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2 - Masculine Containment Defined: The Missing Discipline for Modern Men · Masculine Containment

• 0:00
  Welcome to the second episode of the Masculine Containment Podcast.
• 0:03
  I'm Alex Shorfin, and I'm excited to share this episode with you where I'm going to take you through the definition of masculine containment, the four different types of containment, what it really means, and what it does for us as men.
• 0:14
  Now, if you haven't listened to the first episode of this podcast, The Number One Problem in Relationships, I think you should because it will really help you understand masculine containment, the definition, and what I'm sharing with you today.
• 0:27
  So let's get started.
• 0:28
  So masculine containment is a concept that actually found me in my relationship.
• 0:34
  I've been sitting with my wife in active containment sessions on a daily basis.
• 0:38
  We call it our daily ceremony.
• 0:40
  since December 26, 2023.
• 0:44
  And at the risk of sounding crazy, I'll share with you that the concept of sitting with my wife and holding my center and understanding what was going on for her in our relationship actually came out of a series of ayahuasca ceremonies that we did in 2023.
• 1:00
  When we came out, I was uncomfortable.
• 1:02
  I felt activated.
• 1:03
  I was feeling very compulsive and had some really rough days.
• 1:08
  We actually did some, did, uh, sat with ayahuasca right before Christmas in 2023 and
• 1:13
  And all the way through Christmas, I was challenged.
• 1:16
  I was having a hard time.
• 1:17
  And on the 26th, I sat down with the notes that I made from that ceremony.
• 1:21
  And I made more notes.
• 1:22
  And one of the things that had come through was that every day is a ceremony.
• 1:26
  And what I needed to do was sit with my wife, hold my center, and understand from her what was going on in our relationship.
• 1:34
  That practice started me on the path to understanding this concept of masculine containment and actually to naming it, to understanding it, to seeing just how extraordinarily effective it can be for us as men.
• 1:46
  And in future podcasts, I'll share more details on mine and my wife Katie's journey.
• 1:50
  But today I want to share with you my definition of masculine containment.
• 1:54
  I've been working on this for, well, a couple of years now.
• 1:58
  And in order to really go deep on this work,
• 2:01
  In 2024, my wife and I shut down the company we had.
• 2:04
  We've since sold it.
• 2:06
  And we went on sabbatical in March of 2024.
• 2:10
  And I spent two years on a daily basis studying relationships, studying what was going wrong in relationships, discovering the power imbalance that is so present in heterosexual relationships where we as men are...
• 2:24
  evolutionarily biologically program for threat detection and neutralization and women are evolutionary and biologically program for protection and safety and those can be really beautiful together.
• 2:35
  But in conflict, when we as men are in conflict with the women in our lives, they feel the impact much more severely and much more deeply and for a longer period of time.
• 2:45
  And you can hear more about that in the first episode and there will be more on this in future episodes as well.
• 2:50
  But for right now, if you're a man watching this and you're wondering if what I just said is true, just answer three questions for me.
• 2:56
  Are you stronger than your partner?
• 2:59
  The answer with every man I've talked to so far has been yes.
• 3:02
  Are you more physically capable?
• 3:04
  The answer with every man I've talked to so far has been yes.
• 3:06
  And here's the important one.
• 3:07
  Are you more capable of violence?
• 3:09
  And the answer with every man I've talked to has been yes.
• 3:13
  And so what we need to understand as men is that when we are in active conflict with our partner, her nervous system actually registers us as a real, physical, biological, mortal threat.
• 3:27
  Her nervous system.
• 3:28
  She might know you're not going to hurt her.
• 3:29
  You might know you're not going to hurt her.
• 3:31
  Neither one of you can expect the actual violence is going to occur.
• 3:34
  But her nervous system is registering that conflict much more deeply, much more dramatically than yours.
• 3:42
  we can see that she does not represent a physical threat to you, but you do represent a physical threat to her.
• 3:48
  So that's why in my theory and my understanding of relationships, what's completely changed my relationship and the relationship of the over 100 men that I've been working with
• 4:00
  is understanding that is meant if we go first and we understand masculine containment and we create an environment of emotional safety and security, we can change everything in our relationship.
• 4:10
  Because before I get into the definition of masculine containment, here's something I'm going to repeat over and over again in this podcast.
• 4:16
  Most women have never felt emotional safety and security in their lives.
• 4:22
  They may have had moments.
• 4:23
  They may have had brief, brief glimpses.
• 4:26
  But over time, most women have never felt emotional safety and security.
• 4:31
  And as men, we need to understand that women walk around with a level of vulnerability and fear that we just don't have.
• 4:36
  And that's why masculine containment is so crucially important for us as men everywhere in our lives, but especially in our love relationships and our closest relationships, our relationship with our partner, our relationship with our children.
• 4:50
  When you look at women, they've shared with me that when they are going through parking garages or long hallways in a building or staircases or even in an elevator in a public place, that that's a moment of insecurity.
• 5:02
  That's a moment of vulnerability.
• 5:03
  It's a moment of feeling unsafe.
• 5:04
  I've actually had women tell me that when they're in a staircase in a public building and they hear somebody enter from above or below, they actually instinctively speed up because they don't feel safe.
• 5:15
  They don't know who's going to be there.
• 5:17
  If you look at this as men, chances are you really haven't felt any of that level of insecurity or unsafety.
• 5:23
  And that's why my motto, my belief, you know, hashtag men go first.
• 5:28
  As men in relationship, if we understand masculine containment,
• 5:32
  if we understand this discipline, this martial art-like discipline, this series of understanding that will help us not just be better in our relationship, but be better everywhere as men, we can lead, we can move into a place of leadership and moving the relationship forward, and we can change what's going on in our relationships through understanding masculine containment, and we can increase our capacity for everything in our lives.
• 5:59
  Absolutely.
• 5:59
  Let's start with the definition.
• 6:01
  So masculine containment is a noun and a verb.
• 6:04
  And I'll read the noun first.
• 6:05
  So the noun is a man's capacity to regulate his nervous system, remain present and curious rather than judgmental under pressure, and create coherence in himself, his relationships, and his environment, especially in moments of emotional or energetic intensity.
• 6:23
  It's a state of embodiment and self-mastery in which a man can hold emotional and energetic charge without leaking chaos to defensiveness, collapse, dominance imposed on others, or withdraw.
• 6:34
  So an example sentence would be, his masculine containment created a sense of safety, allowing the conversation to soften.
• 6:42
  So when we look at this noun, masculine containment's also a verb.
• 6:45
  It's something that we can actually do.
• 6:47
  So the verb is to actively hold, stabilize, lead emotional or energetic intensity through presence, curiosity, and direction so that it can be expressed, integrated, and resolved rather than escalated or suppressed.
• 7:02
  The rest of the definition reads to invite another person into safety and coherence by remaining regulated, grounded, and attuned while guiding the moment towards clarity and repair.
• 7:12
  So here's an example.
• 7:13
  He contained her emotions without judgment and helped her express what had been held in her body.
• 7:21
  So noun and verb is a foundational definition, but let me read kind of a broader definition.
• 7:28
  Masculine containment is a man's capacity to regulate his nervous system, remain present and curious rather than judgmental under pressure, and create coherence in himself, his relationships, his environment, especially in moments of emotion or energetic intensity.
• 7:42
  It is not dominance over others.
• 7:44
  It is not withdrawing, stonewalling, or emotional disappearance.
• 7:49
  Masculine containment is actually self-mastery combined with leadership.
• 7:54
  A contained man does not leak chaos through defensiveness, intensity, collapse, or avoidance.
• 8:00
  He can hold the charge without discharging it.
• 8:03
  He can lead emotional relationships towards clarity and repair and resolution.
• 8:07
  And masculine containment is combined of four interlocking capacities.
• 8:11
  Now, when we look at this as a total definition of masculine containment, I've identified four places where this applies.
• 8:18
  The first one is self-containment.
• 8:20
  The second one is responsive containment.
• 8:23
  The third one is active containment.
• 8:25
  And the last one is, very importantly, sexual containment.
• 8:29
  So these aren't personality traits.
• 8:31
  These are actually trainable capacities.
• 8:33
  These are skill sets, just like I said, like a martial art that you can learn.
• 8:37
  And let's go through the four of them.
• 8:38
  Let's start with self-containment.
• 8:40
  Now, self-containment is the act of feeling emotions, understanding that they're there.
• 8:46
  It's our ability to govern our nervous system, our emotions, our impulses, our internal reactions while remaining grounded, present, and sovereign over ourselves, regardless of external circumstances.
• 8:59
  It's the foundation of all other containment.
• 9:01
  First, it comes self-containment.
• 9:03
  So that means as a man, even when we're criticized or even when somebody says something that we don't like or even when there's emotions in the room or things escalate, we stay steady and we demonstrate containment instead of defensiveness.
• 9:18
  Now, here's something I want to make very clear about all these forms of containment.
• 9:21
  They are not suppression.
• 9:23
  See, suppression is when we don't feel our emotions.
• 9:28
  Suppression is when we deny our emotions.
• 9:30
  Suppression is when we white knuckle them, we hold things in, we push them down.
• 9:34
  And here's what happens in suppressive environments.
• 9:36
  That energy that gets suppressed, that energy that gets pushed down comes out sideways somewhere.
• 9:41
  So this is not suppressing your emotions.
• 9:44
  In fact, it's feeling your emotions.
• 9:47
  understanding that they're there, but instead of having them explode outwards, it's metabolizing them, transmuting them, transcending those emotions by breathing into your core, by showing your body that you're safe, by showing your body that emotions are safe.
• 10:02
  Now, just a word on the
• 10:06
  If you're watching this, you've probably been trained like I have that emotions aren't safe.
• 10:10
  How many times in your life did you hear something like, hey, stop crying, stop being emotional, stop moving around so much, stop making everyone else uncomfortable, stop being so loud, stop being so quiet?
• 10:20
  All of those things condition us to understand that emotions aren't safe.
• 10:25
  And so often when we feel emotions, we explode outwards.
• 10:28
  We express those emotions in ways that are unhealthy for us and for those around us.
• 10:33
  And when it comes to self-containment, this is understanding masculine containment between us and ourselves.
• 10:38
  Now, here's a great example, a practical example.
• 10:42
  Road rage.
• 10:43
  Like how many of us have been cut off and gone crazy on the person that's cutting us off from the inside of our car?
• 10:50
  We're yelling and screaming.
• 10:52
  And I'm not proud to say this, but in my past, when somebody would cut me off, I've done all kinds of crazy stuff.
• 10:57
  I've yelled at them.
• 10:58
  I've screamed at them.
• 10:59
  I've made gestures towards them.
• 11:01
  I've even sped my car up and gotten next to them and created more danger in a situation that was already dangerous.
• 11:07
  Yeah.
• 11:07
  So when we lack containment, often we are moving out of any level of safety and regulation and presence and into a level of really, really high unsafety.
• 11:18
  And so road rage is a good example, but it's also a great place to practice self-containment.
• 11:25
  And so here's what that means.
• 11:27
  What I share with the members of the Brotherhood Society, where we learn masculine containment as a life skill, as a way to increase capacity, as a way to get better at everything we do, is that when you're in your car and there's an incident where you normally would have raged and you normally would have lost control, it's an opportunity.
• 11:45
  It's an opportunity.
• 11:46
  Here's the opportunity.
• 11:47
  Instead of letting all those emotions come out and explode, you breathe and you regulate your body.
• 11:53
  This is not suppression.
• 11:55
  This is transmutation.
• 11:57
  You take a deep breath in through your nose, out through your nose, into your masculine core, and you show yourself that you are safe.
• 12:02
  You show yourself that in the presence of your emotions, you can be safe and you don't have to explode outwards.
• 12:09
  And you breathe.
• 12:10
  And instead of taking offensive moves, like I just said, like speeding up or yelling at the person, slow down.
• 12:17
  You just had an incident where maybe somebody cut you off or their car got too close to yours or they made a turn in front of you that was unsafe.
• 12:23
  You know, a lot of the times when we start banging on the steering wheel or honking or yelling or screaming, we're taking ourselves from what was a safe situation.
• 12:31
  Then we encountered an unsafe trigger and now we're moving into higher levels of unsafety.
• 12:36
  So instead of letting yourself ever get there, use road rage as a way to actually train yourself in self-containment, in transmuting your emotions, in metabolizing those emotions.
• 12:49
  And here's what I've found.
• 12:50
  By the way, like if you're listening to this and you're thinking like, I don't know that I can do that.
• 12:55
  I didn't know that I could either.
• 12:56
  You know, road rage was kind of a part of my life.
• 12:58
  It was something that was conditioned into me when I was a child.
• 13:01
  My father would go crazy raging at people when we were in the car.
• 13:06
  It was something that I thought was normal.
• 13:07
  It was something I thought everybody did.
• 13:10
  But over the past few years of understanding this work more deeply and becoming more regulated and understanding that when I explode my emotions out, I'm actually leaking capacity.
• 13:20
  I'm exhausting myself.
• 13:22
  I'm putting myself in a place where I don't even feel safe.
• 13:26
  And so road rage has become a vector for me to say, hey, this is a place where I have an opportunity to calm things down.
• 13:32
  This is a place where I have an opportunity to actually show myself that my emotions are safe.
• 13:37
  So when somebody cuts me off and I feel that emotion boiling up, I breathe.
• 13:41
  I feel it.
• 13:42
  I let it pass through my body.
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  I don't suppress it.
• 13:45
  And I become more present.
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  I actually become more aware.
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  So instead of that, I was safe.
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  Now there's a trigger that's unsafe and moving towards more unsafety.
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  I now move towards safety.
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  So when there's a trigger, I move towards safety.
• 13:58
  So every time that I have an incident where I would have road raged, I'm
• 14:03
  I'm retraining my nervous system to know that, hey, every trigger doesn't need a reaction.
• 14:08
  Every trigger doesn't need me to go over the top and yell and scream.
• 14:11
  Every trigger doesn't have to result in violence.
• 14:17
  And in doing this work, here's another thing that I learned just through spending time in neutral and spending time with myself and really thinking into these concepts.
• 14:25
  I had a lot of time on sabbatical to do that.
• 14:28
  Here's what I also know.
• 14:30
  My inner child was traumatized when I was a kid by my dad's road rage.
• 14:34
  It was scary.
• 14:35
  It was frightening.
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  I can think of a half dozen examples where my dad did things in a car that were dangerous, that didn't make sense, that took us from, like I said, a place of safety and then a trigger of unsafety to way more unsafety.
• 14:48
  And what I didn't realize.
• 14:50
  was every time I road raged and screamed and let all those threat detection chemicals out and all the threat neutralization chemicals out, and I felt the tightness in my lower back, and I felt the tightness in my chest and my shoulders and that, like, fighting stance, even sitting in a car.
• 15:05
  What I know now that I didn't know then is that I was re-traumatizing my inner child.
• 15:09
  I was only making myself more reactive.
• 15:12
  I was only increasing the possibility that if there was a trigger in my life, I was going to become uncontained and rage and violent.
• 15:20
  And it's just unnecessary.
• 15:22
  I often share with, you know, I've shared this for years as a person.
• 15:26
  entrepreneur coach, the company that I shut down, I used to work with high level entrepreneurs.
• 15:30
  And I always used to share with them the calmest person in the room wins, you know, the person who can regulate the person who can stay present, the person who can stay in the room.
• 15:38
  That's the person who sees opportunity where other people see challenges.
• 15:41
  That's the person who can move things forward where everybody else feels stuck.
• 15:45
  That's the person who can allow intuition and inspiration to come in through their minds because they hear it.
• 15:51
  Yeah.
• 15:52
  Because they're present and they're aware and they're in a state of regulation and containment.
• 15:57
  So that's self-containment.
• 15:59
  Now let's talk about responsive containment.
• 16:01
  Now, responsive containment is a man's capacity to remain regulated, grounded, and curious rather than judgmental when he's faced with emotional intensity that he doesn't expect.
• 16:14
  This is a big one.
• 16:16
  Let me share with you how this presented itself in my life over and over again.
• 16:20
  My wife Katie and I have been married for 20 years.
• 16:22
  We've been together for 22 years.
• 16:24
  And she is my everything.
• 16:26
  Yeah.
• 16:28
  You know, I know a lot of doctrine out there says put your mission over your marriage.
• 16:32
  But in my case, my mission and my marriage are like right there at the same level.
• 16:37
  And Katie is so crucially important to me.
• 16:39
  I actually look at my life in a hierarchy of my relationship with God, my relationship with myself, my relationship with Katie, my relationship with my family, and then everything else.
• 16:48
  My mission was born out of devotion to my wife, Katie.
• 16:52
  My presence, my capacity, my containment was born out of devotion to my wife, Katie.
• 16:57
  But let me tell you how this used to show up in our relationship.
• 17:00
  And again, I'm not proud to say this.
• 17:02
  I'm not proud to share this.
• 17:06
  It's not like the best thing that I ever did.
• 17:09
  But in my life, when Katie would get
• 17:13
  Emotional, I would react in one of four ways.
• 17:16
  And like, I'll just give like a scenario.
• 17:19
  You know, I remember I would walk into a room and I think most men have felt something like this where you walk into the room and maybe there's a fight going on and you didn't understand.
• 17:28
  Like she's reacting to something or I walk into the room and she'd be crying for some reason or I walk into the room and there was something wrong.
• 17:35
  And because of my conditioning, because of my childhood, because of how my dad treated my mom, because of all the shows that we see where this is just normalized and made normal, I reacted in one of four different ways.
• 17:48
  The first one was challenging.
• 17:50
  I would try and fix it.
• 17:51
  My wife, I'd say, hey, what's going on?
• 17:52
  My wife would say she's upset.
• 17:53
  And I would say, hey, you don't need to be upset.
• 17:55
  Look at all the things that are going great.
• 17:56
  Look at all the things that are right.
• 17:58
  And I would invalidate her feelings and telling her she didn't need to have those feelings.
• 18:02
  So fixing it just invalidated her and made her feel like she wasn't heard.
• 18:07
  The second thing I would do, now that I look back at it, 20-20 vision is always so much, it's always 20-20 in hindsight.
• 18:14
  The second thing I would do is try and create process around anything that happened.
• 18:17
  I would say, hey, what's wrong?
• 18:18
  And she would say, this is bothering me.
• 18:20
  And I would think, okay, how do we make it so that we never let that bother her again?
• 18:24
  And I would ask like, what can I do so that this never happens again?
• 18:26
  How do I fix it?
• 18:27
  How do I make it better?
• 18:29
  And well, here's the issue.
• 18:30
  Just like the first thing of trying to fix it, when I tried to build process around her, when I tried to make it so it would never happen again, I was actually invalidating her feelings and even worse, turning her into a project that didn't make her feel seen, that didn't make her feel heard, that made her feel unsafe and made her feel invalidated.
• 18:48
  And as I go through the other two, it gets even worse.
• 18:52
  The next thing that I would do is if emotions were present, I mean, I can remember...
• 18:56
  Not proud of this, and I've processed the shame around it so I can do this work.
• 19:01
  But I can remember more than once walking into the room, seeing that my wife was emotional, maybe she was crying, having a reaction, and walking right back out.
• 19:08
  I would withdraw and give her space because I felt like that's what I should do.
• 19:14
  And I felt like it was so much easier than trying to get into her emotions with her.
• 19:17
  And I didn't really want to do it at that point.
• 19:19
  And I didn't have the tools to understand what to do when she was emotional.
• 19:23
  And honestly, for a lot of our marriage, it felt like when she was emotional, things were going to go wrong.
• 19:27
  So giving her space, leaving the room felt like the right thing to do.
• 19:30
  I now know that leaving her alone, especially if she knew I had just been there, I
• 19:36
  made her feel abandoned.
• 19:37
  It did not make her feel validated.
• 19:39
  It did not make her feel seen and heard and emotionally secure and safe.
• 19:43
  And like I said, most women have never felt emotional security and safety in their lives.
• 19:48
  For the reasons I just gave you, for trying to fix it, build process around it, withdrawing, and then the worst one.
• 19:56
  More than one time, countless times in my relationship,
• 20:00
  When I would walk into the room or when Katie and I were interacting and emotions escalated, I would do the exact same thing.
• 20:07
  She'd escalate, then I'd escalate, then she'd escalate, then I'd escalate.
• 20:10
  And we get into this pattern of trigger, escalation, rupture, withdraw, and then repair.
• 20:17
  And as men, that kind of feels like progress.
• 20:20
  In fact, if you read a lot about relationships like I have, I've read so many books and so many blog posts and videos and so much information.
• 20:28
  I've tried to absorb everything that I can on relationships.
• 20:30
  What you'll find is that's actually considered normal.
• 20:33
  There's actually strategies around what to do when you withdraw and repair and how to come back and talk about it.
• 20:39
  But there is a much, much better way.
• 20:43
  There's a way that as a man, you could dominate yourself, not dominate hurt.
• 20:47
  We don't dominate other people.
• 20:48
  We don't want that on our nervous systems.
• 20:50
  We want presence and clarity and calm and resonance.
• 20:54
  Dominating other people does not create that.
• 20:56
  But dominating ourselves changes everything.
• 21:00
  See, today, when I walk into the room and I have an opportunity for response and containment, this is what it looks like now.
• 21:06
  I walk in, and actually this happened a few weeks ago.
• 21:09
  My 19-year-old daughter moved out of our house.
• 21:11
  It's a really emotional time for my wife.
• 21:13
  It's an emotional time for me.
• 21:15
  It's kind of a time I'm really proud of my daughter and excited for her.
• 21:18
  But it's also a time where I'm, like, processing a lot.
• 21:21
  My wife's processing a lot.
• 21:23
  And I walked into her bedroom, and she was sitting on the edge of the bed crying.
• 21:27
  And I remember actually thinking to myself, man, in the past, I probably would have bailed or this would have been a conflict or I would have invalidated her, turned her into a project.
• 21:36
  But instead, I said, now I'm next to her and I said, Katie, tell me what's going on.
• 21:40
  See, responsive containment is when there's emotions present, when there's a trigger present, rather than reacting as men.
• 21:47
  I remember walking over to Katie on the bed and taking a really deep breath.
• 21:53
  All the way into my masculine core to calm my body, to show myself that I'm safe, to show myself that I can actually help in this situation rather than make it worse.
• 22:02
  So I sat down next to her in responsive containment and rather than getting triggered, rather than invalidating her, I just said, Katie, tell me what's going on.
• 22:09
  And she started sharing about how she's emotional about Reagan moving out and how it's difficult for her and how she misses her and how...
• 22:16
  She's afraid she's not going to see her that much anymore.
• 22:18
  And as we talked and I asked questions like, is there anything else you want to say about that?
• 22:23
  Or how does that make you feel?
• 22:24
  Or is there anything else coming up for you?
• 22:27
  I continued to ask questions.
• 22:29
  And what responsive containment or containment sessions with a partner often look like is, it starts and then it kind of escalates.
• 22:36
  And so it did escalate.
• 22:37
  As I asked her a question, she got more and more out of her body.
• 22:40
  She spoke it out loud.
• 22:41
  And by the way, when I'm in one of these situations with my wife, I've trained myself to know the more difficult it is to hear what she's saying, the more trauma is leaving her body.
• 22:52
  So when she was saying she's going to miss Reagan and she doesn't know if she's going to see her as much and, you know, there's these things coming up for her.
• 22:59
  I sat there and listened and helped her process and supported her and breathed into my body and I held her.
• 23:07
  And so she escalated.
• 23:08
  And then as I asked questions, she came down off of that escalation.
• 23:12
  And there was a point where I said, is there anything else you want to talk about with this?
• 23:16
  And she said, no, you know, Alex, I feel so much better.
• 23:19
  Every time that happens these days, when she says, I feel so much better, I feel this charge, I can feel the charge in my body just sharing it with you from the memory of that day.
• 23:28
  Because...
• 23:30
  When I think of what used to happen in the past, where a situation like that would have escalated, maybe out of control, where she felt unsafe, where I felt unsafe, where there was rupture, where we were withdrawn, where we had a day or two, where we weren't even communicating well.
• 23:41
  Now, when she says, I feel so much better, I feel a sense of capability, of capacity, of power, of strength, of masculinity in a way that I never have before.
• 23:52
  I get chills just talking to you about it.
• 23:54
  I don't know if you can feel that.
• 23:56
  And then I asked her another question.
• 23:58
  Is there anything else we need to do?
• 24:00
  So, you know, we've talked about a lot.
• 24:01
  Is there anything else we need to do just to make sure that everything is taken care of in this conversation?
• 24:06
  And my wife said no.
• 24:08
  And often she says no.
• 24:10
  And I remember in the first time I was in a place of active containment, which I'll talk about next, when my wife said no, I had this thought.
• 24:18
  Like, holy cow, our entire marriage, every time there's been a reaction, every time there's been that trigger escalation, or sorry, trigger escalation, rupture, withdraw, and repair, I've gone around fixing everything around it.
• 24:34
  When my wife can express herself emotionally, when I can hold containment, when I understand what's going on, oftentimes there's nothing else to do.
• 24:42
  I spent my entire marriage doing things that were unnecessary because I thought I was fixing things.
• 24:48
  I thought I was making it so it wouldn't happen again.
• 24:50
  But what I was really doing was just spinning.
• 24:52
  I wasn't asking her what she needed.
• 24:54
  I was assuming what she needed.
• 24:56
  And that's why I spent so much time doing things I didn't even need to do.
• 25:01
  Now let's talk about active containment.
• 25:03
  So responsive containment is us containing ourselves when emotions become present, when there's a trigger present.
• 25:11
  And regardless of what the trigger is, you know, I think a lot of men have been trained and conditioned that if there's a trigger, that is a time where we can righteously react.
• 25:22
  And anytime I'm feeling righteous, I know that I'm not in a good place.
• 25:26
  And so what I would say is, man, when there's a trigger, that is an opportunity for us to step up.
• 25:30
  That's an opportunity for us to regulate ourselves.
• 25:33
  That's an opportunity for us to create a different level of resonance in the room and calm the room through our presence.
• 25:40
  And so that leads me to the next type of containment.
• 25:44
  So, so far we've talked about self-containment and responsive containment.
• 25:48
  Now this one's important, especially in a relationship.
• 25:50
  And this is a discipline that we train in the brotherhood.
• 25:53
  Active containment is the conscious act of inviting emotional truth, expression, relational depth, and then leading that process with presence, curiosity, and structure so intensity can be expressed in the brotherhood
• 26:07
  integrated and resolved.
• 26:08
  Active containment is actually intentional.
• 26:10
  It's initiated.
• 26:11
  It's chosen.
• 26:13
  So a sentence that would describe this is, he invited her to share how she was feeling and listened without interruption using active containment to help her express what had been held in her body.
• 26:22
  Now I think here's how active containment is different.
• 26:25
  In a relationship, active containment is a time set aside by both parties, by the man and the woman, to sit down on a daily basis and discuss what's going on.
• 26:37
  And talk about the relationship.
• 26:38
  Active containment allows the woman to share her inner world, to speak what's been unsaid, to name experiences and how they landed in her body, to express emotional and relational trauma that has been stored or suppressed or stuffed down for her.
• 26:52
  And when emotions are spoken out loud in safety, they actually move.
• 26:57
  Like I said earlier, the more difficult something my wife has told me is, I've trained myself to know.
• 27:03
  that that is trauma leaving her body.
• 27:05
  And active containment is not just sitting there and asking questions.
• 27:10
  It's actually trauma leaving the body and it's healing.
• 27:15
  And I actually believe it's healing for both parties.
• 27:17
  Let me explain what I mean by this as far as it being healing for both parties.
• 27:22
  So first let's talk about the woman in the relationship.
• 27:26
  When I invited Katie into active containment for the first time, December 26th, 2023,
• 27:32
  I really didn't understand what I was doing.
• 27:34
  What I knew was I had been to ayahuasca ceremonies where I was told that I needed to hold my center and let my wife express what's going on in our relationship.
• 27:42
  And what I also knew that a few years before that, she had shown something with me that rocked me, that changed my world.
• 27:48
  It's the reason we went on sabbatical.
• 27:50
  It's the reason I sold my company.
• 27:51
  It's the reason I spent two years studying relationships.
• 27:55
  My wife, in a quiet moment one day, looked at me and said, Alex, I don't feel seen.
• 28:01
  I don't feel heard.
• 28:01
  I don't feel safe.
• 28:03
  And if something doesn't change, I can't do this anymore.
• 28:08
  I get chills all over my body when I share this.
• 28:12
  It was one of those moments that affected me more than just about anything else has affected me in my life.
• 28:17
  It was one of those moments where at first I wanted to deny and say, no way, this can't be possible.
• 28:23
  This can't be true.
• 28:23
  Like I do so much for you.
• 28:25
  How can you feel this way?
• 28:26
  This doesn't feel fair.
• 28:26
  This doesn't feel right.
• 28:27
  But I didn't.
• 28:29
  I didn't.
• 28:30
  I remember being in that moment and listening to her and thinking, I cannot deny her truth right now.
• 28:36
  Her truth is her truth.
• 28:38
  And if this is how she feels, I actually need to hear this.
• 28:42
  And what I know now is that, yes, in that moment, there was panic.
• 28:46
  And yes, in that moment, there was a feeling of getting knocked completely sideways.
• 28:50
  I actually thought things were going well.
• 28:52
  And for her to tell me that was like a wake up call.
• 28:55
  And what I know now is that it was the most important initiation I've ever been through in my life.
• 29:01
  Katie saying, I don't feel seen.
• 29:03
  I don't feel heard.
• 29:03
  I don't feel safe.
• 29:04
  And if something doesn't change, I can't do this anymore, was the beginning of me becoming the man that I am today.
• 29:10
  And understanding that the conditioning and behaviors that I learned in my childhood and the behaviors that I were repeating were simply unacceptable and had to stop.
• 29:19
  And.
• 29:20
  And this feeling of righteousness and fighting back and expressing resentment, expressing anger and expressing frustration to her over and over again was affecting her in a way that is men we don't understand.
• 29:36
  And here's what I mean by that.
• 29:37
  Every time we got into that pattern of.
• 29:41
  Rupture and escalation and, or sorry, trigger, escalation, rupture, withdraw, and then repair, I went back to baseline quickly.
• 29:51
  She took longer and longer.
• 29:53
  And over time, the more that that pattern repeated itself, she was actually not recovered from the conflict when we had another conflict and another conflict.
• 30:00
  And that kept building up in her body.
• 30:02
  And it got to the point where, because of this dynamic, her nervous system no longer trusted me.
• 30:11
  It's so hard to express out loud and to share in a forum like this.
• 30:15
  But I remember years ago walking up to her and grabbing her and her body would actually bristle.
• 30:20
  And it wasn't because she was startled.
• 30:22
  It was because her nervous system was scared of me.
• 30:25
  And even though Katie logically knew that I would never violently harm her, and I knew I would never violently harm her, her nervous system is wired for threat detection and for protection and for safety and to get away from anything that is going to make her feel vulnerable.
• 30:41
  And so that pattern in our relationship, even though I love her more than anything else and she loves me, that pattern in our relationship was causing her body to stop trusting me.
• 30:52
  And her body to react to me and her body to actually see me as a threat.
• 30:57
  And I share this with men.
• 30:58
  You know, if your wife doesn't look at you the way that she used to look at you and intimacy doesn't feel the same or maybe intimacy isn't as often and she's starting to have like sensitivities and feel pain and not be as into it, it feels rushed.
• 31:12
  Or she has trouble talking to you about things or you're not communicating like you used to or she doesn't come to you like she used to.
• 31:18
  It may not be because she doesn't logically love you.
• 31:22
  She might logically love you like crazy.
• 31:24
  It may be because her body doesn't feel safe.
• 31:28
  A composite of the most heartbreaking messages that I get on social media, I get hundreds of messages a week, some weeks.
• 31:34
  I get thousands of comments a week, some weeks.
• 31:37
  And a composite, like a summary of some of the comments that I get from women are something like, Alex, I love him.
• 31:44
  He's my person.
• 31:46
  He's always been my person.
• 31:48
  I don't want him to go anywhere.
• 31:50
  But when he comes near me, my body doesn't feel safe.
• 31:53
  It's heartbreaking.
• 31:55
  And for a woman, when that nervous system response is there, it's very difficult for her to process it on her own and make it go away.
• 32:03
  It's very difficult for her to increase her capacity for a feeling of unsafety.
• 32:07
  It's very difficult for her to deal with what feels like violence to the nervous system, even if it's logically not violence.
• 32:15
  It's very difficult for her to stay in that situation.
• 32:18
  And so as men, active containment is our opportunity to help our partners process, to help our partners offload trauma, to help our partners release what is holding them back, and to understand their inner world, and to understand their emotions, and understand their vulnerability.
• 32:36
  And here's what I know now.
• 32:38
  My wife's emotions are beautiful.
• 32:40
  My wife's emotions are an invitation to understand her.
• 32:43
  My wife's emotions are a way that I can know what's going on inside for her.
• 32:48
  And so starting on December 26, 2023, we sat down every day in what we call a ceremony.
• 32:55
  No plant medicines involved on a daily basis, but we just call it a ceremony.
• 32:59
  It's a ceremony space.
• 33:00
  You know, what I heard from the medicine was that every day is a ceremony.
• 33:04
  So treat it that way.
• 33:05
  So what I do in an active containment session is it's in our bedroom most of the time.
• 33:10
  Unless we're traveling, we do it wherever we need to.
• 33:12
  I actually go in and I light a candle.
• 33:15
  Just like I have a candle over here, I want that candle present because candles can help transmute energy and can help support us.
• 33:22
  And I smudge this space with Palo Santo or sage or something like that to prepare the space for us to sit down.
• 33:28
  And I do so slowly so that I get in my body and I can really connect with her.
• 33:32
  And then we sit down in what is called active containment.
• 33:36
  And early on, the sessions were really difficult.
• 33:40
  really difficult because the messaging that I got from the medicine and the strategy that I used was to sit down and ask Katie, tell me how you felt in our relationship and tell me where you felt uncomfortable and tell me where I can do better and tell me where I've misstepped and tell me where I've caused challenges.
• 34:03
  And it was incredibly difficult.
• 34:05
  Those first few sessions, I felt like I was white knuckling.
• 34:08
  I probably was suppressing a little bit.
• 34:10
  I probably wasn't really transmuting and metabolizing everything.
• 34:13
  But here's what happened.
• 34:15
  After the first session where my wife shared really difficult things with me and told me that she didn't feel safe.
• 34:20
  And when I yelled and screamed that she felt unsafe, the kids felt unsafe.
• 34:23
  You know, this was conditioning that I had that I thought it was okay.
• 34:26
  She told me that the yelling and screaming wasn't just the only thing that made it unsafe.
• 34:29
  It was also when I withdrew and wasn't present and wouldn't talk and wouldn't communicate.
• 34:35
  And I would be in my head and not present with her or the girls.
• 34:39
  I have two daughters.
• 34:41
  And I heard all those things.
• 34:43
  And here's what I know now.
• 34:45
  In those active containment sessions, when I asked questions about our relationship, there was that same arc.
• 34:50
  It would escalate and it was difficult and it was hard to hear, but I held my center.
• 34:55
  I breathed into my body.
• 34:58
  I used that time to show me that even her emotions were safe.
• 35:04
  In self-containment, we show ourselves our emotions are safe.
• 35:07
  In responsive and active containment, we show ourselves her emotions are safe.
• 35:11
  And so as she said things that normally would have been hurtful, but I understood them as her truth, as she said things where I wanted to defend and deny and tell her it's not what I meant and tell her that wasn't really what was happening, what I understood was if I heard her truth, I was validating her.
• 35:26
  I was helping her feel safe.
• 35:27
  I was helping her feel seen and heard.
• 35:29
  And that's exactly what she told me that she needed.
• 35:33
  She wanted to feel seen and heard and safe.
• 35:36
  And so I listened.
• 35:38
  And what I realized in those first few days of acting containment sessions was that I wasn't going to die.
• 35:44
  And I'd say that kind of jokingly, but honestly, the first night we sat down and she started offloading what was going on for her, I really did feel like at points like, am I going to die?
• 35:55
  I was breathing.
• 35:56
  My face was hot.
• 35:57
  I felt challenged.
• 35:58
  I was sweating.
• 35:59
  It was a little overwhelming.
• 36:01
  Not a little.
• 36:01
  It was a lot overwhelming.
• 36:03
  But we went through that arc.
• 36:07
  And then things started to calm down.
• 36:08
  And I would ask a crucial question.
• 36:10
  Crucial question.
• 36:10
  Is there anything else you need to tell me?
• 36:13
  And that first few nights, she would usually say yes.
• 36:17
  And then she would start up again.
• 36:18
  So we'd have this arc.
• 36:19
  It would start coming down.
• 36:20
  Then I would say, is there anything else you need to tell me?
• 36:21
  We'd come back up again.
• 36:22
  Anything else you need to tell me?
• 36:24
  Anything else you need to tell me?
• 36:25
  And then she'd finally say no.
• 36:28
  And I would sit there and think, you know what?
• 36:29
  I didn't die.
• 36:30
  And I can do this.
• 36:32
  And I kind of feel a little sense of power and a little sense of like,
• 36:36
  Pride, pride, like I'm proud of myself for getting through this.
• 36:40
  And then I would look at my wife, and there would be this relaxation in her face.
• 36:45
  And this, like, sense of I really saw her, and I really felt her.
• 36:49
  And I could feel that from me, but I could also feel that reflected from her.
• 36:52
  And it was beautiful.
• 36:54
  Life-changingly beautiful.
• 36:57
  And
• 36:58
  When we would get to the end of the session, I would say, is there anything else we need to do?
• 37:02
  Or is there anything else we need to take care of coming out of here?
• 37:04
  And I can't tell you how often she said no.
• 37:07
  It was probably over 90% of the time that what she really needed was for me to be there, present, contained, holding masculine containment and helping her process and hearing what was stuffed down and what was suppressed in her body.
• 37:21
  And here's what I know now when I look back at that time.
• 37:25
  As I sat there and I heard her truth, no matter how incredibly difficult it was.
• 37:31
  And let me tell you, there was times it was difficult.
• 37:35
  There was times where she told me that she felt like we had sex and I wasn't present.
• 37:39
  There was times where she felt used.
• 37:41
  There was times she felt like I objectified her.
• 37:43
  There was times she felt like I was violent and just wasn't present and wasn't really hearing her and wasn't available to hear her.
• 37:49
  All of those things were so incredibly difficult to hear.
• 37:54
  But here's what I know today that sitting in active containment with her and having her tell me those things and listening to them rather than deflecting and absorbing them and breathing and showing my body I was safe was incredibly healing for me.
• 38:12
  Yes, it was massively healing for Katie, but it was massively healing for me.
• 38:17
  Because we got to the point where there's nothing unspoken in our relationship.
• 38:21
  She told me everything over months of active containment.
• 38:24
  And today when we sit down in ceremony, if there's something bothering her, I know about it right away.
• 38:28
  So there's this level of transparency and resonance and connection in our relationship that was never there.
• 38:33
  That is healing.
• 38:34
  But even more, over and over again, sitting in that space and showing myself that I was safe hearing her emotions, showing myself that the childhood wounding I had around emotions being unsafe, honestly, the childhood wounding I had around the feminine being unsafe, and it was not just childhood.
• 38:51
  I have an entire history with women, with dating, with being cheated on, with being betrayed, with feeling less than, with all kinds of stuff that had happened to me.
• 38:59
  That sitting in that space of active containment actually healed my wounding and helped me move forward.
• 39:05
  Now, I don't want to present myself as being in a healed state completely.
• 39:09
  I don't think we ever get there in this lifetime.
• 39:10
  We all have trauma.
• 39:11
  We all have conditioning.
• 39:12
  We all have stuff we're working through.
• 39:15
  But I can tell you that since December 2023 to today, I am a completely and totally different person.
• 39:21
  I'm far more present.
• 39:22
  I'm far more aware.
• 39:23
  Things that used to trigger me, I don't even notice now.
• 39:25
  And sometimes I notice the thing that used to trigger me.
• 39:28
  And I'll think to myself, wow, it doesn't even trigger me anymore.
• 39:31
  Why?
• 39:32
  Because I sat in that space with Katie.
• 39:34
  I reprogrammed and retrained my nervous system that emotional intensity is not unsafe, that emotional expression is not unsafe, that her telling me her inner world is not unsafe.
• 39:46
  And not only is it not unsafe, it's healing and it built my capacity and it made me better at what I do.
• 39:51
  It made me better at everything that I do.
• 39:53
  There's no way I would be leading a society of men today, the brotherhood, that's
• 39:59
  This international group of men learning masculine containment, had I not sat in that space with my wife, I wouldn't have the capacity for it.
• 40:06
  And when I talk about capacity, I mean capacity everywhere.
• 40:08
  I have more energy.
• 40:09
  I have more attention.
• 40:10
  I have more focus.
• 40:11
  I have more presence because I'm contained.
• 40:15
  You know, when you look at really extraordinary martial artists, even when they're in a conflict, even when they're in a fight, they're actually present and aware.
• 40:24
  The best ones don't lose control.
• 40:26
  The best martial artists, the best fighters actually stay in their bodies, remain contained, and they can see opportunity.
• 40:32
  They can see the next move.
• 40:33
  They can understand what's going to happen next.
• 40:34
  They telegraph their opponent's moves in this same way.
• 40:39
  Being in a space of active containment helps us as men create that martial arts-like present, that Zen-like presence, that monk-like presence where we can actually see the opportunities around us.
• 40:51
  And I know that for me, holding active containment for my wife has been one of the most healing and massively growth-causing experiences in my life.
• 41:03
  I said that kind of weird.
• 41:04
  But here's what I know it was.
• 41:05
  It's an initiation.
• 41:06
  It's an initiation.
• 41:07
  As men in the modern day, we don't have an initiation that takes us from our childhood wounding and our childhood challenges and actually helps us become men.
• 41:15
  In some cases, there's some stuff out there, but not really.
• 41:19
  But what if the initiation you've always needed is sitting right in front of you?
• 41:23
  What if the initiation you've always needed is the woman who you love more than anything else in the world?
• 41:29
  Katie is my everything, and I'd do anything for her.
• 41:32
  And so I held active containment in those early days for her, but what I now know is it's completely and totally changed me as a person.
• 41:41
  And things that used to trigger me just aren't there, like I said earlier, and that initiation has changed everything for us in our relationship, for me as a business person, for me with everything that I do.
• 41:52
  Now, the fourth type of containment is sexual containment.
• 41:56
  And this was important.
• 41:58
  You know, in my time off and in my studying of relationships, which has lasted well over a decade, maybe two decades, because I've been studying relationships since Katie and I got together.
• 42:07
  When I finally found her and I knew she was a woman for me, I started reading about relationships, understanding relationships.
• 42:12
  As a business coach, I coached tons of people in relationships.
• 42:15
  So this has been a kind of lifelong journey for me and at least second half of my life.
• 42:22
  And yeah.
• 42:23
  In studying sexual containment or sexual energy, there are tons of belief systems and really two primary ones that I studied, Tantra and Taoism, that consider sexual energy to be the energy of our life.
• 42:37
  Like sexual energy is creative force energy.
• 42:39
  Sexual energy is life force energy.
• 42:41
  Sexual energy is the energy through which we accomplish everything.
• 42:45
  And sexual containment is so crucially important because as men, we have been conditioned and taught through hundreds of years of conditioning, not just in our lifetimes, but the lifetimes of our fathers and our fathers before that, our fathers before that.
• 42:59
  We've been taught.
• 43:01
  that sexual energy doesn't matter.
• 43:03
  And that we should just leak our sexual energy all over the place.
• 43:06
  We have never, most of us, been even suggested that we should close the container of our sexual energy and focus that sexual energy on our partners, hold it for ourselves, for capacity, for energy, for life force to do what we want to do, and then focus our sexual energy on our partners.
• 43:22
  And so sexual containment is the capacity of a man to retain, direct, and steward his sexual energy rather than leaking it through compulsive release, fantasy, pornography, unconscious pursuit, or objectification, all of which create chaos and central nervous system disruption.
• 43:41
  Sexual containment is a discipline of keeping life force coherent inside the body.
• 43:46
  So it can be converted into presence.
• 43:48
  So it can be converted into vitality, creativity, intimacy, and leadership.
• 43:52
  By practicing sexual containment, this is an example.
• 43:55
  By practicing sexual containment, he stopped leaking his energy and began showing up with more presence and capacity in every area of his life.
• 44:02
  Sexual containment expands your capacity to do everything in every domain as a man.
• 44:09
  So let's get into what sexual containment means.
• 44:12
  First,
• 44:15
  I want to discuss how every one of us as men has in some way, like 100% of men, no one escapes us, have been trained in objectification.
• 44:26
  We've been trained to look at the women around us as objects.
• 44:28
  We've been trained oftentimes in our childhood, throughout our lives by other men.
• 44:33
  And I can share my personal story with my father.
• 44:37
  You know, my dad was a difficult father to have.
• 44:40
  And I can see now as I'm older why I had him as a father, why maybe I chose him as a father, because he made me the man that I am today.
• 44:48
  But as a child, things were tough.
• 44:50
  My dad communicated in four ways.
• 44:53
  Rage.
• 44:53
  He would just lose it all the time.
• 44:55
  And he was very uncontained.
• 44:57
  And he would just explode, sometimes with reason.
• 45:01
  Sometimes it was hard to know the reason.
• 45:02
  Right.
• 45:03
  The second way he communicated was withdraw.
• 45:05
  He would pull away from us as a family.
• 45:07
  He would just not be present.
• 45:09
  You know, growing up, my mom used to take us to get family pictures.
• 45:12
  And there's a series of family pictures of me and my three younger sisters.
• 45:15
  And my dad was never in them because he just wasn't there a lot.
• 45:18
  He worked far away from our home.
• 45:19
  But even when he was home, he wasn't really present.
• 45:22
  So it was rage and withdraw.
• 45:24
  And then another way he communicated was punitive teasing.
• 45:29
  Instead of like having conversations with my dad, he was always joking around, but in a way that today we'd call bullying.
• 45:34
  Like my first bullying was my dad.
• 45:36
  And it was really hard to connect with him and be close to him.
• 45:40
  And that brings me to the fourth way he communicated.
• 45:43
  This one was some serious conditioning for me as a child.
• 45:46
  My dad used to play with me the game of objectifying women.
• 45:52
  And here's what I mean by that.
• 45:54
  Since I've started sharing this with men, I feel so much better because so many of them have told me that their fathers did the same thing, so I feel much less alone.
• 46:01
  But growing up in my house, my dad had Playboy and Pet House in the house, not like laying out on a coffee table, but it was available, and it was available to me.
• 46:11
  I actually found pornography way too young, like eight or nine years old, and was exposed to it as a little kid.
• 46:17
  And when my parents and I would be out or when my dad and I would be out, you know, I was normally getting rage or silence or teasing.
• 46:25
  But then every once in a while, he would objectify a woman.
• 46:28
  It was kind of like we were friends.
• 46:30
  And we would be somewhere and he'd elbow me and look at that woman.
• 46:33
  And I would think, oh, this is like a moment of connection with my dad.
• 46:36
  And so the connection I did learn with my father was around the objectification of women.
• 46:41
  And so that became like a program installed in me at a very young age.
• 46:46
  So installed that now when I look back at it, now that I've like moved past objectification, I know just how much of my capacity it was taking.
• 46:57
  Like I've talked to a lot of men about this.
• 46:59
  And so many of us have been programmed to walk into a room and identify every woman in the room and identify which one's attractive, which one's not, to look at body parts, to understand who is somebody we'd like to have sex with, who we want to be intimate with.
• 47:11
  And like, that's a program that's running all the time.
• 47:14
  And that's a program that is taking massive capacity out of your life.
• 47:19
  The objectification and not being sexually contained is costing you so much energy and so much of your capacity.
• 47:28
  I know because over the last few years, I committed to releasing that programming around objectification.
• 47:38
  It wasn't easy.
• 47:39
  In fact, I'll share a short process with you that you can apply right now today, starting from this point forward.
• 47:45
  Like if you feel into your body and you ask yourself, how much is objectification costing you?
• 47:50
  It's a lot.
• 47:51
  And that objectification out in public is costing you time and effort and energy and focus.
• 47:56
  Your mind could be doing so many other things that are so much more productive.
• 47:59
  And it's stimulating your nervous system in a way that's unhealthy.
• 48:03
  And so what I did starting a few years ago was when I would objectify a woman, I'd stop, put my hand on my heart and a hand on my stomach.
• 48:11
  And first I would apologize to that woman energetically and I'd send love her way.
• 48:18
  And then as I breathe deeply, I would apologize to myself for re-triggering and for objectifying and for losing capacity and for leaking my sexual energy.
• 48:27
  And then, just as importantly, I would apologize to my inner child.
• 48:32
  Because what I learned was objectification was re-traumatizing my inner child, just like being uncontained in a car.
• 48:39
  That uncontained sexual energy was re-traumatizing, and that's why it was so stimulating to my nervous system.
• 48:45
  And I'm happy to say that beginning in a few years ago, I was working on objectification, and...
• 48:53
  When I say I'm happy to say, here's the curve that followed.
• 48:55
  Like when I first started working on objectification, it was hard.
• 48:58
  I actually had to really remind myself not to do it.
• 49:01
  And every time I did it, I would slow down and go through that process of breathing, apologize to her, apologize to myself, apologize to my inner child.
• 49:08
  And then I would say, you're safe.
• 49:10
  And I'm here now and we don't have to do this anymore.
• 49:12
  And I did it over and over again.
• 49:13
  And by doing that over and over again, it started moving me in the direction of not objectifying.
• 49:17
  And so it got easier.
• 49:19
  And I realized I wasn't objectifying anymore.
• 49:22
  And then what I realized was I wasn't objectifying, but I was still triggered every once in a while.
• 49:26
  I would see something on social media or I'd see a poster somewhere.
• 49:29
  I'd see something that would trigger me into that state of like stimulation and nervous system stimulation and nervous system dysregulation and objectification.
• 49:38
  And I'd have to stop again and hold myself and show myself that it was safe.
• 49:42
  And then as I went through that process where I was triggered every once in a while, I started like really holding myself to a standard of if I was triggered, I acknowledged, but I didn't do anything else.
• 49:51
  I didn't pursue the trigger.
• 49:53
  I didn't look again.
• 49:53
  I didn't dig into that trigger.
• 49:56
  And then February 4th of last year, 2025.
• 50:01
  um after like six months of trying this i finally wrote down that i would and i wrote the date and i when i say six months i wrote this date over and over again then i would slip and i'd have to do it again but from february 4th of last year to today i haven't had any objectifying thoughts in fact
• 50:19
  The curve is kind of interesting.
• 50:20
  It's hard at the beginning.
• 50:21
  Then it gets easier.
• 50:22
  And now when I open social media and there's blatant sexuality and objectification of women, it actually annoys me.
• 50:29
  It frustrates me.
• 50:30
  And when I see a poster somewhere or I'm watching a movie where there's objectification or something to objectify, I tend to look away.
• 50:37
  I tend to actually get irritated with it.
• 50:40
  Here's why.
• 50:42
  I know.
• 50:43
  The before and after of letting go of objectification has changed my life completely.
• 50:49
  And I know that it has completely and totally changed my relationship.
• 50:54
  Because when I was objectifying another woman, I was always in comparison with my wife.
• 50:58
  Always.
• 50:59
  I was always looking at her and looking at them.
• 51:00
  And there's this comparison that happens subconsciously and sometimes consciously.
• 51:04
  But it was always happening.
• 51:05
  And when I stopped objectifying, my attraction level to my wife went through the roof.
• 51:11
  And by the way, so did my sexual energy.
• 51:13
  Okay.
• 51:14
  My capacity to be with her, to have longer intimacy with her, to be more present with her went through the roof as well.
• 51:23
  And so now I'm defensive of that.
• 51:26
  There was a time at the beginning of learning objectification where I still felt kind of exciting when I saw something and I have to remind myself it's not exciting.
• 51:33
  I don't want to do that anymore.
• 51:34
  And now when I see something, I actually move instinctively away from it because being sexually contained has completely changed everything for me.
• 51:44
  And now a word about pornography.
• 51:48
  If pornography calls to you, brother, I'm so sorry.
• 51:52
  I've been there.
• 51:54
  It's one of the most difficult things I've ever given up.
• 51:57
  And in this process of giving up objectification, I also had to move away from pornography, which for me was a lifelong habit, like I said earlier.
• 52:06
  Yeah.
• 52:06
  I was exposed to pornography way too young and it became a way to self-soothe.
• 52:10
  It became a way that I thought I was connecting with myself.
• 52:12
  It became a way to like pass the time or do something that felt stimulating.
• 52:17
  But what I now know is that pornography and using pornography is the most dramatic way for me and for most men that we leak our sexual energy.
• 52:29
  that we do not contain our sexual energy.
• 52:32
  And that hyperstimulation of watching pornography is just too much for our systems, and it affects us everywhere.
• 52:39
  Even though I've been successful, even though I've run businesses that have done very well, even though I'm independently wealthy and I can take time off to study relationships, I know that pornography was robbing me of so much.
• 52:51
  But as I was processing that and getting out of the habit of pornography...
• 52:57
  I had a friend actually ask me something.
• 52:58
  You know, I got to the point where I was, when I was ready to give it up.
• 53:03
  And I talked to my friends about it.
• 53:04
  I talked to Katie about it.
• 53:05
  She knew I had a problem with it.
• 53:06
  Like I was very open about it because we're only as sick as our secrets and I didn't want to have this be a secret anymore.
• 53:11
  So I shared it with a lot of people.
• 53:13
  And I remember one of my friends, her name's Edia, leaving me a voicemail one day.
• 53:18
  And she said, you know, Alex, I've been thinking about you and your processing and pornography and moving out of it.
• 53:23
  And I just want to tell you how proud I am for you and how excited I am for you.
• 53:26
  And I know that this is really a big thing.
• 53:29
  But I want to ask you a question.
• 53:30
  What's the gift of you being drawn to pornography?
• 53:35
  And I can remember hearing that and thinking, gift, there's no gift here.
• 53:39
  This is horrible.
• 53:40
  It's the worst thing in my life.
• 53:41
  I want to get away from it as fast as I can.
• 53:43
  I can't.
• 53:43
  I don't want this in my life anymore.
• 53:45
  And when I heard that voice message, I was on a walk and it kind of like got me into a contemplative process.
• 53:50
  It triggered me.
• 53:52
  And I decided to walk through the trigger and breathe and really process what was going on and try and understand it.
• 53:57
  I don't think it was right away.
• 53:58
  Might've been later that day or the next day.
• 54:06
  that my being drawn to pornography...
• 54:10
  And being drawn to that stimulation and being drawn to leaking my energy and leaking my capacity and leaking my focus and ability was a signal that I was not on mission, was a signal that what I was doing wasn't important enough, was a signal that I needed to change what was going on because when I'm focused on my mission and excited about where I'm going, the thought of pornography is the last thing on my mind.
• 54:31
  It's not until I feel dysregulated and unfocused and like I'm not on mission and like there's nothing to fill the time that those thoughts will come up.
• 54:39
  And so if you're in a place where you're called to pornography, this is a signal that can actually help you.
• 54:45
  If you're called in that direction, you need to ask yourself, what am I not doing that needs to be done?
• 54:49
  Where am I out of integrity?
• 54:50
  And by out of integrity, what that means is, I know I need to do something, but I'm not doing it.
• 54:54
  I know I need to communicate and share something, but I'm not sharing it.
• 54:57
  I know I have a secret that's way too much that I haven't shared, that I haven't gotten out of my body.
• 55:02
  And when we do, and we are on mission, and we're excited about what we're doing,
• 55:09
  fades away into nothing.
• 55:11
  I know, because I'm there.
• 55:13
  And even the thought of pornography is revolting.
• 55:16
  I mean, geez, if I see something in a movie or in a store or on a poster somewhere, it's revolting.
• 55:20
  The thought of pornography is like a never, not a chance.
• 55:23
  No way, because I, my life is so much better now without it.
• 55:28
  Not having those compulsive feelings, not being drawn to it has changed everything.
• 55:32
  And so sexual containment is crucially important because when we give up objectification, when we let go of pornography, when we can hold ourselves in our container and when we can close the container of our relationship and stop leaking our sexual energy, everything changes.
• 55:50
  And in a future episode, I'll actually talk about how we can cultivate sexual energy, how we can actually use sexual energy to get everything we want done in our lives to find our mission, to get on mission, to make progress, to be in momentum, to get things done in a way that we never had before.
• 56:05
  When we discuss rational self-pleasure, but I'm not going to do that in this episode because this is just about the definition of containment.
• 56:13
  And so...
• 56:14
  I want to just make sure that there's some understandings about containment.
• 56:18
  So first, containment is not just sitting there and absorbing.
• 56:23
  Containment is actually being curious and asking questions and leading with curiosity and also having boundaries.
• 56:31
  See, when we're contained and when we're in our body, when we're present and we're regulated, we can actually express a boundary in a way that doesn't feel like an attack.
• 56:38
  Okay.
• 56:39
  So if we're, you know, I've had, thankfully, I didn't deal with a lot of this, but I've had men who I've worked with where their wives are so triggered and they have such a history of trauma that they're actually attacking them personally.
• 56:51
  They're launching character attacks or calling names or attacking the man directly and not just sharing their emotions, but actually saying it's him and attacking him in a way that is abusive.
• 57:02
  And I want to make sure I make clear what's abusive and non-abusive in either responsive or active containment.
• 57:09
  Volume is not abusive.
• 57:11
  I want my wife to get stuff out of her body with just with as much volume as possible.
• 57:15
  In fact, there's been times before I'm like, Katie, yell, scream, get it out of your body, baby.
• 57:19
  I want it to come out, you know, and and emotional expression is not abusive.
• 57:24
  Like as men, we should be able to sit there and emotional expression if we can't.
• 57:27
  That's our work.
• 57:29
  And there's been times where I've had to go with an EMDR therapist or go sit, you know, in meditation and contemplation, spend time in neutral to understand why I'm reacting to something that is not a real threat.
• 57:39
  And where is my wounding that's making me see her emotional expression as a threat?
• 57:43
  And so volume's not abusive.
• 57:46
  Emotional expression's not abusive.
• 57:48
  Animation's not abusive.
• 57:50
  But when it goes from emotional expression to...
• 57:53
  to calling names, to demeaning, to making it, you know, you centering you as the only part of the issue and making it so that you're getting told in a way that is abusive, that you're the issue.
• 58:07
  Like I was in a course with a guy, you know, I've done a lot of courses and learning experiences.
• 58:12
  And there was a guy whose wife would call him a shithead.
• 58:15
  And if a wife is calling you a shithead in containment and in conversations, that's abusive.
• 58:20
  Now I was in another situation where
• 58:23
  A man's wife would sit down with him and just start telling him, you're a wuss and you're not manly and you need to man up and you need to be more masculine.
• 58:31
  And again, that's not emotional expression.
• 58:32
  That's just attacking.
• 58:34
  And so containment is not absorbing everything without boundaries.
• 58:37
  Containment is actually creating boundaries and creating a safe masculine container.
• 58:42
  And so when you are in this place of either active or responsive containment and you're in a calm, grounded place, not in a rupture, not when the emotions are already present, you come back later and you can express a boundary and say, hey, I want to be here for you.
• 58:57
  I want to be able to sit down with you.
• 58:58
  I want to hear what's going on with you.
• 59:00
  But when you call me names or when you attack me personally, it makes it extraordinarily difficult to be there.
• 59:04
  So I'd like to put a boundary in place that that doesn't happen.
• 59:06
  I want you to share your truth.
• 59:08
  I want you to share your emotions.
• 59:09
  I want you to express.
• 59:11
  But I want you to share your emotions without attacking me personally.
• 59:15
  Now, if you need to tell me that you feel like it's my fault, that's totally fine.
• 59:19
  There was more than once where my wife told me she felt like things were my fault and she felt like I didn't take responsibility and she felt like I didn't show up.
• 59:26
  That's totally fine.
• 59:27
  She didn't call me a shithead though.
• 59:29
  That's totally different.
• 59:31
  And so masculine containment is not just absorbing everything.
• 59:35
  We can definitely put boundaries in places, men, in a quiet space when we're regulated.
• 59:39
  And then there's one last thing.
• 59:41
  Not one last thing.
• 59:42
  There's a couple more things.
• 59:44
  Now, containment is...
• 59:48
  Something that's difficult.
• 59:50
  And when I was first starting out, there were times where I would escalate, where I would have more volume than I should.
• 59:56
  I did not do this perfectly.
• 59:58
  In the brotherhood, we always share progress over perfection.
• 1:00:00
  There is no such thing as perfection.
• 1:00:02
  So if something happens where you're in a responsive or active containment session and you lose control,
• 1:00:08
  Take ownership as the man.
• 1:00:10
  Go back and say, I lost containment earlier.
• 1:00:12
  I raised my voice.
• 1:00:13
  I became reactive.
• 1:00:14
  That's on me.
• 1:00:14
  I'm regulated now.
• 1:00:15
  I'm here.
• 1:00:16
  I want to reconnect with you and I'm sorry.
• 1:00:18
  And I'm going to do everything I can not to let that happen again.
• 1:00:21
  So don't be afraid to repair if you lose containment.
• 1:00:25
  It's part of the process.
• 1:00:26
  It's part of learning.
• 1:00:28
  You know, when you sign up for a martial arts class, you don't go in and do everything perfectly all at once and right away.
• 1:00:32
  But as a man, here's what we know.
• 1:00:34
  And here's what you know.
• 1:00:35
  Here's what I know.
• 1:00:36
  Every man I've talked to has confirmed this, that if something is important to us, it doesn't matter how hard it is at the beginning.
• 1:00:42
  If we continue working on it, if we continue repetitions, if we continue trying on it, and we continue really putting effort into it, we get better.
• 1:00:50
  So understand that if this is challenging for you at the beginning, you're going to get better over time.
• 1:00:55
  And then last thing for this podcast, and there's going to be a lot more, is I just want to point out how containment creates polarity.
• 1:01:03
  This is so important.
• 1:01:05
  And it's something that is missed out in the world today.
• 1:01:07
  I've watched a lot of videos, a lot of responses on containment.
• 1:01:10
  And a lot of them don't actually meet the mark of what this really does.
• 1:01:17
  See, polarity is that energetic charge between two opposites.
• 1:01:21
  It's when a man is in his masculine and a woman is in her feminine, it creates polarity.
• 1:01:26
  It creates this massive attraction.
• 1:01:29
  And a lot of the world today around polarity is like polarity exercises.
• 1:01:33
  It's like fringe BDSM stuff and like putting yourselves in situations where you're acting masculine and she's acting feminine.
• 1:01:39
  And that kind of gets performative.
• 1:01:41
  And a lot of polarity work these days is performative and uncomfortable and it doesn't make sense.
• 1:01:47
  A lot of the time, because the person teaching doesn't understand containment because containment naturally creates polarity.
• 1:01:52
  And I'm going to do an extended podcast episode on this, but I just want to give you a preview.
• 1:01:57
  See, as a man, when there's a trigger and you breathe into your masculine core,
• 1:02:02
  And you dominate yourself.
• 1:02:03
  Again, not her.
• 1:02:04
  You dominate yourself.
• 1:02:07
  You process.
• 1:02:07
  You transmute.
• 1:02:08
  You metabolize what's going on.
• 1:02:10
  You create presence in yourself.
• 1:02:12
  You create a masculine container, a masculine space in that moment.
• 1:02:16
  And if she's there and you are present and aware and she's in her emotions, you give her the opportunity to surrender into that masculine containment.
• 1:02:26
  So you create dominance.
• 1:02:27
  She's in a place of surrender.
• 1:02:29
  If she chooses to be, again, we don't force her.
• 1:02:31
  We don't manipulate her.
• 1:02:33
  We create the space and allow her to surrender into our dominant container.
• 1:02:38
  And again, we're not dominating her.
• 1:02:39
  We're dominating ourselves.
• 1:02:40
  We're allowing her to surrender into the masculine containment we are providing.
• 1:02:45
  And that creates a massive amount of polarity.
• 1:02:49
  I'll share one quick story and then I'm going to wrap this up.
• 1:02:53
  I can't remember exactly which day it was of holding containment with Katie, but it was not far.
• 1:02:58
  It was not that long after December 26th.
• 1:03:00
  And we had a particularly rough session.
• 1:03:03
  We sat down that night and I asked her, like, tell me what's happening in our relationship.
• 1:03:07
  And there was a lot of things that came out that were really hard for me to hear.
• 1:03:10
  I just want to remind you, brother, if she's saying something that's hard for you to hear, just remember that is trauma leaving her body.
• 1:03:17
  And this session was a lot of trauma leaving her body.
• 1:03:22
  It was a lot of reflection as to how I behaved and things that I said, I was going to act one way and I acted another and commitments I made that I broke.
• 1:03:29
  And you know what?
• 1:03:30
  Maybe there were some details that I didn't feel like were accurate, but it was her truth.
• 1:03:34
  And so I listened to it and I acknowledged her.
• 1:03:37
  And I actually said over and over again, Katie, that is valid.
• 1:03:40
  And I am so sorry, but it's valid.
• 1:03:42
  And I did that and explained to me how that make you feel and tell me more.
• 1:03:47
  And is there anything else you need to tell me?
• 1:03:48
  And we got to the place where I said, is there anything else you need to tell me?
• 1:03:51
  And she said, yes.
• 1:03:53
  And then starting up again.
• 1:03:54
  And then it felt like things had calmed down.
• 1:03:56
  And I said, is there anything else you need to tell me?
• 1:03:58
  Is there anything else you feel like you need to share?
• 1:03:59
  And I think that happened two more times.
• 1:04:01
  And then we finally got to a no.
• 1:04:03
  And I said, okay, is there anything else we need to take care of?
• 1:04:05
  And she said, no.
• 1:04:07
  And I remember this surge of like that feeling of power, that feeling of like I had accomplished something, that feeling of pride, that feeling of being in it with her and not collapsing, that feeling of being in it with her and not running away, that feeling of being present for her and not allowing myself to escape.
• 1:04:24
  I felt so strong and so proud.
• 1:04:26
  We were sitting on two bolsters in our room, and I went to go grab my journal and my stuff because we were finished.
• 1:04:33
  And I remember looking up just in time to see her jumping on me.
• 1:04:37
  And I remember thinking, what is going on?
• 1:04:39
  And we had intimacy that night, maybe like we never had in our relationship.
• 1:04:44
  I mean, what we do today makes that look like a beginner's class.
• 1:04:48
  But it was so intense and so connecting.
• 1:04:51
  And I felt her and I saw her.
• 1:04:54
  And it felt unlike anything I've ever experienced.
• 1:04:56
  It was extraordinary.
• 1:04:58
  And I now know, looking back, I remember that night, I didn't understand what was going on.
• 1:05:02
  I remember laying in bed that night as we were going to sleep, staring at the ceiling and thinking, what just happened?
• 1:05:08
  And honestly, how do I get it to happen again?
• 1:05:10
  It was amazing.
• 1:05:11
  It was so awesome.
• 1:05:13
  But what I now know is that it was because I created safety.
• 1:05:17
  I dominated myself.
• 1:05:19
  I created a masculine container.
• 1:05:20
  I allowed her to surrender.
• 1:05:21
  And that created polarity and attraction for her that she reacted to and responded to.
• 1:05:27
  And it was fantastic.
• 1:05:28
  Amazing.
• 1:05:29
  And so know that masculine containment has benefit for her, has massive benefit for you and I as men.
• 1:05:35
  Like when I look at it, I know that it has benefited Katie and...
• 1:05:40
  that it has made her feel emotionally safe and secure and given her a totally different perspective on life.
• 1:05:44
  But I also know that I've benefited just as much by healing my trauma, by healing my feelings around emotions.
• 1:05:50
  It has changed my life and hers.
• 1:05:53
  And just as importantly, it's changed my daughter's lives and the lives of the people around me and the lives of the men that I lead.
• 1:05:58
  Because when I lead from a contained, grounded, present space, I'm not leading from performative masculinity.
• 1:06:05
  I'm leading from real, grounded, resonant, dominant masculinity.
• 1:06:09
  And when I say dominant, dominating myself.
• 1:06:11
  And the men around me feel it.
• 1:06:13
  My daughters feel it.
• 1:06:14
  My wife feels it.
• 1:06:15
  I remember one time we were having dinner after my wife and I had been holding daily ceremony for a while.
• 1:06:22
  And my youngest daughter, Alexandra, said something like, guys, I don't know exactly what you're doing up there when you go in for your daily meetings, but whatever it is, you should keep doing it.
• 1:06:31
  And I remember saying why.
• 1:06:33
  And she's like, everything's so much happier and everything feels so much better.
• 1:06:37
  And what she was reflecting was that
• 1:06:41
  I'd change things.
• 1:06:42
  So did Katie.
• 1:06:44
  But here's what's important to understand.
• 1:06:46
  What I now know is that I set the emotional tone for our house.
• 1:06:51
  If I'm angry, everybody's going to be uncomfortable.
• 1:06:53
  If I'm anxious, everybody's going to be uncomfortable.
• 1:06:55
  If I'm not present and regulated, everybody's going to be uncomfortable.
• 1:06:58
  And I'm not perfect.
• 1:07:00
  But the time where I'm present and regulated and grounded and available to my wife, to my daughters, to the people around me is infinitely more than it used to be.
• 1:07:11
  We can actually create that grounding, that regulation, that safety, and it will carry over to the people around us.
• 1:07:19
  Masculine containment is life-changing.
• 1:07:21
  And brother, I want you to know, if you're interested in learning this discipline, if you're interested in the practices and the strategies, the rituals, and the understanding of how to do this, I would love to walk this path with you.
• 1:07:32
  It would be my honor.
• 1:07:33
  It's why I started the Brotherhood Society, to take men through the practices and strategies that actually help us do this.
• 1:07:41
  Now, I've given you a definition today, and I've shared some strategies and some insights.
• 1:07:44
  Okay.
• 1:07:45
  But when you go through our 10-week initiation, our 10-week program that will help you understand masculine containment, it will help you process your trauma, it will help you understand how to show up regulated, present, and aware, and you will also be held in a brotherhood of men.
• 1:08:00
  And in this brotherhood, we don't perform masculinity.
• 1:08:04
  We actually show it through truth and trust.
• 1:08:09
  and vulnerability, and validation, and accountability, and contained masculine energy, which is one of the most healing forces in the world.
• 1:08:18
  So if you're interested in changing your relationship and changing yourself through masculine containment and what I've said resonates with you, navigate to thebrotherhoodsociety.com and sign up for the wait list for our next initiation.
• 1:08:32
  I'd be honored to work with you.
• 1:08:33
  I'd love to have you on The Brotherhood, and you do not have to do this alone.
• 1:08:37
  Thebrotherhoodsociety.com.
• 1:08:39
  I look forward to meeting you and thanks for being here.
• 1:08:42
  Thanks for listening to this podcast.
• 1:08:43
  If you can take a minute and subscribe or leave a review, I would love that.
• 1:08:48
  I wanna get this message out to as many people as I possibly can.
• 1:08:52
  Thanks again for being here.