share with men that, you know, when you have that passionate, connected, really loving and important relationship to you, that it's like the initiation we all need.
• 31:25
  Would you agree with that?
• 31:27
  Yeah, yeah.
• 31:29
  Well, the thing is, these days in society, men don't get, well, boys don't get initiated into manhood.
• 31:36
  And if you don't have a societal initiation into manhood, the sad part of that is you're going to have to be initiated for your woman, which isn't really fair on her or the relationship.
• 31:48
  But you're going to have to grow into a man through fucking up your relationship as the little boy inside you.
• 31:55
  Yeah.
• 31:56
  Yeah.
• 31:56
  So well said.
• 31:58
  And I mean, I know I did that.
• 31:59
  I know I watch it all the time.
• 32:02
  But when we lean into those patterns and we start to understand them, that's where we really get the growth that we need.
• 32:07
  Yeah.
• 32:07
  Yeah.
• 32:08
  It's the poison in the medicine is the two in one, right?
• 32:13
  We hate it because it's horrible, but it's also the exact medicine that we need.
• 32:17
  Yeah.
• 32:18
  And if you lean into it, it changes everything.
• 32:20
  So Shane, you know, I often tell men that...
• 32:24
  what really helps in healing and what really helps in understanding is three things.
• 32:27
  It's the cognitive understanding of what's going on, the somatic work that we do in the brotherhood, and then the actual like having a brotherhood around you.
• 32:36
  As a somatic therapist, can you speak to the somatics in the brotherhood and like having an actual brotherhood with other men you can share with?
• 32:43
  Yeah, 100%.
• 32:44
  So I would say like healing is fairly simple.
• 32:48
  A lot of people think it requires this grand sort of massive therapy and things like that.
• 32:54
  Or they see these big cathartic experiences and think it has to be some grandiose thing.
• 32:58
  But healing is very simple.
• 32:59
  It's just not very easy.
• 33:01
  And I always say to people in terms of the work that I do, the most advanced healing that you can actually get to.
• 33:07
  is nothing.
• 33:09
  And when I say nothing, it's actually like, you feel what you feel and you don't have to do anything.
• 33:15
  It's just staying with yourself.
• 33:17
  All of the practices are super, super, super simple that you may get to them and you think,
• 33:23
  oh is this it but if you show up and just put in the work and just do the practices they're going to build a skill and it's going to build a skill of presence of being able to contain building your capacity if you do those it's impossible for it to not work because it's like oh if you need to get fit and you're running it's like thinking oh is am i going to get fitter well yeah if you actually put the work in you're going to get fitter
• 33:49
  So I like how you have, um, fairly simple practices that if you literally just put them in, they're going to work and it's just focusing on building those skills.
• 33:59
  And then one of the main reasons where, why I kind of signed up to begin with was for the actual kind of brotherhood.
• 34:06
  And there is something, especially healing with masculine presence.
• 34:10
  Uh, that's what we're trying to build within ourselves, but to be witnessed by another man, ideally in society, we would have, uh.
• 34:18
  you know a culture around us where when we were struggling we would have elder men to go to brothers fathers uncles grandfathers to hold space and we'd be able to express our emotions but because we've lost that as society and a culture we generally bring our emotional state to our women and you know that probably goes down like a lead balloon as you could probably imagine
• 34:39
  Because it forces her into a role where she now has to hold your emotions.
• 34:43
  And I think this is one of the misconceptions that people, or especially men, get with vulnerability.
• 34:48
  Vulnerability isn't good or bad or right or wrong.
• 34:50
  It's the right time and the right place coming from the right place as well.
• 34:54
  And rather than I'm feeling what I'm feeling, I need you to fix it,
• 34:58
  vulnerability could be hey i'm struggling what i'm feeling i'm feeling it i don't need you to do anything i'm holding it but this is what i'm feeling and that's the vulnerability but the brotherhood in itself in terms of what i got mostly out of it i think was mostly to kind of be around other men where it's like oh i'm not the only person going through this every single man is going through the exact same thing you're going through you think you're you know all alone
• 35:20
  And you realize like, oh, there's like 100 of us in this room and we're all having the exact same experience.
• 35:26
  And each man that you're talking to go, oh, yeah, well, you know, you can have the exact same experience, but there's going to be plenty of people having a very mirrored experience to you.
• 35:34
  And then it's, you know what it is as well.
• 35:36
  It's like when you hear someone else having the experience, it gives you the validation and the permission to feel what you're feeling.
• 35:42
  The issue of why we struggle with actually healing is we don't actually feel, it's okay to feel what we're feeling.
• 35:50
  So we don't give ourselves the permission to actually feel, but to actually have another man mirror it to you as like, oh yeah, no, of course you're feeling this.
• 35:56
  I felt this before.
• 35:57
  I've been in your position.
• 35:58
  Why am I in your position?
• 35:59
  We go, oh, okay, cool.
• 36:01
  And it's like,
• 36:02
  I would sort of say this, like, you know if you ever go to like a wedding buffet after the main kind of wedding where nobody touches the buffet?
• 36:09
  And I'm always that person that will be the first person to go up to the food and everyone starts going up to the food and eating.
• 36:14
  Feeling your feelings is kind of like that.
• 36:16
  And when you're in an environment where other guys are actually kind of modeling, I think we all learn from modeling and mirroring, especially for yourself, Alex.
• 36:22
  I think you're a great model and you do lead by leading rather than telling.
• 36:27
  I think it's something very healing and powerful in that in terms of what we're missing as society as men.
• 36:33
  Oh, man.
• 36:33
  Thanks so much for that description, Shane.
• 36:35
  It's like one of these beliefs I've taken on that to me just feels like fact that contained masculine energy, like being in the presence of contained masculine energy, is one of the most healing forces in the world.
• 36:46
  And in the brotherhood, we get into a state in containment, and then we go hold each other in vulnerability and listen and see and hear each other.
• 36:52
  And it really is, it's transformational, isn't it?
• 36:54
  Yeah.
• 36:56
  Yes.
• 36:57
  And this is like I said, like I, I've been a somatic therapist eight years.
• 37:00
  I can hold myself, but you're always going to be able to go deeper with somebody else co-regulating with you.
• 37:09
  This doesn't have to be someone even knows anything.
• 37:11
  They don't even have to be like a qualified therapist.
• 37:14
  They just need to be present and grounded within themselves and not feeling pulled into what you're experiencing.
• 37:19
  If some essentially that's what holding space in current negation is right.
• 37:21
  And if a man could do that, a man's nerve system is generally going to be more powerful than a woman's nerve system anyway.
• 37:26
  Um, and for men, we don't have that where the space is for us to be vulnerable and someone else to hold us without analyzing us, trying to fix us, giving us solutions or distract us.
• 37:37
  Um,
• 37:38
  or numb ourselves out with going drinking whatever instead having a community where people can actually uh hold space and reflect you in a safe and grounded way is you know i i think that's the number one thing missing in this in this world today totally agree with you especially for men it's like one of those those absences we don't understand but once we fill that absence we know what we are missing
• 38:01
  Shane, if there's a guy out there who's considering the brotherhood and maybe he feels vulnerable or he feels like he's tried everything or he feels like he's done so much already, what would you say to that guy?
• 38:15
  I'd say if you get the opportunity to join, jump at it and don't look back.
• 38:22
  You're going to feel fear.
• 38:23
  You're going to feel resistance to anything you do.
• 38:26
  That isn't reason to not do it.
• 38:28
  That's reason to do it.
• 38:30
  If you're noticing fear, if you're noticing if it's not going to work, if you're noticing, you know, any kind of like questioning that you're having about it, it's okay to have those kinds of fears and questions about it.
• 38:42
  But that's part of the process.
• 38:44
  Um,
• 38:46
  And like I said, I kind of think of this as like a key.
• 38:50
  This isn't a magic pill.
• 38:51
  It's not going to fix everything in your life.
• 38:53
  You're not going to now become the most grounded, centered man just from doing this kind of container.
• 38:59
  But it's going to give you a skill set.
• 39:02
  It's going to give you the framework.
• 39:03
  And it's going to give you a space and community where the work can actually happen.
• 39:08
  And if you're looking to actually work on yourself, improve your relationship, become a better man, have more capacity for life, your work and, you know, growing your own mission or your own kind of business, all of it comes down to your capacity and that can be built through masculine containment.
• 39:23
  Hmm.
• 39:24
  Shane, thank you so much, man.
• 39:26
  I want to say a word to any man who's watching this.
• 39:28
  If you resonated with Shane like I did, if you felt like you related to his story, if you want to move into this direction and do this type of work, I'd be honored to have you in the brotherhood.
• 39:38
  We'd be honored to have you in the brotherhood.
• 39:40
  You know, I lead the container, but I'm a student just like everybody else.
• 39:43
  And we learn every single week.
• 39:45
  And so you can go to thebrotherhoodsociety.com.
• 39:48
  Sign up either for our wait list or for an interview if we're in active interviews.
• 39:52
  And I'd love to see you on an interview call soon.
• 39:54
  And I'd love to get you on our list so that we can follow up with you.
• 39:58
  And Shane, you validated why I was so excited to have this interview.
• 40:03
  You know, I recognized your level of self-awareness and self-work and self-commitment when we met in the Brotherhood.
• 40:11
  But then watching you really explore and apply and support others and be so present in the container was just, it was inspirational, man.
• 40:19
  I just want you to know you touched my heart and I'm so honored to have you as a member.
• 40:23
  So honored to have you as a member of the Brotherhood for as long as you'll be in there.
• 40:29
  yeah, man, it's, uh, this was awesome.
• 40:31
  Thank you for sharing, brother.
• 40:33
  Thank you, Alex.
• 40:33
  I'm, uh, I'm grateful for the opportunity.
• 40:35
  And, um, like I said, uh, you've been like a role model in terms of, um, your authenticity, your willingness to take action, your willingness to be human and your integrity as a man.
• 40:44
  Um, it's, it's inspiring to see you do what you do.
• 40:48
  So thank you.
• 40:49
  Thank you, brother.
• 40:50
  And thank you for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.