Latest / Evolutionary Men / Shadow Work for Regaining Your Power (with Luke Adler)
Transcript
- 0:00Jason Lange: All right, and welcome back, everybody.
- 0:03Excited to once again be joined by Dr.
- 0:07Luke Adler for another Shadow Work 4 series.
- 0:11And this, this, this episode, we're going to be talking about
- 0:15shadow work for regaining your power.
- 0:19So this is a really common
- 0:22cut of the work Luke and I have been doing with guys over the last couple years in
- 0:26our The Heart of Shadow program and our individual coaching that I think is going to be
- 0:32particularly useful and applicable for nice guys and really for anyone, though,
- 0:38in a time in our culture where I think
- 0:41power itself
- 0:43can be a edgy and triggering word, but one that, you
- 0:49know, we're working hard as men, as leaders,
- 0:53as husbands, fathers
- 0:55to find a right relationship towards.
- 0:58And certainly I know I could speak from my side.
- 1:01From what I know of you, Luke, I think you would agree with me that this moment in
- 1:05time, what the world needs is more powerful, healthy, integrated men who can stand
- 1:11in that power.
- 1:12Very clearly.
- 1:14Luke Adler: Yeah, we have the contrast to that which is
- 1:18top down power, power over,
- 1:20which really seeks to perpetuate a dynamic of if I have power that necessitates that
- 1:26you don't have power, you're less than me.
- 1:29And so you're subservient, you're in a diminished position.
- 1:31And so you, the choices you have are to take a,
- 1:36if you're power under, to take a position of pleasing or a position of
- 1:43not rocking the boat or walking on eggshells or being a nice guy,
- 1:49being a pleasing nice
- 1:51guy who is totally
- 1:54attuned
- 1:56to the power up position and looking around,
- 2:01anticipating needs,
- 2:04being careful not to get yelled at,
- 2:07being perfect
- 2:10so as not to experience the scorn of the power position.
- 2:14And our work is about entirely breaking that model apart and moving into
- 2:20what we call
- 2:22a dynamic of relationality where there's room for you and there's room for me.
- 2:27And of course, Jason and I exemplify this in our work, our partnership and the heart
- 2:32of Shadow, where there's room for him to lead and there's room for me to lead and
- 2:36there's room for me to make mistakes and Jason to make mistakes and there's just
- 2:41room to be human together.
- 2:42And it's so delightful
- 2:46to be in that kind of shared power position where it's not about Jason shining or me
- 2:51shining or even us both shining.
- 2:53It's not about shining, it's about being in relationship, sharing our gifts and
- 2:59drawing those out of other people.
- 3:01And that's really at the heart of what we do in the heart of shadow is we
- 3:07allow power to actually come into the relational dynamic
- 3:12and let it be a central feature of our creativity, of our dreaming, of
- 3:18our purpose, of our vision, and that it can be clunky and it can be awkward at
- 3:24times, and it can
- 3:26be something we sort out and discover together.
- 3:29And that's the key feature.
- 3:31We're engaging
- 3:33in a joint exploration of power.
- 3:37And one euphemism for power is really energy.
- 3:40Energy that has the capacity to flow.
- 3:44And so we can bring in plenty of metaphors around there.
- 3:47But I'll take a pause there for.
- 3:49For a moment.
- 3:50Jason Lange: Well, yeah, I think that's a great place
- 3:54to.
- 3:55To.
- 3:55To dial in on because right, the.
- 3:58We start this episode and it's like, well, what do you mean by power?
- 4:01And there's a lot of ways to talk about that, that the energetic flow like you
- 4:05talked about, is one way we actually work with this in men.
- 4:08And we'll.
- 4:09We'll dial into that more.
- 4:11And you know, over the last couple
- 4:15years in men's work, how I've, you know, just started talking to clients about it
- 4:18pretty simply is just the capacity to move toward what we want, right?
- 4:23And so you said a movement of energy.
- 4:25So being able to move towards what I want, I'm in my power, right?
- 4:29I'm able to go for things.
- 4:30Doesn't mean I get everything I want necessarily, but I'm able to take
- 4:36action
- 4:38that has some kind of impact on my relationships, my environment, et cetera, to
- 4:43hopefully get me closer to something I want.
- 4:46And when we're not in our power,
- 4:49that's where, you know, we work with a lot of men.
- 4:51I've been there before.
- 4:52We often feel stuck, right?
- 4:54I'm stuck.
- 4:54I'm not in my power.
- 4:55This thing keeps happening with my spouse or my boss keeps treating me this way, and
- 5:01I can't do anything about it, right?
- 5:04So I.
- 5:04I don't feel like I'm in my power in that often.
- 5:08Like you said, there's.
- 5:09There's an actual energetic
- 5:12to that.
- 5:13And
- 5:15for nice guys in particular,
- 5:17I would say it often relates to the lower body, right?
- 5:22To our hara, our center, our dantian, our cock, our balls.
- 5:27All of that area kind of down here in our gut to our kind of perineum is.
- 5:33Is what I would say and you know, most traditions say is kind of the source of this
- 5:38type of power we're talking about.
- 5:40We sometimes talk about it in our program too, is just desire, right?
- 5:44Desire and power are often linked.
- 5:46Like, I want to move towards that.
- 5:47I'm not in my power.
- 5:48I'm like, fuck, I can't get a girlfriend.
- 5:51I have no desire.
- 5:52Right.
- 5:52I feel totally stuck or numb.
- 5:55And as we disconnect from this, for all kinds of reasons, we'll talk about
- 5:59stuckness, flatness, numbness are often really strong results
- 6:06of that.
- 6:07And you know, we tend to approach things from more the kind of shadow, energetic
- 6:12side of things.
- 6:13But, you know, you basically dive into any
- 6:18martial arts and this is what they talk about.
- 6:21This is where your power comes from.
- 6:23It comes from your center, right.
- 6:25You actually punch from here, you move through the room from here, you find your
- 6:29center here.
- 6:29It's all located in this part of the body in a pretty significant way.
- 6:35And I don't think that's a coincidence, right.
- 6:37In terms of what we're talking about, of breath comes from here, power comes from
- 6:42here, sexuality comes from here.
- 6:44And I think we're living in a moment in time
- 6:47where we've seen
- 6:49so many examples of the power over
- 6:53dynamic you were talking about, particularly through the patriarchy, through men,
- 6:58through the masculine, which is, well, I'm going to go for what I want, and I don't
- 7:02give a shit how it impacts you or the environment or other people.
- 7:08And in fact, I don't want you to have power because that would threaten
- 7:14my capacity to move towards what I want and get what I want.
- 7:18Right.
- 7:18So I actually want to keep you down there.
- 7:22And, you know, nice guy stuff can certainly start just in family dynamics.
- 7:27But part of what we're talking about here is an actual cultural layer, right.
- 7:31So many of us have seen
- 7:33that and are still seeing the impact and the consequences of that.
- 7:38And there's been this kind of
- 7:40allergic response to that, I think, in a lot of men of, oh, well, then I don't want
- 7:45to be the power over guy.
- 7:46I don't want to be the macho jerk, the
- 7:50caveman, the sex abuser, any of that.
- 7:55And you know, in.
- 7:56Yeah, one of my teachers basically puts it as, you know, we develop these allergies
- 8:00to certain energies in our life, which is like, we want to get away from it.
- 8:04And that has shown up in all, certainly in myself, in so many of our men, of this
- 8:10energy of power, of fire, of desire.
- 8:13All these things that are located kind of down here in the gut and the belly and the
- 8:17cock.
- 8:19Luke Adler: Yeah, I love that you brought in the anatomy of power.
- 8:23That's exactly how we relate to it.
- 8:26And we experience it not only in our work, but of course, as human beings.
- 8:30The, the.
- 8:31The groundation of, of the kind of epicenter from which power arises
- 8:37is in that pelvic region that's the seed of our biological imperative, you know,
- 8:42fundamentally just to keep life moving, get the next generation out there into
- 8:48existence.
- 8:49And
- 8:51we're.
- 8:52We're immediately in touch with that primal desire to just keep life
- 8:57moving when we touch power to keep life perpetuating.
- 9:01And anything that's important to us is connected to that feeling, that feeling that
- 9:06lo.
- 9:06That actual locality in our body.
- 9:09So
- 9:10we have this archetypal arrangement of the nice guy, which defaults in the cultural
- 9:16field to being power under
- 9:19what is actually happening
- 9:22in our bodies
- 9:24when our power
- 9:27is offline or our power is diminished.
- 9:30And
- 9:32we could use the word clog or stuckness when
- 9:38we talk about our power diminished because
- 9:42it's not that we're depleted or that we're exhausted per se, it's that we're cut off
- 9:48from our power.
- 9:49There's a clog in the pipe,
- 9:51there's a stuckness in the system.
- 9:54And
- 9:56what is that made of?
- 9:58What does that constitute?
- 10:00That's actually keeping us from expressing and not just perhaps we are
- 10:06in touch with our power, but it's not moving, it's blocked by something.
- 10:11And in the archetypal arrangement of the nice guy,
- 10:15we are holding not only our own pain often,
- 10:21but we're holding the pain of the person who we're holding above us.
- 10:26We're holding their pain.
- 10:27And we call that empathic reversal or blind compassion or
- 10:32neurotic compassion, as one of our teachers describes it.
- 10:37It's holding the compassion for the other because they refuse it to
- 10:42hold it for themselves.
- 10:44And we implicitly feel afraid
- 10:48that if they feel their power,
- 10:50they're going to fall apart.
- 10:53So we do the psycho emotional work of both people in the relationship.
- 10:58And in a way, we participate in the dynamic
- 11:02of power over, power under.
- 11:05We hold the clog.
- 11:07And of course, that comes into our bodies as stagnation.
- 11:12Yes, diminished energy, adrenal fatigue.
- 11:16What does, what does
- 11:19Dr.
- 11:19Glover, Robert Glover, say about men typically who do this?
- 11:24It's really fascinating.
- 11:27Almost.
- 11:27In every case that he's studied,
- 11:31men of that archetype have some kind of sexual dysfunction.
- 11:35It's fascinating.
- 11:37So premature ejaculation, delayed ejaculation,
- 11:41erectile dysfunction,
- 11:44any kind of erectile issue, prostatic issue, urinary bladder issues, UTIs,
- 11:51chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic regional pain syndrome, all of this
- 11:58exhaustive
- 12:00energy presentations because that whole glandular system, all the endocrine function
- 12:06of the testicles is diminished.
- 12:09So you have an up chain reaction where the adrenals are not functioning, the
- 12:13thyroid's not functioning, the thymus, the pineal gland, sleeps off Digestion's off.
- 12:19And so you have this down and upstream dysfunction because we're not in touch with
- 12:25what you and I often call Jason.
- 12:27Vitality is one of the markers of our program, The Heart of Shadow.
- 12:30Get in touch with your vitality.
- 12:35So that's the clog.
- 12:36Now the question is why?
- 12:38How do you do that?
- 12:40How's that happen?
- 12:42Jason Lange: Well, that's the great work here, you know, and shadow work, this thing, you know,
- 12:47we're so passionate about and we have this whole program around, is really kind of a
- 12:52two step process of often identifying
- 12:56what happened,
- 12:58right.
- 12:59To change the natural flow of that circuit.
- 13:01Because we're not born that way with our power offline, right.
- 13:05I got a almost 2 year old upstairs and he has no problem
- 13:10expressing himself, his anger, his power, his desire, and letting us know with his
- 13:14whole body right now.
- 13:16Right?
- 13:17And all of us are born that way.
- 13:19And then something happens though, in our environment, in our family system, in our
- 13:23culture that gives us a lived experience of hey, that's not okay or not safe or
- 13:29that's going to be met with
- 13:32domination or, you know, who knows what it is.
- 13:35And so there's often some kind of fracture in our, in our body, mind, in our
- 13:40energetic system where we start to shut that down, reroute it, whatever that might
- 13:45be.
- 13:46So part of shadow work is becoming aware of that, like, hey, what, where did I learn
- 13:51this habit?
- 13:52Right?
- 13:53When did I learn this habit?
- 13:55And then, you know, the second part is the actual
- 13:59practice of, okay, now what the fuck do I do about that?
- 14:02This is where a lot of work stops, is, you know, we can sit, we can do shadow work,
- 14:06you and I can journal it.
- 14:07Oh yeah, here's the moment.
- 14:08I can go talk to my
- 14:10talk therapist and have the insight about the family system.
- 14:14But that doesn't do the integration, the practice of okay, now what does it mean to
- 14:18actually
- 14:19reconnect that power source inside me and how do I do that in, you know,
- 14:25men's work, men's groups, shadow work, like we do, I think is kind of the best place
- 14:30I've found
- 14:32to do that because it's interactive, it's a group and it's a safe place.
- 14:38And this is going to be a strange word to bring in here, but it's a safe place to
- 14:42play with the energy.
- 14:45And, you know, this is something I've been talking about a lot more now that the
- 14:48whole purpose of retreats or altered state experiences or doing deep work with guys
- 14:53like us is, is we actually go and we dabble in the extremes Right.
- 14:58We have to discover where too far is to know where just right is.
- 15:05And you want to do that in a safe container.
- 15:08And, you know, this is, again, something that is pretty natural in
- 15:13the world.
- 15:14You know, we often talk about it.
- 15:16Best example I can always portray is dogs tussling.
- 15:20Like, you see dogs playing with each other and they're.
- 15:22They're roughhousing, right?
- 15:24They get in there, they're growling, they're biting each other's necks.
- 15:27They're really going for it.
- 15:29And then eventually what you hear is
- 15:32someone went a little too far,
- 15:34right?
- 15:34And then the dogs adjust.
- 15:37Hey, that's my power level.
- 15:38I can do that.
- 15:39So now I know kind of where to go, but I also know where I can play, right?
- 15:44What it means to just tussle.
- 15:46And that play space.
- 15:48I think in all, all kinds of ways we talk about in our program, just play in general
- 15:52has evaporated for so many men.
- 15:54You know,
- 15:56I think, you know, our generation was maybe kind of the last free range generation
- 16:01where it was just like, hey, kids, see you, see you tomorrow.
- 16:03Just like kick you outside and you figure shit out.
- 16:06And a lot of that was discovering through play.
- 16:09Oh, yeah, I injured you, I hurt you.
- 16:12Now I have to deal with that.
- 16:13Now I have to adjust.
- 16:14Like when we wrestle, what does that mean?
- 16:15Or we get into a fight or
- 16:17all that kind of stuff.
- 16:18And I think in a lot of ways, even in a non nice guy family, a lot of that's being
- 16:23removed.
- 16:24And men don't have safe places to play and actually feel their power of, oh,
- 16:30wow, I could actually bring a lot of force here and hurt you.
- 16:34Or I could scream, or I could bring energy through.
- 16:37And it's through that play we actually get to learn and we get to know the energy
- 16:41optimally.
- 16:42So if we're ever in, you know, an actual situation, we can use appropriate
- 16:48power or force or whatever that might be in.
- 16:51You know, just before I forget, I'll
- 16:54tag this on.
- 16:55You know,
- 16:58Amir Khalighi, who I've had on my podcast before, is a beautiful men's work teacher I
- 17:03did some martial arts with in the desert many moons ago.
- 17:06And he had this great thing from his martial arts lineage that's just, you know,
- 17:10basically
- 17:12real power is the ability to use force to create safety when needed,
- 17:18like that.
- 17:19We want men who are in their power in that sense that I have the capacity to
- 17:25bring force
- 17:27to create safety for me, for people around me, et cetera.
- 17:32And it's not about
- 17:33dominating the person, but it's actually about creating safety.
- 17:37And I Think that's part of the vacuum we're at in our world right now, where
- 17:42without strong masculine figures who can step into
- 17:48wise use of power and force in a sense to create safety, we're just
- 17:53seeing the devastation of who fills in those gaps.
- 17:57And that's like at a cultural level.
- 17:59And you know, we've worked with plenty of men who one of the things they have to
- 18:04most deeply work in their relationship to their power is often their own father,
- 18:09right?
- 18:09And when he didn't
- 18:12stand in his power to protect them as a son, you know, I saw my dad just as a
- 18:18doormat or he never spoke up for me, or he never da, da, da, da, da, da.
- 18:22And it has a deep wound of, hey, wow, I never felt safe because no one ever stepped
- 18:27in to protect me
- 18:29or, you know, certainly the counter as well.
- 18:31My dad had no
- 18:34calibration
- 18:35with his screaming, his force, his aggression, and it was just an unconscious dump
- 18:41all the time that wreaked havoc on me, my nervous system, my siblings, you know, my
- 18:46mother,
- 18:48whoever, and I sure as shit don't ever want to be that.
- 18:52So that's where that allergy kind of develops.
- 18:54But this is the appropriate,
- 18:57you know, deep sacred work, I think, of what it means to cultivate, you know, our
- 19:02power, which is often linked, as we'll talk more about, to our anger, to our rage,
- 19:06to that energetic of something coming up and out of us to change the moment.
- 19:12Luke Adler: Well said, Jason.
- 19:13Very
- 19:14beautiful and poignant example there of your own father, which, you know, I can
- 19:18relate to.
- 19:21What's powerful about everything that we're saying and you're highlighting here is
- 19:25that
- 19:27particularly in this program, the heart of shadow that we run and in shadow work,
- 19:34the remediating factor that actually makes the healing work and progress,
- 19:38particularly over time, is that the work is being done with men.
- 19:44And
- 19:45because the default
- 19:47culture of
- 19:49pain and abuse, I'd say
- 19:53is
- 19:54typically top down masculine over feminine,
- 19:59healing in a group of men
- 20:02over time
- 20:06enables that mending, that safety to build and grow.
- 20:11And that's the thing that you and I are both passionate with regards to.
- 20:16The Heart of Shadow is this long term model of a men's group, a men's
- 20:22work shadow group
- 20:26that has the capacity to hold depth,
- 20:30pain,
- 20:31wounding, our history, our visions, our aspirations, our sexuality, our narration,
- 20:36our entire lives.
- 20:39That's different from say a men's group that's just more of a check in style, which
- 20:43of course we love.
- 20:44We have those groups too, that's more just kind of dipping your, your toes in the
- 20:49water and Saying, okay, let's.
- 20:50Let's just like, try to be around other men and, and talk about something other than
- 20:55sports, you know, or
- 20:58politics, for that matter.
- 21:00So The Heart of Shadow is this environment where we create.
- 21:05We create safety in a sequential manner for men to begin to
- 21:11identify
- 21:14with their bodies
- 21:16what's stuck, what's clogged up in their system and begin to
- 21:22regain, like you said, Jason, maybe initially
- 21:25the explosive volcanic nature of the power that has been held down there for
- 21:32many decades.
- 21:34And yes, it's, It's.
- 21:35It can be quite.
- 21:36It can be quite big initially.
- 21:40Eventually that titrates down to having our power on tap, or as our.
- 21:45One of our teachers says, having your anger on tap.
- 21:47It's right there like a.
- 21:48Like you're.
- 21:49You're tapping a keg, so to speak.
- 21:52There it is.
- 21:52I just pull on it.
- 21:53It's right there.
- 21:54So that's, that's why the work works over time.
- 21:57And we see men,
- 21:59of course,
- 22:00ourselves, but we see men in our program
- 22:03heal, really heal and grow and develop as they template,
- 22:08mentor, parent, father, love, brother, on each other over time in a space of
- 22:13authentic depth
- 22:15where their strength and power can be right online with their deepest pain and
- 22:20wounding.
- 22:21That those can coexist.
- 22:24Now just let that sit with you for a while.
- 22:26If you're listening to that, that your vulnerability,
- 22:29your tears,
- 22:31your broken heart can coexist with your ferocity,
- 22:36your raw,
- 22:38animalistic strength and both be totally awake.
- 22:44That's something that is.
- 22:47Is not visible at the surface level of culture.
- 22:50You can't point to culture and go, yeah, I know a lot of guys who do that.
- 22:53That's not the culture.
- 22:55The culture's power over, power under.
- 22:58What we're bringing forward in Heart of Shadow is
- 23:02mutual power, mutual pain.
- 23:04There's enough room for your history, your pain and wounding, and all of your power,
- 23:09vision and aspiration.
- 23:13That's what we do.
- 23:14So
- 23:16what is it that's hard right there in the moment when we're with our spouse, our
- 23:21coworker, our boss, our employee, our children,
- 23:26to share power.
- 23:27What is it that makes us take the position of power under or perhaps power over?
- 23:34Well, we'll look at power under.
- 23:37Typically, it's that we don't want to hurt this person.
- 23:40We don't want them.
- 23:41We don't want them to feel the pain that we're currently feeling.
- 23:45Or perhaps we know that they're in pain
- 23:48and we don't want to add to it.
- 23:52Simultaneously, we know that if we continue this dynamic and don't share
- 23:57what we have to say it's going to perpetuate the painful dynamic.
- 24:02Or in most cases,
- 24:03we are going to take it on.
- 24:06We're going to take it on and take it into our body and we're going to clog the pipe
- 24:11and feel even more stuck.
- 24:14So it's a dilemma.
- 24:16And I talk to men, of course, even in myself, because power is just an
- 24:21ever present dynamic, relationally speaking, it's always being approached.
- 24:30How do you
- 24:32engage with someone and
- 24:35be sensitive enough
- 24:37to share what needs to be shared
- 24:40and let there be room for them
- 24:45and let there be room for yourself?
- 24:48And so part of shared power is
- 24:50letting there be some process around it.
- 24:53Because the default of the nervous system is to fight,
- 24:58flight or freeze, please.
- 25:00It's to go into attack mode, move outside of your body, or to move
- 25:06deeply into your body, to retreat.
- 25:07You know, it's retreat, attack.
- 25:11And so the key for exploring your power is to slow it down,
- 25:15slow it way down.
- 25:17As one of my friends and I have coined, let the meat rest.
- 25:22You take the steaks out of the grill and you let the meat rest.
- 25:25You don't just dig into them, ah, like an animal, you just know,
- 25:31let the meat cool down a bit.
- 25:35Let your nervous system calm down from the fight, from the freeze, from the please.
- 25:40Especially the please.
- 25:41The please one's very tricky to,
- 25:43to identify because it's like, oh, let me diffuse this bomb as quickly as possible.
- 25:47It's so uncomfortable.
- 25:49I just, I, I just want everyone to feel calm again.
- 25:53It's.
- 25:53This feels like my family.
- 25:55Dad's yelling again.
- 25:56Oh my God.
- 25:56What, how, what can I do to be the hero child, the nice guy?
- 26:00No,
- 26:02resist that urgent.
- 26:04Let the meat rest.
- 26:07Bring the temperature down.
- 26:12Jason Lange: And then this is.
- 26:13Luke Adler: Go ahead.
- 26:14Jason Lange: You know, so key, I think part of what we're talking about here, this is where when
- 26:19I say the practice or the skill building of what do we do with it?
- 26:23Right?
- 26:23So the intense charge comes up often.
- 26:28And okay, how do we work with that?
- 26:30Right, what do we do with that?
- 26:31And you know, what we have found is, yeah, you can definitely work with it.
- 26:34And it's actually the most natural path in the world in some sense.
- 26:38But with most people there becomes a clog somewhere.
- 26:42And so it's like this energy starts
- 26:44Luke Adler: to
- 26:47Jason Lange: heat up in our lower body.
- 26:49Whether that's desire,
- 26:51whether that's anger, frustration,
- 26:54wanting to move in some capacity or protect.
- 26:58And then the natural kind of movement is for it to come up and out in some way.
- 27:04Up and out often,
- 27:06most skillfully in some kind of spoken
- 27:10Relational way for a lot of guys.
- 27:13Yeah.
- 27:13It gets stuck somewhere, right?
- 27:15And then when it gets stuck, it does a couple of things.
- 27:19It either just stays there.
- 27:21We kind of dissociate from.
- 27:25Shoots out in all directions unconsciously through our hands, through our shoulders,
- 27:30right through our eyes, through our voice,
- 27:33or sometimes it does come out, but then it just comes right back and hits us in the
- 27:37face.
- 27:38It's got, like, a boomerang attached to it.
- 27:42But the optimal path is when we can kind of like, bring it up and, you know, let the
- 27:46stake rest in my mind in a lot of ways, is let it simmer in the heart.
- 27:51It's like when we let that energy simmer in the heart and rest there, something
- 27:56happens that when it comes out, it comes out differently,
- 28:00right, Than just the raw expression of it.
- 28:04And that is hard
- 28:06work to learn, because most of us never had it modeled in
- 28:12any way.
- 28:13And I think it's why
- 28:16power can get a bad rap
- 28:19in some sense.
- 28:20But when it's, you know, fueled through the heart, it becomes this incredibly
- 28:26sacred thing.
- 28:27Like, we want.
- 28:28I want people to be in their power, right?
- 28:32And I think part of what we've seen in.
- 28:34In this, you know, change of the.
- 28:36From power over and power under to.
- 28:39Well, I want to be in my power, and I want my power to actually support you
- 28:45in being in your power.
- 28:46So we start to empower each other, right?
- 28:49I think that is one of the new markers of healthy masculinity,
- 28:55is actually how much do I empower the people around me without
- 29:00abandoning myself
- 29:02and the work of doing that, you know, it's tough.
- 29:05It takes us into some pretty challenging places and knots and clogs and
- 29:10dissociations and memories and.
- 29:12And pains in our nervous system that, you know, shadow work, I think, is
- 29:16particularly apt at working with and rerouting and repatterning,
- 29:22and particularly in a group where we get to start to see what it looks like and feel
- 29:27it and meet another man in his power.
- 29:30When we're in our power and see, oh, that's what it looks like collapse.
- 29:34That's what it looks like to express.
- 29:36Fuck.
- 29:36That's what it looks like in that sweet spot where I trust this man more to be
- 29:42in his power, to speak his desires, to say his truth.
- 29:48And
- 29:49it's something,
- 29:51you know, we want all guys listening to come and work with us individually in our
- 29:56The Heart of Shadow program.
- 29:57We got another cohort coming up here in September 2026 with an Austin
- 30:02retreat.
- 30:03And even before that, we have a little webinar we're working on coming up here on
- 30:10Monday, August 24,
- 30:12Rage and Anger, how to wisely channel your power as a man.
- 30:17Luke and I will be leading you guys through kind of a group experiential process and
- 30:23you'll get to work with each other to, to learn how to work specifically with rage
- 30:27and anger, which are two parts
- 30:29of this whole power energetic that we're talking about.
- 30:33And how really taking responsibility for how do we work with this consciously is the
- 30:38road to this healthy power that we've been talking about.
- 30:42And that's Monday, August 24, 6:30pm Mountain, 5:30pm
- 30:48Pacific.
- 30:49And you can just go to Evolutionary Men Rage.
- 30:53And you can opt in right there.
- 30:55It's free.
- 30:55You'll get to meet us in person.
- 30:56We'll probably do a little shadow work with a couple of guys as well.
- 31:01And
- 31:03you don't have to stay stuck, right?
- 31:06I think that's the key here that
- 31:09I have experienced in my life what it means to get some of my power back in my
- 31:14ability, like I said, to express, to move towards, to have desire again
- 31:19at even deeper levels.
- 31:21And I couldn't have done it without you and without shadow work.
- 31:26Luke Adler: So great to be with you, brother.
- 31:27And
- 31:28join us for the webinar.
- 31:29If you're interested in The Heart of Shadow, you'll find us on those websites and we'd
- 31:32love to work with you guys.