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31 - Why She Doesn't Respect Your Boundaries (And How to Change It) · Masculine Containment

• 0:00
  I get a ton of interesting comments on social media, and some of the most interesting are when I describe masculine containment, being present, being in the moment, being not reacting and not bringing too much energy to a situation.
• 0:13
  I have people comment things like, so you're just teaching men to take abuse.
• 0:17
  So you just want men to sit there and take it.
• 0:20
  You know, are you working with women so that they can abuse men and they can yell at men?
• 0:24
  Yeah.
• 0:25
  And honestly, it couldn't be further from the truth.
• 0:29
  Welcome to the Masculine Containment Podcast.
• 0:31
  Today, I want to talk about boundaries and the real reason she doesn't respect your boundaries.
• 0:37
  See, people misunderstand masculine containment.
• 0:42
  They think that what it means is that as men, we're just going to sit there and take whatever is coming at us without putting boundaries in place, without actually responding in a way that makes things better for us.
• 0:55
  And, you know, my work is not about men being abused.
• 0:58
  My work is about men stepping into their power and taking control of their lives, leading themselves, leading conflict situations, moving things in the right direction and having the relationship of your dreams.
• 1:10
  And I share this from a lived experience.
• 1:11
  You know, I've been with my wife for 22 years.
• 1:13
  And today we have the best relationship we've ever had.
• 1:18
  I'm 53.
• 1:19
  She's 48.
• 1:20
  She's perimenopausal.
• 1:21
  We should be a statistic.
• 1:23
  You know, we should not be where we are today.
• 1:25
  We have literally the most connection, the best intimacy, the most excitement in our relationship that we've ever had.
• 1:32
  And I'm.
• 1:34
  A big part of that is me being contained and understanding masculine containment, her doing her work, but also me being able to put boundaries in place and me being able to have discussions with her about what's okay with me and what's not okay with me.
• 1:49
  Because for so many of us in relationships, that is one of the hardest things to do.
• 1:54
  See, containment doesn't replace boundaries.
• 1:57
  Containment actually makes boundaries possible.
• 2:00
  And I think as men...
• 2:02
  we need to ask the question, you know, if our boundaries aren't being respected, the first question isn't how do I get her to respect them?
• 2:09
  The first question is, am I setting a boundary or am I just reacting?
• 2:15
  I'll share a quick story with you.
• 2:16
  Recently, I was with a friend of mine and she had watched some of my stuff and I think listened to the podcast.
• 2:23
  And she asked me, do you think containment would work for my husband?
• 2:28
  And...
• 2:29
  I knew it would.
• 2:30
  I mean, I know.
• 2:31
  I think this will work for any man.
• 2:32
  I know being contained and being more present and being more aware, being in our bodies, stepping into our power will work for any man.
• 2:40
  But with her relationship, when she asked me, I kind of cringed because, you know, I don't go chasing people for business anymore.
• 2:49
  I don't go chasing people to join the brotherhood.
• 2:51
  I don't go chasing men to understand masculine containment.
• 2:53
  I let people come to me.
• 2:54
  I put the information out there.
• 2:55
  I let people come to me.
• 2:57
  And she came to me and started asking about it.
• 3:00
  And here's what I know about their relationship is,
• 3:05
  She's been in a place for years where she treats her husband with contempt.
• 3:08
  I've watched it.
• 3:10
  She treats him with judgment.
• 3:11
  She treats him like a child sometimes.
• 3:13
  And...
• 3:14
  I've seen her both in front of him and behind his back talk about him like he has issues and he's the problem and he's, you know, the challenge.
• 3:26
  And she makes really challenging comments about him often.
• 3:30
  And more than once I've said like, hey, you know, nothing's going to get resolved if you say things like that.
• 3:36
  Or, you know, if you saw him in a different light, I think you'd move your relationship in the right direction.
• 3:40
  But she's never really wanted to hear it.
• 3:43
  And that's why I don't approach anybody, but I certainly wouldn't have approached her because she has to be open to the idea and come to me.
• 3:51
  And when she did, you know...
• 3:53
  Here's what I know in that relationship is that if he does this work and he learns masculine containment, there's going to be some shifts for her and there's going to be work she needs to do.
• 4:07
  And I think it's going to be serious work.
• 4:08
  I think she has some challenges with him.
• 4:11
  I think she has some challenges with the masculine in general.
• 4:13
  I think she has some challenges with how she treats him, but a lot of it's because he tolerates it.
• 4:23
  And he puts up with it.
• 4:24
  And he kind of goes into nice guy syndrome.
• 4:27
  And masculine containment would teach him that he shouldn't tolerate this.
• 4:32
  Masculine containment would actually show him that he should stop tolerating her behavior and put boundaries in place.
• 4:39
  Because this work only works when someone wants it.
• 4:43
  And containment wouldn't teach him to tolerate what's happening.
• 4:47
  It would make him capable of actually changing it.
• 4:51
  And so I'm hoping that he actually does come and join the brotherhood because I think it would be a massive learning experience for both of them.
• 4:58
  Because here's the biggest misunderstanding about this work, about becoming contained, about getting in your body, about embodiment, about being able to be present and aware, about training the triggers so you no longer react and you can respond.
• 5:12
  The biggest misunderstanding is that.
• 5:15
  is that you just take everything the world gives you and you become like this doormat.
• 5:20
  And I can understand that.
• 5:22
  You know, I understand because what I'm talking about is totally different than what anybody else out there teaches, at least in the way that I'm teaching it.
• 5:29
  I haven't seen anyone else talking about it the way that I do.
• 5:32
  And I haven't seen anyone else put together an organization like the Brotherhood, where if you go back and listen to the interview podcast, you'll hear from men how masculine containment has absolutely changed their lives.
• 5:43
  This week I was talking to a friend of mine who's actually in the current container.
• 5:47
  And we're in week, we've gone through six weeks of eight weeks in the current container.
• 5:52
  The next one's going to be 10.
• 5:53
  But he was saying, you know, I'm sitting with my wife in containment and it's really hard, you know.
• 6:01
  And she brings up a lot of stuff that's really hard to hear.
• 6:04
  And sometimes I wonder, like, when is it going to be my turn?
• 6:06
  I'm doing all the hard work.
• 6:09
  And what I said to him is like, you're not doing the work for her.
• 6:12
  I think that's the biggest misconception.
• 6:14
  It's like biggest misunderstanding is that you're doing the work for her.
• 6:18
  You're absolutely doing the work to improve your relationship.
• 6:21
  And you're absolutely doing the work so that you can have a better life.
• 6:25
  But you're doing the work for you.
• 6:27
  You know, I explained to him, one of the questions I get most often is, when is it okay to break containment?
• 6:33
  And...
• 6:34
  You know, I shared with him, you know, I've thought through all the scenarios.
• 6:37
  You tell me a life scenario where bringing too much energy to the situation and overreacting or imploding or exploding is going to make this situation easier.
• 6:51
  I always share with men, if you bring too much energy to solve a problem, you become the problem.
• 6:55
  You don't bring enough energy to solve the problem, you become the problem.
• 6:57
  So if you're exploding and yelling and screaming and reacting or imploding and withdrawing and staying quiet and, you know, being silent, either one of those things, you actually become the issue.
• 7:09
  Whatever was there before, you're now the problem.
• 7:11
  You're now the issue.
• 7:12
  And for me, I'm more of an exploder than an imploder.
• 7:16
  I tend to explode and then implode.
• 7:18
  And by the way, I'm not perfect at this.
• 7:19
  This happens to me.
• 7:21
  But when I do, you know, thankfully it hasn't happened with Katie in a long time, but occasionally it'll happen with one of my daughters.
• 7:28
  And there will be a place where I'm trying to enforce a boundary, like they didn't do something.
• 7:32
  Or we have a rule in the house that was violated or something, you know, that they had promised that they would do that they didn't do.
• 7:39
  And if I bring too much energy to that situation...
• 7:42
  the entire engagement, the entire exchange becomes about me reacting.
• 7:48
  Then I have to apologize and repair, and it's like 10 times as much work as if I had just stayed contained and had a conversation with one of them.
• 7:56
  When I lose containment, I'm repairing instead of just addressing the issue.
• 8:02
  And when I lose containment, the conversation stops being about the issue and starts being about my reaction.
• 8:07
  And so...
• 8:08
  When you really look at it, you're not doing the work just for her.
• 8:11
  You're doing the work for your life.
• 8:13
  The reaction doesn't solve the problem.
• 8:15
  It delays solving the problem.
• 8:18
  When you can be contained and respond rather than react, it changes everything.
• 8:23
  People think containment is giving up power.
• 8:26
  It's how I actually access my power.
• 8:28
  It's how I get what I want done in the world so much faster than I used to.
• 8:33
  And when I started teaching this work, I had this
• 8:36
  theory, this hypothesis that if men became contained, if they got more in their bodies, if they understood themselves better, if they, you know, understood the reactions, if they understood their triggers, if they stopped reacting all the time, if they stopped wasting so much time on repair and silence and, you know, that pattern of trigger escalation, rupture, withdraw, and then repair, we all know.
• 8:59
  That when you're in rupture, nothing's getting done.
• 9:01
  And when you're in that withdrawal period, you may look productive, but it is not a good place to be.
• 9:07
  And then when you have to come back and repair, it takes a ton of time.
• 9:10
  And oftentimes the repair doesn't feel like it really landed.
• 9:14
  And so when you get out of that, when you stop that reaction with everybody in the world, not just your partner, but even just with yourself,
• 9:24
  You know, when you're in a car and somebody cuts you off and you have trigger escalation, you start screaming and yelling.
• 9:30
  And then you sit there like thinking, why was I screaming and yelling?
• 9:33
  And you have all the chemicals going through your body and then you have to like calm yourself down.
• 9:38
  That all takes more time.
• 9:39
  That could be time that you're thinking about what you're going to do that's productive.
• 9:42
  It could be time you're spending with yourself.
• 9:43
  It could be time in silence.
• 9:45
  It could be time...
• 9:46
  you know, gathering your thoughts and understanding what you should be doing in the day.
• 9:50
  And so any type of reaction, anytime we explode or implode, we're costing ourselves time.
• 9:57
  We're costing ourselves energy.
• 9:59
  We're leaking capacity.
• 10:00
  We're leaking our power.
• 10:02
  Now, here's the challenge.
• 10:04
  This is why most men can't set boundaries.
• 10:07
  Most men have like on a spectrum, we either explode or implode.
• 10:11
  And most of us do a combination of the two.
• 10:13
  So when we explode, we're in anger and frustration and resentment.
• 10:18
  And when we collapse or implode, we're in withdraw and silence and oftentimes self-abandonment.
• 10:24
  We're not really there.
• 10:25
  We're not really present.
• 10:27
  When you're in either one of those places, it's near impossible to set a boundary.
• 10:33
  If you're setting a boundary during an explosion, it sounds like control.
• 10:38
  It sounds like a reaction.
• 10:39
  It sounds like an ultimatum.
• 10:42
  If you're setting a boundary while you're withdrawn and silent and not really connected, it sounds like you're begging.
• 10:48
  It sounds like you're trying to be a nice guy.
• 10:50
  It sounds like you're trying to get something to happen.
• 10:53
  And what happens to us so often and why most men can't set boundaries is that we're in one of these two reactions.
• 11:00
  And when we get to that repair place, we go into nice guy syndrome.
• 11:04
  And we start trying to do everything right.
• 11:08
  And we start trying to not do the wrong thing.
• 11:10
  And so you're not going to set a boundary when you're repairing.
• 11:13
  Because when you're repairing, it feels like you're walking on eggshells and trying to do the right thing and doing all the things and trying to make things better and trying to fix what you've done.
• 11:23
  Which makes it near impossible to stop and set a boundary.
• 11:27
  So there's two options, right?
• 11:29
  We either explode or implode.
• 11:31
  Well, containment provides a third.
• 11:34
  Containment is seeing the trigger, being rational, and knowing that there's not anything that you need to immediately react to, either exploding or imploding, breathing, feeling the feelings, staying in your body, staying present, staying in the moment.
• 11:51
  And understanding what's going on.
• 11:53
  And not becoming the issue.
• 11:54
  Letting the issue actually be the issue.
• 11:56
  So if there's a trigger, you calm yourself down and you stay there.
• 12:01
  Because most men don't set boundaries.
• 12:03
  They either explode or disappear, withdraw, implode.
• 12:08
  And in both cases, you're not in a place where you're actually setting a boundary.
• 12:11
  See, containment gives you a third option.
• 12:14
  It gives you an option to stay in the moment.
• 12:16
  And here's what containment actually does.
• 12:20
  See, there's this reality here for me that I'm not really interested in who is technically responsible when there's a trigger, whether it's me or her or my kids or whoever it is.
• 12:33
  I'm in a place in my life where I want to take as much responsibility as I can.
• 12:37
  Blame limits my power.
• 12:39
  Responsibility accesses it.
• 12:41
  And I'm like looking at how much responsibility can I take?
• 12:44
  How can I fix this issue, whether it's mine or not?
• 12:47
  Because more responsibility means you have more influence.
• 12:51
  More responsibility means you have more capacity.
• 12:54
  More responsibility means you can actually change things.
• 12:57
  And when you couple responsibility with staying contained and saying, how do I change this?
• 13:04
  It actually creates clarity.
• 13:06
  It gives you clarity as to what's really happening, what's going on.
• 13:09
  When I'm no longer the problem because I'm exploding or imploding, I can actually see the problem.
• 13:14
  And this containment allows you to address the issue.
• 13:17
  So I'll share a quick story.
• 13:18
  This is in recent history with Katie and I.
• 13:21
  You know, we have two daughters.
• 13:23
  And I won't get into a ton of details.
• 13:25
  But...
• 13:26
  I think anybody who's a parent knows that there's, you know, challenges sometimes with holding boundaries with your kids.
• 13:32
  And we had this boundary that she and I discussed that Katie and I discussed that if we were going to spend money on our kids, that we would stop and we would discuss it first so that the two of us were aware of what's going on.
• 13:42
  You know, I have this belief that money is energy.
• 13:44
  And if we're going to put energy somewhere, I want to know that we're putting it there.
• 13:47
  And my kids often go to Katie because
• 13:50
  she kind of has a reaction when they come to her.
• 13:53
  She like just goes ahead and does it.
• 13:56
  And we don't talk about it.
• 13:57
  We weren't talking about it.
• 13:58
  And so that happened.
• 14:00
  And instead of exploding or imploding, where I would become the problem, one of the kids asked Katie for money.
• 14:06
  And when I walked into the room, she was talking to her as the decision had already been made.
• 14:10
  And I'm like, ah, we set a boundary.
• 14:12
  We had an agreement that we were going to talk about this first.
• 14:16
  So rather than exploding,
• 14:18
  I stayed.
• 14:19
  And I felt my feelings of frustration and anger and really disappointment.
• 14:23
  I felt like I'd been undermined and it was super frustrating.
• 14:27
  And in the past, I would have been angry and yelling and screaming and I would have become the problem.
• 14:35
  And then I would have had to repair.
• 14:37
  And then we would maybe get back to talking about that there was a violation of a boundary that the two of us had agreed to.
• 14:43
  And instead, I stayed present and,
• 14:46
  I waited till the situation was over and then I pulled Katie aside and had a conversation with her and said, hey, here's what's happened.
• 14:53
  You remember the conversation we said we were going to talk about this first?
• 14:55
  Well, that didn't happen this time.
• 14:58
  And I really want it to happen where you and I talk to each other.
• 15:02
  What happened?
• 15:03
  And it actually happened a few times.
• 15:05
  And what ended up happening was we figured out that Katie like had a reaction when she's asked for money.
• 15:11
  She kind of gets overwhelmed.
• 15:13
  And it comes from her childhood and it comes from trauma in her life.
• 15:17
  And I didn't really know this.
• 15:18
  Like this has happened over and over in our relationship.
• 15:20
  And I didn't know that it was actually a reaction she was having.
• 15:24
  I don't think she knew it was a reaction she was having because when it would happen in the past, it would become about the trigger escalation, rupture and withdraw and then us trying to repair.
• 15:32
  And it got confusing and it didn't really reveal what the issue was.
• 15:37
  And so in that case, I set a boundary and said, hey, you know, I want you to talk to a therapist about this because you and I have to be able to align because if we don't align and one of the kids is involved, there's you, me and a third person.
• 15:48
  We're in this place of triangulation, which always creates victim, rescuer, perpetrator.
• 15:52
  It gets just ugly and messy.
• 15:55
  And the way that you get out of that triangulation as parents is the two of you align.
• 15:58
  So there's one unit of parents and then one person on the other side, your kid.
• 16:03
  And so there's alignment there.
• 16:05
  There's no triangulation when your parents are acting as a unit and then you're working with one of your kids or putting a boundary in place with one of your kids or communicating with one of your kids.
• 16:14
  And so I was able to put the boundary in place that, hey, let's talk to the therapist and things are going way, way better now.
• 16:20
  And it also gave me insight into like, hey, if I was yelling at Katie for this or if I was withdrawing or exploding or imploding or bringing too much energy to the situation, she's already in a trauma response from her childhood.
• 16:34
  She's reacting instead of thinking through the fact that we created a boundary.
• 16:39
  I'm only making things worse.
• 16:41
  You know, I've talked to so many men who are in that situation and they're like, man, you know what?
• 16:46
  Maybe my wife's having a reaction and maybe that's why I feel undermined or overruled.
• 16:51
  And when they get to the bottom of it, it makes things so much easier.
• 16:55
  It actually allows them to understand what's really going on.
• 16:59
  And so for me, like containment.
• 17:02
  changes things because blame limits my power, responsibility accesses it.
• 17:06
  And when I'm no longer the problem, the problem is revealed.
• 17:09
  Containment creates clarity.
• 17:11
  And so here's what a boundary is, you know.
• 17:15
  I think sometimes when people hear boundary, especially if you had parents like mine, you know, boundaries were often control or punishment or manipulation.
• 17:23
  In my case with my dad, like boundaries were yelling and screaming and silent treatment.
• 17:29
  It's like you do this and then he wouldn't talk to me forever.
• 17:32
  And the challenge with boundaries is that that is not a way that you're going to
• 17:41
  change the world around you.
• 17:43
  You know, if you're trying to be in a place of control or punishment or manipulation, that's a place where like things aren't going to change for the better.
• 17:51
  And if you're in a reaction, either exploding or imploding, chances are, that's where you're going to set the boundary from.
• 17:57
  And so what a boundary really is, is what's okay with me?
• 18:02
  not changing you, what's okay with me?
• 18:05
  Like this is what I will participate in.
• 18:07
  This is what's okay with me.
• 18:09
  This is what feels resonant for me.
• 18:10
  This is where I am.
• 18:12
  And when you can talk about boundaries from clear communication of what I will participate in, followed by the behavior which I really want to see, you're actually heard.
• 18:24
  Because...
• 18:26
  For so many of us, the only place we've seen boundaries set is from a reaction.
• 18:30
  That's how my parents used to do it.
• 18:32
  They would be screaming and yelling and then I'd be on restriction or grounded or not be able to do something anymore.
• 18:38
  Or they'd tell me the behavior they really wanted in the middle of a bunch of yelling and screaming.
• 18:43
  And I think any of us, when we get into that place of a reactive boundary, it just doesn't work.
• 18:50
  There's a clear reason why reactive boundaries fail.
• 18:53
  Right.
• 18:54
  First, we trigger childhood reactions.
• 18:57
  When we're reacting, we're going to trigger the other person to react, and they're not even going to hear the boundary.
• 19:01
  They're not even going to understand it.
• 19:02
  Our reaction becomes the issue.
• 19:05
  And so before we are talking about a boundary, we have to check in with our nervous system.
• 19:10
  and calm things down.
• 19:12
  If you say the same thing in a reaction, as you would say when you're calm and present and aware, it's going to be heard in a totally different place, a totally different level of regulation, a totally different level of communication.
• 19:26
  You know, reactive boundaries are, you know, often sound like, hey, I'm not doing this anymore.
• 19:32
  And they sound like ultimatums.
• 19:34
  Contained boundaries sound like this is what I won't be present for.
• 19:38
  This is what is not okay with me.
• 19:40
  This is what I'm not willing to participate in.
• 19:44
  See, people experience your nervous system before they process your words.
• 19:48
  Any person.
• 19:50
  And if it's your kids, they know your nervous system.
• 19:53
  So if you're dysregulated, if you're uncontained, if you're in a place of reaction, they're going to feel it.
• 19:58
  And most importantly, if you're with your partner, your wife, your girlfriend, the person that you love the most in the world, the person that you really want close to you,
• 20:07
  She feels your nervous system sometimes before you feel your nervous system, before you're aware of it, especially before you practice masculine containment, before you train the trigger.
• 20:17
  See, reactive men don't set boundaries.
• 20:19
  They just react.
• 20:20
  Contained men create safety and clarity.
• 20:25
  And when you're in a place of setting a boundary from a place of containment, of presence, of regulation, you're not creating anything to push back on.
• 20:34
  When I pulled Katie aside and said, hey, this happened again.
• 20:37
  You're spending money without telling me.
• 20:39
  And we had a conversation about it.
• 20:40
  We agreed to this.
• 20:42
  There wasn't anything for her to yell at or scream at.
• 20:44
  She looked at me and she's like, you're right, I'm sorry.
• 20:46
  I don't know why I did it.
• 20:47
  It wasn't on purpose.
• 20:48
  I don't know why I'm doing this.
• 20:49
  And then it happened a couple more times and it's like, hey, I really don't know why I'm doing this.
• 20:53
  Okay, then let's get some help with this.
• 20:56
  That was a big issue in our relationship.
• 20:58
  It's not an issue anymore today.
• 21:00
  So when somebody says you just want men to sit there and take it, no, no way.
• 21:05
  I want you to get what you want.
• 21:07
  I want you to have the relationship you actually want.
• 21:09
  I want you to stop walking on eggshells.
• 21:11
  I want you to stop playing Mr. Nice Guy.
• 21:13
  I want you to stop trying to do all the right things until you explode or implode.
• 21:17
  I want you to step into your capacity, your power.
• 21:20
  I want you to be able to set boundaries, not ultimatums.
• 21:23
  You know, an ultimatum is trying to change her.
• 21:26
  A boundary is like, hey, I'm not okay with this.
• 21:29
  What work on your side do you have to do so that we can show up in a way where we're actually connecting, where we're aligned, where we agree to something and it happens?
• 21:37
  A boundary is actually leading yourself.
• 21:40
  An ultimatum tries to control another person.
• 21:43
  You can't control another person.
• 21:45
  You can try, but it's really difficult to control another person.
• 21:49
  But you can always choose what you'll participate in.
• 21:53
  You can always choose how you're going to put a boundary out there so that you're actually heard.
• 21:58
  So that you get the behavior change that you want.
• 22:01
  There's three places I think men absolutely need to lead.
• 22:05
  So first, in your relationship, if you're in that place of trigger, escalation, rupture, withdraw, and then repair, I think you need to lead at the trigger.
• 22:13
  You need to be the person that stops that pattern.
• 22:17
  On social media, when I talk about men leading, I get some really angry people reacting to me.
• 22:24
  I get a lot of women who say things like relationships don't need a leader.
• 22:27
  And, you know, you're stuck in this paradigm of the patriarchy of leadership.
• 22:32
  And, you know, you're just seeing yourself as better than her.
• 22:37
  I don't think any of those things are true.
• 22:40
  I think actually some of that thinking is really hurting women because when there isn't a leader in the room, it's chaotic, especially during conflict.
• 22:50
  And what I'm saying is when it comes to trigger, escalation, rupture, withdraw, and repair as men, we should do everything we can to stop it at the trigger.
• 22:58
  Train the trigger.
• 22:59
  Start feeling the reaction in your body.
• 23:02
  It's like a martial art-like discipline.
• 23:03
  You feel the reaction.
• 23:05
  You breathe.
• 23:05
  Yeah.
• 23:06
  You get present.
• 23:07
  You slow things down.
• 23:08
  You slow things way down so you don't have to react.
• 23:12
  You stay in the moment.
• 23:14
  And you stop the conflict at the trigger so you don't go through that pattern over and over and over again.
• 23:21
  Because it's exhausting for you
• 23:24
  But like we're pretty good at it as men.
• 23:26
  She's not.
• 23:28
  For her, her nervous system, like our nervous system is trained and evolutionarily trained, conditioned throughout time to find a threat and neutralize it.
• 23:38
  So we're pretty good at that trigger escalation rupture.
• 23:41
  Like we can do that.
• 23:43
  Her nervous system is trained for safety and to stay alive.
• 23:47
  And she's, you know, not as strong as you, less physically capable than you.
• 23:53
  She's not as capable of violence as you are.
• 23:56
  And so her nervous system feels every time that pattern goes through that she feels that as an actual physical threat.
• 24:04
  So we need to lead and stop that conflict at the trigger.
• 24:08
  The second place I think we need to lead is,
• 24:11
  is repairing.
• 24:12
  See, if you do, and by the way, it happens, there's no perfection in this work.
• 24:17
  In the Brotherhood, we talk about slow is fast and fast is slow and progress over perfection.
• 24:22
  Any quest for perfection is only going to increase the pressure and noise in your life.
• 24:26
  It's going to make everything harder.
• 24:28
  So when it's inevitably happens that there is a trigger and an escalation and a rupture and a withdrawal, and you're in that place where you need to repair,
• 24:36
  I think men need to take the lead in repair.
• 24:39
  Waiting for her to do it just doesn't make sense because we go back to baseline quicker and we're the stronger body in the room.
• 24:48
  We're actually the stronger conflict-based nervous system in the room.
• 24:53
  And so when there is a conflict, I believe we need to go repair first and we need to like take that off the table and let her know she's safe and let her know things are okay.
• 25:03
  Because she's in a place of central nervous system dysregulation.
• 25:07
  She's going to be in a lot bigger reaction than you because our impact is greater than hers almost all the time.
• 25:14
  And so when that happens, I think we need to lead through repair.
• 25:17
  A contained man leads before conflict, during conflict, and after conflict.
• 25:22
  And so after conflict, the third place I think we need to lead is in setting healthy boundaries.
• 25:30
  going to her and saying, here's what's going on, and here's why it's really difficult for me, and here's what I'd like to see instead, and I want to have a conversation about this with you.
• 25:41
  And hearing her and listening to her and not reacting.
• 25:44
  When you don't bring more energy than is necessary, when you don't explode or implode, when you are actually there not with less energy than actual presence creates—
• 25:55
  You create safety and security and you can have a conversation about what's going on and you can actually change patterns in your relationship.
• 26:03
  I read this statistic yesterday.
• 26:06
  by John and Judy Gottman that, I mean, I'm a heretic.
• 26:10
  I often disagree with like popular knowledge, popular culture.
• 26:14
  Like if there's a statistic out there that everybody agrees on, a lot of time I'm the guy who's saying, wait a second, is there like something wrong here?
• 26:21
  And there's this statistic that says something like 70% of a couple's problems are permanent and you just have to learn how to repair afterwards.
• 26:31
  I don't agree with that.
• 26:33
  I've just seen too much evidence of the opposite in my relationship and too much evidence of the opposite in the relationships of the men who have learned masculine containment in the brotherhood.
• 26:42
  See, I think 70% of the problems in a relationship are permanent if you don't change the pattern.
• 26:50
  If the man doesn't understand masculine containment.
• 26:53
  If you don't get into your body, slow things down and stop the reaction.
• 26:58
  When you do, I think you can crush a lot of those quote unquote permanent problems.
• 27:02
  I don't think they need to be there forever.
• 27:04
  I think that's actually like a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure to say that's, you know, permanent
• 27:12
  challenges in the relationship, permanent conflict in the relationship, the relationship that's never going to be fixed.
• 27:19
  I actually think like the opposite is true.
• 27:21
  And, you know, I don't know that John and Judy Gottman understand containment.
• 27:25
  And when you look at when they did their work and how they've done their work and the way that they've come about their work, which, by the way, is phenomenal, but
• 27:32
  I think that a lot of what they've looked at is patterns in relationships where the man doesn't stop and change behavior.
• 27:39
  And they've looked at a lot of data where the man doesn't stop and change behavior and doesn't understand containment.
• 27:44
  And I think if you introduce containment into those situations, you can change everything.
• 27:51
  So I want you to know something if you're listening to this and you're thinking like,
• 27:55
  man, I wish I had set boundaries like this and I've screwed so many things up and I've done the wrong thing.
• 28:00
  And oftentimes men come to me and they're like, you know, I heard your whole pattern of trigger escalation, rupture, withdraw and repair.
• 28:05
  And I think I've destroyed my whole relationship, but I've been doing it forever and I feel terrible.
• 28:09
  And there's a lot of shame involved.
• 28:11
  I want you to know something.
• 28:12
  You were doing the best you could with the information that you had.
• 28:16
  You need to forgive yourself for that.
• 28:17
  And like from this point forward, move forward in a different way because nobody taught us this.
• 28:23
  Let's be real about the training, the teaching, the conditioning that most of us had, you and me included.
• 28:29
  We learned either fight harder or withdraw quickly, depending on what we lived with growing up.
• 28:35
  We either became the exploder or the imploder or a combination of the two.
• 28:39
  A lot of times men implode and then later it builds up and they explode.
• 28:42
  A lot of times men explode, later they implode afterwards.
• 28:45
  I mean, I've done all of that.
• 28:48
  And that's what we are trained.
• 28:49
  That's the example that most of us had.
• 28:52
  That's the example that every man I've ever worked with has had.
• 28:55
  One of those two.
• 28:56
  Masculine containment gives us an entirely new option.
• 28:59
  Stay connected.
• 29:01
  Stay in responsibility.
• 29:03
  Stay out of blame.
• 29:04
  Stay present.
• 29:06
  That's where leadership begins.
• 29:08
  See, go back to what I said at the beginning of this podcast.
• 29:12
  Containment doesn't make you tolerate poor behavior.
• 29:15
  It makes you capable of responding to poor behavior, to behavior that's challenging for you.
• 29:21
  It makes you capable of putting a boundary in place so that you get what you want in your life.
• 29:28
  And you stay connected to yourself.
• 29:29
  You stay connected to your values.
• 29:30
  You stay connected to reality.
• 29:32
  And I'll go back to something else I said earlier in the podcast about men.
• 29:36
  You know, I thought this would, when I first started teaching this work, I'm like, I think, I think my hypothesis is this is going to make men better at everything they do.
• 29:46
  The stories in the brotherhood of men having better relationships with their kids, there's so many of them, having better relationships with their family, with their mom, with their dad.
• 29:56
  Tons.
• 29:57
  The stories of men signing the biggest contract they ever had.
• 30:01
  In the last container, we had a guy sign the biggest contract he'd ever had.
• 30:04
  It was six figures.
• 30:05
  He's a single consultant.
• 30:07
  And then before the end of the container, he signed the next biggest contract he ever had.
• 30:11
  He broke the record again.
• 30:13
  We just had a guy last week in our platform who's in the Brotherhood who shared that he made a million dollars in a week.
• 30:22
  Two contracts that are going to gross his, or yes, gross, no, make his company a million dollars.
• 30:27
  Sign two contracts in a week, never done anything like that before.
• 30:31
  See, when we're contained, we can see the world around us for what it really is.
• 30:37
  We can stop reacting all the time and get into our bodies and get so much capacity back.
• 30:42
  We can be the man who calms the storm, not the man who brings the storm.
• 30:46
  Because the calmest man in the room truly wins.
• 30:49
  See, a contained man doesn't tolerate everything.
• 30:53
  A contained man is clear enough to know what must change and courageous enough to
• 31:00
  to lead that change.
• 31:02
  And he has the tools to be able to make it happen.
• 31:04
  So don't ever think containment's about laying down or being a doormat.
• 31:09
  Containment's about getting the life you've really wanted.
• 31:11
  There's a reason why that phrase, the calmest man in the room wins, is because it's true.
• 31:18
  And containment is the way that you get there.
• 31:20
  If what I've shared today resonates with you, I would be honored to walk this path with you.
• 31:24
  You can go to thebrotherhoodsociety.com, sign up for our wait list or join one of our containers.
• 31:31
  I'd love for you to be able to understand this information, train the trigger, step into this martial art-like discipline of masculine containment, and see everything in your life change for the better.
• 31:41
  Thanks for being here today.
• 31:41
  I appreciate you listening to the podcast.
• 31:44
  Do me a favor, share this with somebody who needs to hear it and leave us a review.
• 31:49
  And if you have any questions, please leave them in a comment.
• 31:52
  I appreciate you being here.